Democratic Senator from Illinois
Richard J. Durbin was born November 21, 1944, in East St. Louis, IL, to William Durbin and Ann Durbin. Education: Assumption High School, East St. Louis, Georgetown University, B.S., 1966 (Foreign Service, Economics); Georgetown University, J.D., 1969.
Durbin lives in Springfield, Illinois and is married to Loretta Schaefer Durbin, and they have three children and one grandchild.
Durbin’s was first elected November 4, 1982, to represent Illinois’s 20th Congressional District. He was then elected to the U.S. Senate on November 5, 1996, filling the seat left vacant by the retirement of his longtime friend and mentor, U.S. Senator Paul Simon. In the Senate he serves as Assistant Democratic Floor Leader and as a member of the Senate Democrats' Steering and Coordination Committee.
In 2000, Durbin served as Co-Chairman of the Democratic Platform Committee and also was Co-Chairman of the Atlantic Conference sponsored by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations.
His Committees:
His website and contact info is at www.senate.gov/~durbin