November 2005

Senator Thomas R. Carper

Senator Tom Carper with Diane Boc & Beverley Baxter

Delaware's Junior Senator is not so junior in Washington D.C.  Just as Mike Castle has managed to amass power by his leadership of the Republican moderates in the U.S. House of Representatives, so Tom Carper has quickly managed to make a name for himself in the U.S. Senate as a moderate Democrat looking for practical ways to solve tough problems.

In Delaware, we know him well, after electing him a record 11 times to public office–for the first of  three terms as State Treasurer in 1976, for the first of five terms to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, and then to the first of two terms as Governor in 1993 before electing him to the U.S. Senate in 2001.

They got to know him quickly in Washington, D.C.  Only three years after becoming Delaware's Junior Senator, Tom Carper was named Deputy Whip.  Now he is Vice-Chairperson of the Democratic Leadership Council, a leading centrist organization formed in the 1980's to promote the “New Democrat,” with a message of national security, economic growth, and personal responsibility.

Tom Carper has become know as a centrist not only within the Democratic Party, but also, within the U.S. Senate.  The Washington Post'sDavid Broder wrote that Tom Carper is “a notably effective and nonpartisan leader, admired and trusted on both sides of the aisle.”

Senator Carper has landed committee assignments that are important to both Delaware and the nation: Committee on Homeland Security, Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Committee on Environment and Public Works, and Special Committee on Aging.  He is the ranking member on the Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security Subcommittee and the Clean Air, Wetlands, and Climate Change Subcommittees.

Tom Carper has told his Democratic colleagues that “Democrats cannot be pro-jobs and anti-business” and that “a primary role of government is to provide a nurturing environment for job creation and job preservation.”  He has called for “common-sense regulations” and providing “predictability with respect to those regulations.”

It is a divisive time.  There are mighty issues facing Senators in D.C.  Tom Carper will tell us where he stands.

Beverley Baxter