Biography

Patrick Joseph Leahy, ( LAY-hee; born March 31, 1940) is an American politician and attorney who represented Vermont in the United States Senate from 1975 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, he also was the president pro tempore of the United States Senate from 2012 to 2015 and from 2021 to 2023. During his tenure he chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Agriculture Committee. At 48 years, Leahy is the third-longest-serving U.S. senator in history, and is the longest-serving member of the United States Congress to serve solely as a senator.

Upon Representative Don Young's death in March 2022, he became the most senior member of Congress. Leahy was also the last of the Senate's "Watergate Babies" – Democrats first elected to Congress in the wave election of 1974 that followed President Richard Nixon's resignation over the Watergate scandal.At the time of his retirement, Leahy was the dean of Vermont's congressional delegation, Vermont's longest-serving U.S. senator, and the first Democrat ever elected to the U.S. Senate from Vermont. He was the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee from 2017 to 2021 and became chairman in 2021. In 2001, Leahy and then–Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle were targeted by the anthrax attacks that killed five people. He was the presiding officer at Donald Trump's second impeachment trial, becoming the first senator to preside over a former president's impeachment trial.On November 15, 2021, Leahy announced that he would not seek reelection in 2022. He was succeeded by Peter Welch, who became the second Democrat to represent Vermont in the Senate. In April 2023, Mayor Miro Weinberger announced that Burlington International Airport would be renamed Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport. Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

Financial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission

Legislation sponsored at the Library of Congress

Profile at Vote Smart