Chuck Schumer

• 1. Introduction

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  Bob Dole once joked that the most dangerous place in Washington was between Charles Schumer and a television camera. Schumer, a Democrat from Brooklyn, has been a United States senator from New York since 1999. Along the way he has led his party's senators through a minority, then a majority, then a minority again. Few politicians in the capital are so closely tied to the press, and his own party has sometimes turned on him. How did a Brooklyn valedictorian become one of the most recognizable figures in the Senate? What did he actually pass, and where did he reverse himself? And why does his record draw fire from both the left and the right?

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• 2. Brooklyn Beginnings

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  Charles Ellis Schumer was born on the 23rd of November 1950 in Midwood, Brooklyn. His father, Abraham, ran an exterminating business, and his mother, Selma, was a homemaker. The family was Jewish, with ancestors from the town of Chortkiv in Galicia, in what is now western Ukraine. The comedian Amy Schumer is his second cousin, once removed.

  At James Madison High School he scored 1600 on the SAT and graduated as valedictorian in 1967. He also competed for his school on the television quiz show It's Academic. At Harvard College he began as a chemistry major. Volunteering on Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign in 1968 changed his direction, and he switched to social studies. He graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1971, then earned a law degree with honors from Harvard Law School in 1974. He passed the New York bar exam in early 1975 but never practiced law, choosing politics instead.

  In 1974 he won election to the New York State Assembly, taking a seat once held by his mentor, the congressman Stephen Solarz. He served three terms. In 1980 Representative Elizabeth Holtzman won the Democratic nomination for Jacob Javits's Senate seat, which left her House seat open. Schumer ran for it and won, then was reelected eight more times. His district in Brooklyn and Queens was renumbered along the way, from the 16th to the 10th in 1983 and the 9th in 1993.

  Redistricting in 1982 raised the prospect of a race against Solarz, though it never happened. Schumer prepared anyway by courting Wall Street, asking top law firms and securities houses for campaign money. He later told the Associated Press, "I told them I looked like I had a very difficult reapportionment fight. If I were to stand a chance of being re-elected, I needed some help."

  In the House he introduced the Religious Freedom Restoration Act on the 11th of March 1993. In 1995 he sat on the Judiciary Committee and was one of four members of Congress who oversaw the House Waco siege hearings. In that role he led the Democratic defense of the Clinton administration.

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• 3. Winning Statewide

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  Geraldine Ferraro and Mark Green stood between Schumer and the 1998 Democratic Senate nomination. He took 51% of the primary vote, to Ferraro's 21% and Green's 19%. In the general election he won 54% against three-term Republican incumbent Al D'Amato, who received 44%.

  His 2004 reelection was a rout. He took 71% of the vote against Assemblyman Howard Mills of Middletown and the conservative Marilyn F. O'Grady. The Republican side was bitter. Many party members were dismayed that Mills had been chosen over Michael Benjamin, who held big advantages in fundraising and organization. Benjamin publicly accused party chairman Sandy Treadwell and Governor George Pataki of trying to muscle him out. Schumer won by 2.8 million votes and carried every county except Hamilton County in the Adirondacks, the least populous and most Republican. Mills conceded minutes after the polls closed, before any returns had come in.

  Later victories came with 66% in 2010-70% in 2016 and 56% in 2022. That fifth term made him the longest-serving senator in New York history, passing Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jacob K. Javits. He had already become the state's senior senator in 2001, when Moynihan retired.

  Meanwhile he built power inside the party. From 2005 to 2009 he chaired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, overseeing 14 Democratic gains across the 2006 and 2008 elections. He ranked third among Senate Democrats, behind Harry Reid and Dick Durbin. He served as vice chair of the caucus from 2007 to 2017 and chaired the Democratic Policy Committee from 2011 to 2017. Former aides who went on to public office include Anthony Weiner, Daniel Squadron, Phil Goldfeder and Victor M. Pichardo.

  An April 2009 SurveyUSA poll put his approval at 62%, with 31% disapproving.

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• 4. Leading the Democrats

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  Harry Reid announced his retirement in 2015, and Schumer was widely expected to take his place. After winning a fourth term in 2016, he was unanimously elected Democratic leader. The caucus named him minority leader in November of that year. He became the first New Yorker and the first Jewish person to lead a Senate party.

  On the 6th of January 2021 he was taking part in the certification of the Electoral College count when Trump supporters attacked the Capitol. Members were removed from the chamber. Schumer, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer gathered at an undisclosed location. Schumer and Pelosi issued a joint statement urging Trump to tell the rioters to leave. When the Senate reconvened, Schumer called it a day "that will live forever in infamy". Later he blamed Trump, urged Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment, and said he would support impeachment.

  Two weeks later, on the 20th of January 2021, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock were sworn in from Georgia. Their arrival gave Democrats control of the Senate, and Schumer replaced McConnell as majority leader. Under him the Senate passed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. It also passed the CHIPS and Science Act, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and the Respect for Marriage Act. Judicial confirmations in the first two years of the Biden presidency were the most for any presidency since John F. Kennedy's. The nominees were also the most diverse slate in American history, including Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first African American woman on the Supreme Court.

  During his last months as majority leader, in the 118th Congress, Democrats struck a bargain with the Republican minority. It let Trump fill four circuit judgeships during the first year of his second term. In return, Democrats could hold votes on several district court nominees. Biden also chose not to nominate anyone for a Third Circuit vacancy in Delaware. Trump later appointed Whitney Hermandorfer, Emil Bove, Jennifer Mascott and Joshua Dunlap to the open seats.

  On the 12th of March 2025 Schumer announced his opposition to the House-passed continuing resolution funding the government through the 30th of September 2025. The next day he reversed course. In The New York Times he wrote that "a shutdown would give Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk permission to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate". The turnaround angered House Democrats including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pelosi, and his book tour was postponed for security reasons. He voted to advance the bill along with nine other Democrats. Pressure to step down as leader followed. He said he had no intention of doing so.

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• 5. Showman and Strategist

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  Barack Obama once joked that Schumer had brought the press to a banquet as his "loved ones". Commentators have made the senator's appetite for cameras a running joke, and he has been called an "incorrigible publicity hound". He often schedules media appearances on Sundays, and he has been a guest on The Daily Show seven times. Some observers see this as an effective way to raise a politician's profile, both nationally and at home.

  At the second Obama inauguration he chaired the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, gave the opening speech and served as master of ceremonies. A photograph of a smiling Schumer peering from behind Malia Obama as Barack Obama took the oath went viral and became a meme. It was called a photobomb, though he was standing in the correct place. The Huffington Post quipped, "clearly, inauguration day belonged to Chuck Schumer."

  Before the 2016 election he made a prediction about the electorate. He said, "For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia." He added that the pattern could be repeated in Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin. Critics on the left and the right both attacked the claim. After the votes were counted, he said Democrats had lost for lack of "a strong, bold economic message". He urged reforms on college affordability and trade law.

  He has long said his decisions are guided by Joe and Eileen Bailey, an imaginary middle-class couple living in the Long Island suburb of Massapequa. Eileen was originally named O'Reilly. He described the swing-voting pair in his 2007 book Positively American. In 2025 John Oliver mocked the idea on Last Week Tonight. Oliver noted that Schumer had said the Baileys either voted for Trump or stayed home since 2016. He argued that courting such voters alienated the rest of the Democratic base and non-voters.

  Closer to home, Schumer prides himself on visiting each of New York's 62 counties every year. He says he has done so for every year in the Senate, the only New York senator to manage it. His reputation rests on small-bore causes. When Adidas planned to end a contract with American Classic Outfitters, an upstate apparel maker, he protested that 100 jobs were at risk. When Canon weighed leaving its Long Island headquarters over road funding, he urged the state to redirect federal stimulus money to the road work. With colleagues he also killed a Bush-era plan to hand West Point's custodial and utility work to a Georgia company.

  A 2009 flash flood in Gowanda killed two people and sent four feet of water through the village. In 2014 Schumer was credited with helping secure $700,000 from FEMA. "FEMA and the state were sitting on Gowanda's money for way too long," he said. His offices have also been targets. In December 2025 his locations in New York City, Long Island, Rochester and Binghamton received bomb threats by email. The messages carried the subject line "MAGA" and claimed that "the 2020 election was rigged".

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• 6. Courts and Confirmations

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  In September 2005, during the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings for John Roberts, Schumer praised the nominee as brilliant and "a lawyer above all". He doubted Roberts's "compassion and humanity". He also objected to the Bush administration's refusal to release documents Roberts wrote as deputy solicitor general. A month later he predicted that Harriet Miers would not win a majority in the committee or on the floor. In 2007 he voted to confirm Michael Mukasey as attorney general. He announced this on the 2nd of November, after Mukasey privately assured him he would enforce any law declaring waterboarding illegal.

  In May 2009 Schumer called Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation "more of a test of the Republican Party than it is of Judge Sotomayor". In March 2016, after Obama named Merrick Garland to replace Antonin Scalia, he called on Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley to hold hearings. That November he warned Democrats would "go at" Trump if he did not choose mainstream justices. He said Republicans lacked "clean hands" after blocking Garland.

  In March 2017 Schumer said he would vote against Neil Gorsuch and urged Democrats to block an up-or-down vote. His argument was that a nominee unable to win 60 votes should be replaced. "The answer isn't to change the rules. It's to change the nominee," he said. Democrats filibustered. Republicans broke it with the "nuclear option", and Gorsuch was confirmed the next day.

  In 2018, after Anthony Kennedy retired, Schumer pressed for direct answers from Brett Kavanaugh about Roe v. Wade. On the 21st of August he asked that documents from Kavanaugh's White House tenure be shared with the Senate. He objected to the "committee confidential" label. After meeting the nominee, he said Kavanaugh had not answered whether Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood were correctly decided. That silence, he said, "should send shivers down the spine of any American who believes in reproductive freedom for women". When Michael Cohen pleaded guilty, Schumer asked the committee to delay the hearing and called the plea "a game changer".

  His sharpest misstep came in March 2020. At a rally outside the Capitol during an abortion case, he told Kavanaugh and Gorsuch they had "unleashed a whirlwind" and would "pay the price". He added, "You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions." Republicans, Democrats and Chief Justice Roberts condemned the remarks as inciting violence. Senator Josh Hawley called for censure. A spokesman said Schumer meant the political price Republicans would pay. Schumer later apologized. In February 2025 interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin announced that the Department of Justice was investigating the episode.

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• 7. Laws and Lightning Rods

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  The standardized disclosure on the back of credit card applications carries Schumer's name. He passed the law requiring uniform notice of annual fees and interest rates, and it is called the "Schumer box". He has also pushed to end double ATM fees for customers using another bank's machine. With Representative Nita Lowey he worked to ban the chemical bisphenol A from baby bottles and children's food containers. He sought a ban on cadmium in toys and children's jewelry. When sellers pitched gloves, pills and shampoos during the 2009 swine flu scare, he urged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate. The agency put ten companies on notice and identified 140 scams.

  In May 2001 Schumer and John McCain introduced a bill to make it harder for brand-name drug makers to keep cheaper generics off the market. Schumer told reporters it would cut costs by over 60% per prescription and save consumers $71 billion over a decade. That October, as Bayer held the patent on Cipro, he said the government could order generic production of ciprofloxacin. In July 2002 the Senate passed the bill. An identical House version did not pass.

  In 1994 Schumer and Dianne Feinstein wrote the Assault Weapons Ban. Supporters of gun control credit him for that law and for the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. The ban expired in September 2004 despite his efforts to extend it. He has also courted hunters, and Field and Stream magazine gave him a Hero Award in 2008. During his 2010 campaign he denied owning a handgun. An aide noted that he once won an NRA marksmanship award at age 14. In January 2019 he was one of 40 senators to introduce the Background Check Expansion Act.

  His record on banking is more tangled. In 1987 he wrote a New York Times op-ed titled "Don't Let Banks Become Casinos", opposing repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. In 1999 he backed repeal, saying the first purpose was to keep U.S. financial firms competitive. A December 2008 New York Times article said he had embraced deregulation more than any other congressional Democrat. Since 2010 the securities and investment industry has been the largest donor to his campaigns. In November 2020, with Elizabeth Warren, he proposed erasing the first $50,000 of student debt.

  On the 20th of April 2018, known as 4/20, he announced legislation to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act. He introduced the Marijuana Freedom and Opportunity Act that June. In July 2021 he released a comprehensive legalization bill for public comment with Ron Wyden and Cory Booker, the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act. He formally introduced it on the 21st of July 2022.

  He is pro-choice and holds a 100% rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America. He voted for the Affordable Care Act in December 2009. In May 2017 he said a Republican amendment to the American Health Care Act was like "administering cough medicine to someone with stage 4 cancer". He voted "no" on every count when the House took up the Clinton impeachment in December 1998. In January 1999 he voted "not guilty" in the Senate. In 2013 he called the death penalty appropriate for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, saying he had written the federal law in 1994.

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• 8. Foreign Policy and Israel

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  In October 2009 Schumer questioned whether the United States should repeat in Afghanistan what it had done in Iraq. "It cost us $6 trillion and 4,500 lives, approximately, to bring stability to Iraq," he said. He had backed the Iraq War Resolution but later criticized Bush's strategy and suggested a commission of former generals to review it. On Afghanistan he favored scaling back American forces and relying more on drone attacks.

  On Russia, he wrote in a June 2008 Wall Street Journal op-ed that Vladimir Putin was an old-fashioned nationalist. The East European Coalition replied that treating its nations as bargaining chips was "troubling, inexplicable and unacceptable". In August 2013 Schumer called Putin a "schoolyard bully" after Russia granted asylum to Edward Snowden. In October 2016 he said he had lost confidence in FBI director James Comey. After Donald Trump fired Comey in May 2017, Schumer asked whether the Russia investigation was "getting too close to home for the president". In July 2018 he led a non-binding resolution warning Trump against letting the Russian government question American officials. It passed 98-0.

  In October 2023 Schumer led a bipartisan congressional delegation to China, where it met President Xi Jinping. Schumer told Xi that "America wants fairness and stability." On Iran, he announced on the 6th of August 2015 that he opposed the nuclear deal. The White House leaked his decision during a Republican debate. Press Secretary Josh Earnest suggested fellow Democrats might remember it when choosing their next leader. After the 2018 summit between Trump and Kim Jong-un, Schumer said it had handed a "brutal and repressive dictatorship" the legitimacy it craved. Trump tweeted back, "Thank you Chuck, but are you sure you got that right?"

  Schumer calls himself "Shomer Yisrael", or "Guardian of Israel", a role he says he will keep playing "with every bone in my body". In 1994 he joined the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress in urging the IRS to revoke the Holy Land Foundation's tax-exempt status. In June 2010 he called on Israel to "strangle them economically until they see that's not the way to go", speaking of Gaza's voters. He also said Israel should keep providing humanitarian aid, and critics later condemned the remarks. In May 2017 he co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act.

  In a Senate speech on the 14th of March 2024, he called Israeli prime minister Netanyahu an impediment to peace. He urged elections once the Gaza war abated. Netanyahu answered by arranging to address a Senate Republican conference by video. In a March 2025 interview with Bret Stephens, Schumer said, "My job is to keep the left pro-Israel." He warned of antisemitism rising from both the extreme left and the extreme right. Quoting Conor Cruise O'Brien, he said it is "a light sleeper". He did not endorse Zohran Mamdani in the 2025 New York City mayoral race, citing Mamdani's criticism of Israel. In April 2026 he joined six other Democratic senators and all Republicans against two resolutions. They would have blocked sales of bulldozers and 1,000-pound bombs to Israel.

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