Background and career
Richard Blumenthal ( BLOO-mən-thahl; born February 13, 1946) is an American politician and attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Connecticut. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been a member of the Senate since 2011. Blumenthal previously served as U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, as a member of the Connecticut General Assembly, and as the 23rd Connecticut attorney general. Blumenthal graduated from Harvard University, where he was chair of The Harvard Crimson. He then studied for a year at Trinity College, Cambridge, before attending Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. From 1970 to 1976, Blumenthal served in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, attaining the rank of sergeant. After graduating from Yale Law School, he passed the bar and served as administrative assistant and law clerk for several Washington, D.C., figures. He was U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut from 1977 to 1981. In the early 1980s, he worked in private law practice, including as volunteer counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Blumenthal served one term in the Connecticut House of Representatives, from 1985 to 1987. He was elected to the Connecticut Senate in 1986 and began service in 1987. In 1990, Blumenthal was elected Attorney General of Connecticut; he served in that capacity for 20 years. Blumenthal announced his 2010 run for the U.S. Senate after incumbent senator Chris Dodd announced his retirement. He defeated Republican nominee Linda McMahon, a professional wrestling magnate, with 55% of the vote. After Joe Lieberman retired from the Senate in 2013, Blumenthal became Connecticut's senior senator. He was reelected in 2016 and 2022. He is expected to be the oldest serving Democratic U.S. senator when Dick Durbin retires in 2027.
Richard Blumenthal was born into a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Jane (née Rosenstock) and Martin Blumenthal. At age 17, Martin Blumenthal immigrated to the United States from Frankfurt, Germany; Jane was raised in Omaha, Nebraska, graduated from Radcliffe College, and became a social worker. Martin Blumenthal had a career in financial services and became president of a commodities trading firm. Jane's father, Fred "Fritz" Rosenstock, raised cattle, and as youths Blumenthal and his brother often visited their grandfather's farm. Blumenthal's brother David Blumenthal is a doctor and health care policy expert who became president of the Commonwealth Fund. Blumenthal attended Riverdale Country School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. He then attended Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1967 with an A.B. degree magna cum laude in government and membership in Phi Beta Kappa. As an undergraduate, he was editorial chairman of The Harvard Crimson. Blumenthal was a summer intern reporter for The Washington Post in the London Bureau. He was selected for a Fiske Fellowship, which allowed him to study at the University of Cambridge's Trinity College in England. In 1973, Blumenthal received his J.D. degree from Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. At Yale, he was the classmate of future president Bill Clinton and future secretary of state Hillary Clinton. One of his co-editors of the Yale Law Journal was future United States Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. He was also a classmate of future Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas and future radio host Michael Medved.
Blumenthal received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War. At first, he received educational deferments; later, he received deferments based on his occupation. In April 1970, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, which, as The New York Times noted, "virtually guaranteed that he would not be sent to Vietnam". He served in units stationed in Washington, D.C., and Connecticut from 1970 to 1976, attaining the rank of sergeant. During his 2010 Senate campaign, news reports that Blumenthal claimed he had served in Vietnam created a controversy. The New York Times reported that Blumenthal misspoke on at least one occasion by saying he had served with the military "in Vietnam". Video emerged of him speaking to a group of veterans and supporters in March 2008 in Norwalk, saying, in reference to supporting troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, "We have learned something important since the days that I served in Vietnam." On other occasions, he described his military service accurately. At a 2008 ceremony in Shelton, Connecticut, he said, "I served during the Vietnam era... I remember the taunts, the insults, sometimes even physical abuse." Blumenthal denied having intentionally misled voters, but acknowledged having occasionally "misspoken" about his service record. He later apologized to voters for remarks about his military service that he said had not been "clear or precise".
Blumenthal served as an administrative assistant to Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff, as an aide to Daniel P. Moynihan when Moynihan was Assistant to President Richard Nixon, and as a law clerk to Judge Jon O. Newman of the U.S. District Court of the District of Connecticut and to Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun. Blumenthal was a partner in the law firm of Cummings & Lockwood, and subsequently in the law firm of Silver, Golub & Sandak. In December 1982, while still at Cummings & Lockwood, he created and chaired the Citizens Crime Commission of Connecticut, a private, nonprofit organization. From 1981 to 1986, he was a volunteer counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. At age 31, Blumenthal was appointed United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, serving from 1977 to 1981. As the chief federal prosecutor of that state, he successfully prosecuted many major cases involving drug traffickers, organized crime, white collar criminals, civil rights violators, consumer fraud, and environmental pollution. In 1984, when he was 38, Blumenthal was elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives, representing the 145th district. In 1987, he won a special election to fill a vacancy in the 27th district of the Connecticut Senate. Blumenthal served in the Connecticut Senate until 1990. In the 1980s, Blumenthal testified in the state legislature in favor of abolishing Connecticut's death penalty statute. He did so after representing Joseph Green Brown, a Florida death row inmate who was found to have been wrongly convicted. Blumenthal succeeded in staving off Brown's execution just 15 hours before it was scheduled to take place, and gained a new trial for Brown.
Blumenthal served as attorney general of Connecticut from 1991 to 2010.
In May 1995, Blumenthal and the state of Connecticut filed lawsuits challenging a decision by the Department of the Interior to approve a bid by the federally recognized Mashantucket Pequot for annexation of 165 acres of land in the towns of Ledyard, North Stonington and Preston. The Pequot were attempting to have the land placed in a federal trust, a legal designation to provide them with land for their sovereign control, as long years of colonization had left them landless. Blumenthal argued that the Interior Department's decision in support of this action was "fatally, legally flawed, and unfair" and that "it would unfairly remove land from the tax rolls of the surrounding towns and bar local control over how the land is used, while imposing [a] tremendous burden." The tribe announced the withdrawal of the land annexation petition in February 2002.
