Senator Richard Durbin served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1983 to 1997. That year, he joined the U.S. Senate, and currently serves as the majority whip. Senator Durbin is a Democrat from Springfield, Illinois, and is the state’s senior senator and convenor of the bipartisan Illinois delegation.

In 2000, Senator Durbin served as co-chairman of the Democratic Platform Committee and co-chairman of the Atlantic Conference sponsored by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. The year after, he was appointed assistant Democratic floor leader on the Senate’s leadership team. Among his many accomplishments, Senator Durbin has worked successfully to increase federal funding for children’s health programs such as asthma prevention, increased immunization, and medical research. He is also a founding member of the Senate Global AIDS Caucus. He has also worked to cut taxes for a number of issues and increased tax credits for child care and college tuition.

Senator Durbin received his BS and JD from Georgetown University in 1966 and 1969, respectively.