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 served as the president pro tempore of the United States Senate from 2012 to 2015 and again from 2021 to 2023.
Leahy was the first Democrat ever elected to the U.S. Senate from Vermont and the third-longest-serving U.S. senator in history at 48 years. During his tenure he chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Agriculture Committee. Leahy became the most senior senator in 2012 and in 2022 he became the most senior member of either house of Congress. At the time of his retirement, Leahy was the dean of Vermont's congressional delegation, Vermont's longest-serving U.S. senator. Leahy was succeeded by Peter Welch, who became the second Democrat to represent Vermont in the Senate.
Leahy's signature legislation is the Leahy Law forbidding the United States from funding foreign military units which violate human rights. Leahy was the presiding officer at Donald Trump's second impeachment trial, becoming the first senator to preside over a former president's impeachment trial. In 2023, Burlington International Airport was renamed after him.
Leahy was born in Montpelier, Vermont, on March 31, 1940, the son of Alba (née Zambon) and Howard Francis Leahy. He has been legally blind in his left eye since birth. Leahy's maternal grandparents were Italian, and his father was of Irish ancestry; some of his ancestors came to Vermont in the 19th century to work at the granite quarries and manufacturing plants in Barre Town and Barre City. The Leahys ran a printing business across from the Vermont State House, and were also the publishers of the Waterbury Record newspaper. Leahy attended the parochial schools of Montpelier, and graduated from Montpelier's St. Michael's High School in 1957.
In 1961, Leahy graduated from Saint Michael's College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government. While attending college, Leahy was a member of the National Federation of Catholic College Students. He was also involved with the Knights of Columbus, the Saint Michael's College Glee Club, and the school's pre-law society and politics club. He was active with the Reserve Officers' Training Corps rifle team, and was a member of the varsity rifle team. He was also on the staff of The Shield, the Saint Michael's College yearbook and WSSE, the school's AM radio station. In 1964, Leahy received his Juris Doctor from the Georgetown University Law Center. While in law school, Leahy was active in the Phi Delta Phi legal honor society. In addition, Leahy participated in Georgetown Law's Legal Aid Society and Legal Argument Program. He was also a representative to the school's Student Bar Association.
At graduation, Leahy was offered an E. Barrett Prettyman Fellowship, which would have enabled him to earn a Master of Laws degree from Georgetown while receiving training in courtroom advocacy. Leahy was also interviewed by the United States Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy as one of several Georgetown Law students being considered for recruitment into the United States Department of Justice. He declined the fellowship and did not pursue a position at the Department of Justice because he intended to return to Vermont, and because he did not plan to practice criminal law.
Leahy was admitted to the bar soon after his law school graduation and became an associate at the Burlington firm headed by Philip H. Hoff, who then was governor of Vermont. In January 1965, Leahy was appointed as an assistant to Lewis E. Springer Jr., the legislative draftsman for the Vermont General Assembly. While working for Hoff's firm, Leahy was also appointed as Burlington's assistant city attorney.
In May 1966, Hoff appointed Leahy State's Attorney of Chittenden County after the incumbent resigned. Leahy was elected to a full term in 1966 and reelected in 1970. His service as state's attorney was notable for his participation in the sting operation that caught Paul Lawrence, an undercover police officer for numerous departments in Vermont. Lawrence falsely claimed to have purchased illegal drugs from several people, resulting in numerous convictions based on his perjury.
From 1971 to 1974, Leahy served as vice president of the National Association of District Attorneys, and in 1974 the organization named him one of the country's three outstanding prosecutors. Beginning in 1971, he was also involved in the extensive effort to solve the murder of Rita Curran, who had been killed in her Burlington apartment. The murder, which Leahy later called among the most violent he saw while working as a prosecutor, went unsolved until 2023, when DNA testing of evidence left at the crime scene led to the identification of the perpetrator.
Leahy originally aspired to the governorship, but in 1974 ran for the United States Senate in the wake of the Watergate scandal that had resulted in President Richard Nixon's resignation in August of that year. He won a close race against Republican Congressman Richard W. Mallary to succeed the retiring George Aiken. At age 34, Leahy was the youngest U.S. senator in Vermont history, the first non-Republican senator from Vermont since 1856, and the first Democrat to represent Vermont in the chamber. In 1980, Leahy defeated Republican Stewart Ledbetter by only 2,700 votes amid Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in the presidential election. In 1986, he faced what was on paper an even stronger challenge from former Governor Richard Snelling, but Leahy turned it back, taking 63 percent of the vote. In 1992, Vermont Secretary of State Jim Douglas held him to 54 percent of the vote. After that, Leahy did not face a strong Republican challenger.
In May 1981, Leahy and Senator Ted Kennedy requested that the Senate reject John Crowell Jr.'s nomination as Assistant Agriculture Secretary. Leahy said his opposition was "because documents have been uncovered since his approval by the Agriculture Committee which suggest that he was aware of and involved in the anti-competitive and monopolistic practices of his former employer." Leahy and Kennedy contended that Crowell concealed his involvement with Louisiana-Pacific, Panhandle Logging Company, and Ketchikan Spruce Mills during the confirmation process. Crowell was confirmed by the Senate.
In October 1981, Leahy introduced an amendment that would have increased the Energy Department's enforcement budget by $13 million. He called the Reagan administration's cuts to the enforcement budget "de facto amnesty" for violations made by alleged increases in prices for oil companies. The amendment was defeated in the Senate on October 28 by a vote of 48 to 43. On December 2, 1981, Leahy voted for an amendment to Reagan's MX missiles proposal that would divert the silo system by $334 million, as well as earmark further research for other methods that would allow giant missiles to be based. The vote was seen as a rebuff of the Reagan administration. In March 1982, Leahy was named to the Senate Select Committee to Study Law Enforcement Undercover Activities of the Department of Justice, an eight-member select committee formed to investigate undercover operations. The resolution introducing the committee was the result of Harrison A. Williams's resignation for his involvement in the Abscam sting operation. On December 23, 1982, Leahy voted for a five-cent per gallon increase on gasoline taxes across the U.S. to finance highway repairs and mass transit. The bill passed on the last day of the 97th United States Congress. On October 19, 1983, Leahy voted for a bill establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Reagan signed the legislation the next month. In March 1984, Leahy voted against a proposed constitutional amendment authorizing periods in public school for silent prayer, and against Reagan's unsuccessful proposal for a constitutional amendment permitting organized school prayer in public schools.