U.S. Sen. Dick DurbinU.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, who announced his plans Wednesday to retire after his current term ends.
Durbin is now in his fifth term in the Senate. He has served as Senate Democratic Whip—the second highest ranking position among Senate Democrats — since 2005, and has served on the Senate Judiciary Committee for more than two decades.
Durbin was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee for the 117th and 118th congresses.
Durbin was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1996, defeating Republican Al Salvi by a wide margin after a heated contest. He took the seat held by his political mentor, U.S. Sen. Paul Simon.
The Durbin-Salvi race in 1996 was replete with negative focused on issues such as abortion rights and gun control — both of which Durbin supported and Salvi opposed. Durbin notably won the endorsement by Jim Brady, the White House Press Secretary who was confined to a wheelchair after being shot in a 1981 attack that also wounded President Ronald Reagan, which Durbin said at the time helped him paint Salvi as an extremist on guns.
U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL.) poses for a photograph under a sign with high gas prices after he spoke at a press conference April 29, 2001 at an Amoco gas station in Chicago where he announced the proposal of a national energy consumer commission. Tim Boyle/Newsmakers/Getty Images
Durbin was reelected to the U.S. Senate in 2002, 2008, 2014, and 2020.
Among Durbin’s most touted acts is his introduction of the Dream Act and that led to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival, or DACA, program.
Durbin introduced the Dream Act in 2001 to give young immigrants a chance to earn United States citizenship. The Senate has never passed the Dream Act, but in 2010, Durbin sent a letter along with U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) asking President Barack Obama to stop deportation of Dreamers. In response, President Obama announced the DACA program in 2012.
Durbin also introduced the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced the federal disparity in sentencing guidelines for crack and powder cocaine. The act was enacted in 2010.
In 2019, Durbin led a bipartisan effort to pass the First Step Act, which is intended to make the justice system fairer and communities safer by reforming sentencing laws and giving prisoners an opportunity to reenter society successfully. President Trump signed the First Step Act into law in 2018.
Further, Durbin was the author of landmark legislation to ban smoking on commercial airline flights, and his worked in the Senate to protect children from the harms of tobacco, his political biography noted. He also touts his efforts to secure medical and scientific funding, lower interest rates on federal student loans, protect consumers and the environment, and ensure help for the family caregivers of disabled veterans.
Before being elected to the U.S. Senate, Durbin served seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives — winning his first election to Congress in 1982.
Durbin was born Nov. 21, 1944, in East St. Louis, Illinois, and graduated from Assumption High School in East St. Louis in 1962. He earned his B.S. from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C. in 1966, and interned in the office of Illinois U.S. Sen. Paul Douglas as a college senior.
Durbin went on to earn a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1969. After being admitted to the Illinois bar, he began practice in Springfield, and served as legal counsel to Illinois lieutenant governor and then-future U.S. Sen. Paul Simon from 1969 to 1972.
Durbin served as legal counsel to the Illinois State Senate Judiciary Committee from 1972 to 1982, and was the Democratic nominee for Illinois lieutenant governor on a ticket with Illinois State Schools Supt. Michael Bakalis. Bakalis lost to Republican Jim Thompson that year.
When Durbin finishes his current term, he will be tied for the longest-serving U.S. Senator from Illinois in history.
Shelby M. Cullom, a Republican, also served five terms in the U.S. Senate from 1883 to 1913. This followed a term as Illinois governor, two terms in the U.S. House, and three stints in the Illinois House of Representatives in which he served two nonconsecutive terms as state House Speaker.
Cullom Avenue, a residential street that the width of the city east to west a city block south of Montrose Avenue, is named after Shelby M. Cullom. Whether Durbin too will be honored with a Chicago street name someday remains to be seen.
Adam Harrington is a web producer at CBS Chicago, where he first arrived in January 2006.
