Tom Udall

Tom Udall

Overview

* Democratic Senator representing New Mexico
* Former House of Representatives Member (New Mexico’s 3rd District) from 1999 to 2009
* Former member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus


Tom Udall was born on May 18, 1948 in Tucson, Arizona, the son of the late Stewart Udall, who served as an Arizona congressman (1955-61) and U.S. Secretary of the Interior (1961-69). He is also the nephew of former Arizona congressman Morris “Mo” Udall, and the first cousin of former U.S. Senator Mark Udall. All of Tom Udall’s politician relatives are Democrats like him, except for a distant cousin Gordon Smith, a Republican who served twelve years as a U.S. senator from Oregon.

Udall earned a BA in government from Prescott College (1970), a Bachelor of Law degree from Cambridge University (1975), and a JD from the University of New Mexico Law School (1977). He worked as a law clerk for the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1977, and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney from 1978-81.

In 1981 Udall opened a private law practice. The following year, he ran for Congress in the newly created 3rd District of New Mexico but was defeated in the Democratic primary by Bill Richardson. In 1983-84 Udall served as chief counsel for New Mexico’s Health and Environment Department. From 1985-90 he was a trial lawyer with the firm Miller, Stratvert, Torgerson, & Schlenker. And in 1988 he narrowly lost an election for an open congressional seat in New Mexico’s 1st District.

In 1990 Udall was elected as New Mexico’s Attorney General, a position he would hold until 1998 when he won a U.S. House seat representing his state’s 3rd District. He went on to win re-election to four additional two-year terms in the House of Representatives, and became a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

In May 2005 Udall was one of only 22 House members to vote against HR 193, a bill that: (a) expressed support for “the historic meeting of the Assembly to Promote the Civil Society in Cuba,” which was slated to take place later that month in Havana; (b) urged “the [Bush] Administration and international community to actively oppose any attempts by the Castro regime to repress or punish the organizers and participants of the Assembly”; and (c) affirmed that the House shared the Assembly’s desire to “hasten the day of freedom and democracy for the people of Cuba.”

On December 6, 2006—three days before the 25th anniversary of the murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner by former Black Panther Party member Mumia Abu-Jamal—Udall was one of only 31 U.S. House Members (all Democrats) to vote against a resolution “condemning the decision of St. Denis, France, to name a street in honor of … Abu-Jamal.”

In 2008 Udall was elected to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the retiring Peter Domenici (R-New Mexico).

In June 2010 Udall was a guest speaker at the “America’s Future Now Conference” in Washington, DC, an event hosted by the Institute for Policy Studies and the Campaign for America’s Future.

On March 12, 2012, Udall joined Charles Schumer, Al Franken, and five other Democrat senators in writing a letter to IRS officials, urging the agency to give extra scrutiny to the activities of conservative “social welfare organizations” that were applying for tax-exempt status. The letter warned of “abuse of the tax code by political groups focused on federal election activities.” Fourteen months later, news broke that the IRS had been engaged in a massive scandal whereby it had delayed and derailed tax-exemption applications filed by hundreds of conservative organizations.

On June 3, 2014, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics filed a complaint against Udall and eight other Senate Democrats, charging that they had violated Senate rules by their efforts to politicize the IRS.[1]

In April 2018, Udall was one of 12 U.S. senators who sought to punish the Sinclair Broadcast Group – widely perceived as a conservative media company – which had recently announced plans to acquire the Tribune Media Company’s 42 TV stations in a merger that, if completed, would extend Sinclair’s reach to 72% of all American households. In a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Ajit Pai, these senators expressed concern over the fact that Sinclair had recently aired an ad showing its various local anchors reading from a corporate script extolling the virtue of “balanced journalism” and condemning “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country.” The senators viewed the Sinclair ad as an implicit defense of President Donald Trump, who had long been under withering attack by media outlets nationwide.[2]

Udall believes that:

  • all women should have an unrestricted right to abortion-on-demand at any stage of pregnancy – subsidized by taxpayers, in cases of economic hardship;
  • public and private employers alike should be legally required to implement affirmative-action hiring and promotion policies that give preference to African Americans and women, as compensation for historical injustices;
  • the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) should serve a strategic stepping stone toward the eventual implementation of a single-payer healthcare system;
  • the principle of church-state separation is inviolable and should preclude permitting prayer in the public schools, or the posting of the Ten Commandments in public places;
  • voucher programs designed to enable low-income parents to send their children to private schools, constitute bad policy because they rob the public schools of vital resources;
  • more guns in the hands of private citizens inevitably result in higher levels of crime, thus the availability of firearms should be restricted by whatever means are effective;
  • wealthy people should be required to pay much higher tax rates than those who earn less;
  • restrictions on immigration are basically racist because they tend to prevent Hispanics and other non-whites from entering the United States;
  • social services should be available to all U.S. residents regardless of their immigration status;
  • illegal aliens should be offered amnesty if they have been productive members of society;
  • an ever-increasing reliance on “green energy” sources such as wind and solar should be put in place, along with the phasing out of fossil fuels, the imposition of carbon taxes, and the raising of vehicle CAFE standards;
  • federal spending on infrastructure projects and job programs is crucial to the success of any economic recovery program; and
  • the nationalization of banks and corporations is preferable to federal bailouts of those entities.

Over the course of Udall’s political career, the officials, employees, members, and PACs of various labor unions and activist groups have been among the leading financial contributors to his campaigns. These donors include individuals affiliated with such entities as ActBlue, the AFSCME, the American Association for Justice, the American Federation of Teachers, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, J Street, the League of Conservation Voters, and the United Food & Commercial Workers Union.

Udall has also received key support and endorsements from the Council for a Livable World and 21st Century Democrats.

For an overview of Tom Udall’s voting record on key issues during his years as a legislator in the U.S. House and Senate, click here.

Further Reading: “Tom Udall” (Votesmart.org, Keywiki.org); “Schumer, Franken Urged IRS to Target Tea Party in 2012” (Daily Caller, 5-17-2013); Tom Udall’s Positions on Key Issues (OnTheIssues.org); Leading Contributors to Senator Tom Udall (OpenSecrets.org).

Footnotes:


  1. Senate Ethics Complaint Filed by Center for Competitive Politics” (Institute for Free Speech, 6-2-2014). The nine senators who were targeted with the complaint were Udall, Carl Levin, Richard Durbin, Charles Schumer, Jeanne Shaheen, Sheldon Whitehouse, Al Franken, Michael Bennet, and Jeff Merkley.
  2. Twelve Senators Seek FCC Probe of Sinclair News Scripts, Pause in Tribune Review” (Reuters.com, 4-12-2018); “Democrats Running for Office Pull Ads from Sinclair over Anchor Statements on Fake News” (TheBlaze.com, 4-4-2018); “Ajit Pai Rejects ‘Chilling’ Democratic Request for FCC Investigation into Sinclair” (Washington Examiner, 4-12-2018). The twelve senators included Udall, Independent Bernie Sanders, and 10 other DemocratsTammy BaldwinRichard BlumenthalCory Booker, Maria Cantwell, Edward Markey, Jeff Merkley, Patty Murray, Tina Smith, Elizabeth Warren, and Ron Wyden. The senators wrote in their letter: “We are concerned that Sinclair is engaged in a systematic news distortion operation that seeks to undermine freedom of the press and the robust localism and diversity of viewpoint that is the foundation of our national broadcasting laws.” “We have strong concerns,” they added, “that Sinclair has violated the public interest obligation inherent in holding broadcast licenses. Sinclair may have violated the FCC’s longstanding policy against broadcast licensees deliberately distorting news by staging, slanting, or falsifying information.” The senators also demanded that the FCC put on hold its review of Sinclair’s potential merger with Tribune.In his response to the senators, Ajit Pai said that he “must respectfully decline” their request “in light of my commitment to protecting the First Amendment and freedom of the press.” “I understand that you disliked or disagreed with the content of particular broadcasts,” he added, “but I can hardly think of an action more chilling of free speech than the federal government investigating a broadcast station because of disagreement with its news coverage or promotion of that coverage.”

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