Andrew Lamar Alexander Jr. is the senior United States Senator from Tennessee. He was the 45th governor of Tennessee from 1979 to 1987 and the 5th United States Secretary of Education from 1991 to 1993. In 2002, Alexander won election to succeed retiring Senator Fred Thompson. Alexander has served as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee since 2015. In December 2018, Alexander announced that he would not run for a fourth term in the Senate in 2020.
About Lamar Alexander in brief
Andrew Lamar Alexander Jr. is the senior United States Senator from Tennessee. He was the 45th governor of Tennessee from 1979 to 1987 and the 5th United States Secretary of Education from 1991 to 1993. In 2002, Alexander won election to succeed retiring Senator Fred Thompson. Alexander has served as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee since 2015. He introduced the Every Student Succeeds Act, which supplanted the No Child Left Behind Act in 2015. On December 17, 2018, Alexander announced that he would not run for a fourth term in the Senate in 2020. Alexander was born and raised in Maryville, Tennessee, the son of Genevra Floreine, a preschool teacher, and Andrew Lamar Alexander, a high school principal. Alexander graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vanderbilt University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin American studies. In 1962, Alexander was the editor of The Vanderbilt Hustler, the primary student newspaper on campus, and he advocated for the open admission of African Americans. In 1967, Alexander worked as a Legislative Assistant for Senator Howard Baker. While a staffer, he was briefly roommates with future U.S. Senator Trent Lott, and met his future wife at a staffer softball game. In 1969, he worked for Bryce Harlow, President Richard Nixon’s executive assistant. In 1970, he moved back to Tennessee, serving as campaign manager for Memphis dentist Winfield Dunn’s successful gubernatorial bid. In 1974, TIME Magazine named Alexander one of the 200 Faces of the Future. In 1977, Alexander once again worked in office as Senate Minority Leader.
Alexander once wore a red and black flannel shirt that would become a trademark for him for Investigative Reports. He made a name for himself by walking from the northeast of the state to Memphis in far southwest, a distance of 1,022 miles (2,022 kilometers) in the middle of the day. In 2009, Alexander became the first Republican in 50-years to win the Tennessee gubernatorial election. He is married to his wife of 40 years, Lisa Alexander, and they have three children. Alexander is a member of the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Tennessee. Alexander served as the president of the University of Tennessee between 1988 and 1991. He accepted an appointment as Secretary of education under President George H. W. Bush in 1991. Alexander sought the presidential nomination in the 1996 Republican primaries, but withdrew before the Super Tuesday primaries. He sought the nomination again in the 2000 Republican primaries and dropped out after a poor showing in the Iowa Straw Poll. He served as Chairman of the House Republican Conference from 2007 to 2012. In 2013, Alexander joined the Republican Study Committee as its vice chairman. In 2014, he became its vice chair, and in 2015, he served as its chair. In 2016, he joined the GOP National Committee as the chair of the Homeland Security Committee. In 2012, Alexander helped lead the GOP effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a bill that would have made it easier for parents to opt out of the federal health insurance mandate.
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