Richard Durbin

Richard Joseph Durbin (born 1944) is the senior United States Senator from Illinois. A lawyer who originally came from East Saint Louis, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1982 and served there from 1983 to 1997, being reelected every two years and serving as a delegate to all four Democratic National Conventions that occurred during that period.

Durbin was chairman of the Illinois delegation in 1996. Also in 1996, he became the Democratic candidate for the Senate to replace the retiring Democratic incumbent, Paul Martin Simon. The two men had been associated before; while Simon was Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, Durbin was his legal counsel. Durbin won the election and was easily elected to a second term in 2002.

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