Rick Santorum
Richard John Santorum Sr. (/sænˈtɔːrəm/ san-TOR-əm; born May 10, 1958) is an American politician, attorney, author, and political commentator who represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate from 1995 to 2007. He was the Senate's third-ranking Republican during the final six years of his tenure. He also ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in the 2012 Republican primaries, finishing second to Mitt Romney.
"Santorum" redirects here. For the slang term, see Campaign for the neologism "santorum".
Rick Santorum
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Santorum was elected to the United States Senate from Pennsylvania in 1994. He served two terms until losing his 2006 reelection bid. A Roman Catholic, Santorum is a social conservative who opposes abortion and same-sex marriage and embraced a cultural warrior image during his Senate tenure. While serving as a senator, Santorum authored the Santorum Amendment, which would have promoted the teaching of intelligent design. He was a leading sponsor of the 2003 federal law known as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.
In the years following his departure from the Senate, Santorum has worked as a consultant, private practice lawyer, and news contributor. He ran for the Republican nomination in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Before suspending his campaign on April 10, 2012, Santorum exceeded expectations by winning 11 primaries and caucuses and receiving nearly four million votes, making him the runner-up to eventual nominee Mitt Romney. Santorum ran for president again in 2016, but ended his campaign in February 2016 after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses. In January 2017, he became a CNN senior political commentator. However, he was terminated from his contract with CNN in May 2021 due to comments he made about Native Americans a few weeks prior which were deemed "dismissive".[1]
Early life and education[edit]
Richard John Santorum was born in Winchester, Virginia.[2] He is the second of the three children of Aldo Santorum (1923–2011), a clinical psychologist who immigrated to the United States at age seven from Riva, Trentino, Italy,[3] and Catherine (Dughi) Santorum (1918–2019), an administrative nurse[3][4][5] who was of Italian and Irish ancestry.[6]
Santorum grew up in Berkeley County, West Virginia, and Butler County, Pennsylvania. In West Virginia, his family lived in an apartment provided by the Veterans Administration.[7] Santorum attended elementary school at Butler Catholic School and then went on to Butler Senior High School. He was nicknamed "Rooster", supposedly for both a cowlick strand of hair and an assertive nature, particularly on important political issues.[8][9][10][11] After his parents transferred to the Naval Station Great Lakes in northern Illinois, Santorum attended the Roman Catholic Carmel High School in Mundelein, Illinois, for one year, graduating in 1976.[12]
Santorum attended Pennsylvania State University for his undergraduate studies, serving as chairman of the university's College Republicans chapter and graduating with a B.A. degree with honors in political science in 1980.[13] While at Penn State, Santorum joined the Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity.[14] He then completed a one-year M.B.A. program at the University of Pittsburgh's Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, graduating in 1981.[15] In 1986, Santorum received a J.D. degree with honors from Dickinson School of Law.[16]
Early career[edit]
Santorum first became actively involved in politics in the 1970s through volunteering for Senator John Heinz, a Republican from Pennsylvania.[17] Additionally, while in law school, Santorum was an administrative assistant to Republican state senator Doyle Corman, serving as Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Senate Local Government Committee from 1981 to 1984, then Executive Director of the Senate Transportation Committee.[16]
After graduating, Santorum was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar and practiced law for four years at the Pittsburgh law firm Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, a firm known for raising political candidates and lobbyists (later named K&L Gates). As an associate, he successfully lobbied on behalf of the World Wrestling Federation to deregulate professional wrestling, arguing that it should be exempt from federal anabolic steroid regulations because it was entertainment, not a sport.[18][19][20] Santorum left his private law practice in 1990 after his election to the House of Representatives.
Post-Senate career[edit]
Lawyer, political consultant and commentator[edit]
In January 2007, Santorum joined the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a D.C.-based conservative think tank, as director of its America's Enemies Program focusing on foreign threats to the United States, including Islamic fascism, Venezuela, North Korea and Russia.[122] In February 2007, he signed a deal to become a contributor on the Fox News Channel, offering commentary on politics and public policy.[127] In March 2007 he joined Eckert Seamans,[128] where he primarily practiced law in the firm's Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., offices, providing business and strategic counseling services to the firm's clients. In 2007, he joined the Board of Directors of Universal Health Services, a hospital management company based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.[129] He also began writing an op-ed column, "The Elephant in the Room", for The Philadelphia Inquirer.[130]
Santorum earned $1.3 million in 2010 and the first half of 2011. The largest portion of his earnings—$332,000—came from his work as a consultant for industry interest groups, including Consol Energy and American Continental Group. Santorum also earned $395,414 in corporate director's fees and stock options from Universal Health Services and $217,385 in income from the Ethics and Public Policy Center.[86][131][132] In 2010 he was paid $23,000 by The Philadelphia Inquirer for his work as a columnist.[86]
In January 2017, Santorum became a CNN senior political commentator.[133] In April 2021, he claimed at an April 23 Young America's Foundation event that "There isn't much Native American culture in American culture. We came here and created a blank slate. We birthed a Nation. From nothing. I mean there was nothing here." Santorum's comments, which were described as racist,[134][135] led to calls for CNN to terminate his contract, which the network did days later.[136][137]
Speculation about political plans[edit]
Before the 2006 election, Santorum was frequently mentioned as a possible 2008 presidential candidate. Such speculation faded when, during the 2006 campaign and in light of unimpressive poll numbers in his Senate race, he declared that, if reelected, he would serve a full term. After he lost, Santorum once again ruled out a presidential run.[138]
On February 1, 2008, Santorum said he would vote for Mitt Romney in the 2008 Republican presidential primary.[139] Santorum criticized John McCain, questioning his anti-abortion voting record and conservative values. Santorum later said he endorsed Romney because he saw him as the "best chance to stop John McCain", whom he considered too moderate.[140] In September 2008, Santorum expressed support for McCain as the nominee, citing McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate as a step in the right direction.[141]
Santorum was mentioned as a candidate for governor of Pennsylvania in 2010.[142] At one point, he was said to have "quietly but efficiently put his fingerprints on a wide array of conservative causes in the state."[143] Santorum declined to seek the gubernatorial nomination and instead endorsed eventual winner Tom Corbett.[144]
Books[edit]
Santorum has written four books: It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good (2005);[296] American Patriots: Answering the Call to Freedom (2012);[297] Blue Collar Conservatives: Recommitting to an America That Works (2014);[298] and Bella's Gift: How One Little Girl Transformed Our Family and Inspired a Nation (2015).[299] In addition to Santorum's books, a collection of his speeches as a U.S. senator was published and released by Monument Press in 2005 under the title Rick Santorum: A Senator Speaks Out on Life, Freedom, and Responsibility.
Santorum also wrote a foreword to William A. Dembski's 2006 Darwin's Nemesis: Phillip Johnson and the Intelligent Design Movement[300] and a 2006 autobiography.[301]
In It Takes a Family, Santorum argues that the traditional family is the foundation of society. Santorum criticizes alike laissez-faire conservatives and liberal proponents of social welfare for promoting a radical view of autonomy. In particular, he criticizes the "bigs" – "big government, big media, big entertainment, big universities." The book became a New York Times bestseller.[302]
American Patriots tells the stories of 25 lesser-known Americans from the American Revolution.[303] Santorum writes, "Most Americans know something about our Founding Fathers and their role in creating the government of the United States. However, most know little about the day-to-day battles fought by Americans of all backgrounds that paved the way for the high ideals of our founders to be put into practice."[304] He also writes, "Today we are facing a threat to the very foundation our founders laid. That threat does not come from an alien force but from those who are willing and determined to abandon the concept of God-given rights. Like the royalty during the Revolution, today's elites wish to return to the pre-Revolutionary paradigm in which they, through governmental force, allocate rights and responsibilities."[304]
Blue Collar Conservatives departs from traditional Republican orthodoxy[305] and says that the Republican Party must appeal to blue collar Americans. He says, "As many as six million blue collar voters stayed home from the polls, and there's good reason to believe that a large majority of them would have voted Republican if they had voted."[305] Santorum puts forward a recipe for Republican success in which Republicans advocate for workers and not just corporations.[306] He says that many middle class workers who have been forced into part-time jobs at big box stores or even into public assistance programs are amenable to the GOP's message if it is presented in relatable terms.[306] He tackles education, saying the current system of government-run schools is a "relic of the late 19th century" and that children should not be pressured into going to college when a job or vocational training would be a better option.[306] He criticizes libertarian influence in the Republican Party, saying, "There are some in my party who have taken the ideal of individualism to such an extreme that they have forgotten the obligation to look out for our fellow man."[305] He says the GOP should be less quick to dismiss concerns over decreasing social and economic mobility, saying that large businesses and stocks are strong, while life has become "a trickle" for workers.[305] He questions rich compensation of business executives, and says that while he supports free trade, Republicans need to look at its impact on the average person and consider whether existing laws are fair.[305]
In January 2015, Santorum announced Bella's Gift: How One Little Girl Transformed Our Family and Inspired a Nation, a book about his daughter Bella, who lives with a rare genetic condition called Trisomy 18. The book is authored by Santorum and his wife, Karen Santorum, and co-authored by their daughter, Elizabeth Santorum. It was released February 10, 2015.[307]