Patrick Leahy

Patrick Joseph Leahy (; born March 31, 1940) is an American politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Vermont, a seat to which he was first elected in 1974. A member of the Democratic Party, Leahy held the position of president pro tempore of the United States Senate from December 17, 2012 to January 6, 2015, and was thus during that time third in the presidential line of succession. Now in his eighth six-year term of office, he is currently (since the December 2012 death of Daniel Inouye) the most senior member of the Senate, and is also the last of the Senate's "Watergate Babies" – Democrats first elected to Congress in 1974, following President Richard Nixon's August 9, 1974 resignation over the Watergate scandal. Additionally, Leahy remains the only sitting U.S. Senator to have served during the presidency of Gerald Ford. Leahy received the title of President pro tempore emeritus in January 2015. The current dean of the state's congressional delegation, Leahy is Vermont's longest-serving U.S. Senator, and as of 2018 is the only Democrat the state has ever elected to the Senate. He is the former chairman of the Agriculture and Judiciary Committees, and has served as the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee since 2017. In 2001, Leahy was one of the two U.S. Senators targeted by the anthrax attacks that killed five people. He is the longest-serving Democrat in the current 116th Congress.