Early life, education and career

Coats was born in Jackson, Michigan, the son of Vera (Nora) Elisabeth (née Swanlund) and Edward Raymond Coats. His father was of English and German descent, and his maternal grandparents immigrated from Sweden. Coats attended local public schools, and graduated from Jackson High School in 1961. He then studied at Wheaton College in Illinois, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1965. At Wheaton, he was an active student athlete on the soccer team. He served in the United States Army from 1966 to 1968, and earned a Juris Doctor from the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis in 1972, where he was also the associate editor of the Indiana Law Review. He also served as assistant vice president of a Fort Wayne life insurance company.

U.S. House of Representatives

From 1976 to 1980, Coats worked for then-U.S. Representative Dan Quayle, a Republican from Indiana's 4th congressional district, as Quayle's district representative. When Quayle decided to challenge three-term Democratic incumbent Birch Bayh in the 1980 U.S. Senate election, Coats ran for and won Quayle's seat in the U.S. House.

U.S. Senate

When Quayle resigned from the Senate after being elected Vice President of the United States in 1988, Coats was appointed to Quayle’s former seat. Coats was subsequently elected to the seat in 1990 and 1992 and served in the Senate until January 1999, when Evan Bayh became the new Senator. When Bayh announced that he was going to retire in 2010, Coats ran for and won that Senate seat. He announced in March 2015 that he would not run for re-election in 2016.

Political positions

Gun laws

On multiple occasions, Coats has supported gun control measures. In 1991, he voted in favor of the Biden-Thurmond Violent Crime Control Act of 1991. This act, which did not become law, would have created a waiting period for handgun purchases and placed a ban on semi-automatic firearms. Subsequently, he supported the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act that President Clinton signed into law in 1993. The legislation imposed a waiting period before a handgun could be transferred to an individual by a licensed dealer, importer, or manufacturer. This waiting period ended when the computerized instant check system came online. Coats also supported Feinstein Amendment 1152 to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1993. The purpose of the Feinstein Amendment was to "restrict the manufacture, transfer, and possession of certain semiautomatic assault weapons and large capacity ammunition feeding devices".

In April 2013, Coats was one of forty-six senators to vote against passage of a bill which would have expanded background checks for gun buyers. Coats voted with 40 Republicans and 5 Democrats to stop the passage of the bill.

Taxes

In 1995 Senator Coats introduced S. 568: Family, Investment, Retirement, Savings, and Tax Fairness Act which would provide "family tax credits, increase national savings through individual retirement plus accounts, indexing for inflation the income thresholds for taxing social security benefits, etc". The bill did not become law.

LGBT issues

In 1993, Coats emerged as an opponent of President Clinton's effort to allow homosexuals to serve openly in the armed forces. Coats was one of the authors of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy and opposed its 2011 repeal. He does not support same-sex marriage but opposes interference with alternative lifestyles.

Other

Coats cosponsored, with former Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Christopher Dodd, and James Jeffords, S.2206: Coats Human Services Reauthorization Act of 1998. This bill, which was enacted into law, “amended the Head Start Act, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Act of 1981, and the Community Services Block Grant Act...in order to provide an opportunity for persons with limited means to accumulate assets.”

In 1996, Coats cosponsored the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 which President Clinton signed into law. The bill allowed the President to "rewrit legislation by vetoing single items of spending or specific tax breaks approved by Congress." The Supreme Court of the United States declared the law unconstitutional in Clinton v. City of New York in a 6-3 decision.

Coats made headlines in August 1998, when he publicly questioned the timing of President Bill Clinton’s attack on terrorist bases in Afghanistan and Sudan, suggesting it might be linked to the Lewinsky scandal: "While there is clearly much more we need to learn about this attack and why it was ordered today, given the president’s personal difficulties this week, it is legitimate to question the timing of this action."

Between U.S. Senate tenures

Coats worked as Special Counsel member in the firm Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, McPherson and Hand in 2000 and 2001.

In 2001, Coats was reportedly one of George W. Bush’s top choices to be Defense Secretary, a job eventually given to Donald Rumsfeld, who had previously served as United States Secretary of Defense.

From August 15, 2001 to February 28, 2005, Coats was the United States Ambassador to Germany. As ambassador during the lead up to the Iraq war, he pressured the German government not to oppose the war, threatening worsened US relations with Germany. As Ambassador he also played a critical role in establishing robust relations with then opposition leader Angela Merkel and in the construction of a new United States Embassy in the heart of Berlin next to the Brandenburg Gate.

In 2005, Coats drew attention when he was chosen by President George W. Bush to shepherd Harriet Miers' failed nomination to the Supreme Court through the Senate. Echoing Senator Roman Hruska's famous 1970 speech in defense of Harrold Carswell, Coats said to CNN regarding the nomination: "If great intellectual powerhouse is a qualification to be a member of the court and represent the American people and the wishes of the American people and to interpret the Constitution, then I think we have a court so skewed on the intellectual side that we may not be getting representation of America as a whole."

In 2007, Coats served as co-chairman of a team of lobbyists for Cooper Industries, a Texas corporation that moved its principal place of business to Bermuda, where it would not be liable for U.S. taxes. In that role, he worked to block Senate legislation that would have closed a tax loophole, worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Cooper Industries.

The NYT also reported that Coats was co-chairman of the Washington government relations office of King & Spalding, with a salary of $603,609.

Political campaigns

2010

See also: United States Senate election in Indiana, 2010

On February 10, 2010, Coats confirmed that he would return to Indiana to run for the seat held by incumbent Evan Bayh in the 2010 United States Senate election. Bayh had made no previous announcements and was fully expected to run for another term, but after Coats announced his candidacy, Bayh announced his retirement on February 15, 2010. On May 4, 2010, Coats won the Republican primary over state Sen. Marlin Stutzman and former Congressman John Hostettler.

Coats received endorsements from National Right to Life Committee, Indiana Right to Life, and the Susan B. Anthony List.

Coats defeated Democratic Rep. Brad Ellsworth by a fifteen-point margin to return to the Senate.

Coats became the senior senator from Indiana after Richard Lugar lost a challenge in the 2012 Republican primary election and subsequently was not re-elected to the Senate in 2012. Coats is currently serving with Democrat Joe Donnelly.

Personal life

Coats is affiliated with the Fellowship, an informal association of Christian lawmakers. Coats lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Coats received Big Brothers Big Sisters of America's Charles G. Berwind Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 for his decades of involvement with the organization.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]