Early life and education

Blunt was born in Niangua, Missouri, the son of Neva Dora (née Letterman) and Leroy Blunt. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in history from Southwest Baptist University in 1970. In college he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity. Two years later, he earned a master's degree in history from Missouri State University (then Southwest Missouri State University). Blunt was a high school history teacher at Marshfield High School and taught at Drury University. He later served four years as president of Southwest Baptist University.

Early political career (1972-1997)

Greene County Clerk

Blunt entered politics in 1972, when he was elected county clerk and chief election official of Greene County (where Springfield is located). He served as Greene County Clerk until 1984.

1980 lieutenant gubernatorial election

Incumbent Republican Lieutenant Governor Bill Phelps decided to run for Governor. Blunt, the Greene County Clerk, decided to run for the open seat and won the Republican primary, but lost the general election to State Representative Ken Rothman 56%-44%.

Secretary of State

In 1984, after incumbent Democrat Missouri Secretary of State James C. Kirkpatrick decided to retire, Blunt ran for the position and won the Republican primary with 79% of the vote. In the general election, he defeated Democratic State Representative Gary Sharpe 54%-46%. He became the first Republican to hold the post in 50 years.

In 1988, he won re-election against Democrat James Askew 61%-38%.

1992 gubernatorial election

See also: Missouri gubernatorial election, 1992

Since incumbent Republican Governor John Ashcroft was term-limited, Blunt ran for the governorship in 1992. Missouri Attorney General William Webster defeated him and Missouri Treasurer Wendell Bailey 44%-40%-15%. Webster would lose the general election to Mel Carnahan.

University President

From 1993 to 1996, Blunt was President of Southwest Baptist University, his alma mater.

U.S. House of Representatives (1997-2011)

Elections

Blunt decided to run for the United States House of Representatives after incumbent U.S. Representative Mel Hancock honored his pledge to serve only four terms. Blunt ran in Missouri's 7th congressional district, the most conservative district in Missouri, located in the Ozark Mountains in the southwestern part of the state. Blunt's political action committee is the Rely on Your Beliefs Fund. On August 6, 1996, he won the Republican primary defeating Gary Nodler 56%-44%. In the general election, he defeated Democrat Ruth Bamberger 65%-32%.

He won re-election in 1998 (73%), 2000 (74%), 2002 (75%), 2004 (70%), 2006 (67%), and 2008 (68%).

Tenure

Education

Blunt has voted in favor of school prayer and supported the No Child Left Behind Act. He has voted in favor of school vouchers within the District of Columbia but has voted against broader legislation allowing states to use federal money to issue vouchers for private or religious schools. He has received a 17 percent rating from the National Education Association.

Fiscal issues

Blunt received a 97 percent rating from the United States Chamber of Commerce indicating a pro-business voting record. He supported efforts to overhaul U.S. bankruptcy laws, requiring consumers who seek bankruptcy protection to repay more of their debts.

Blunt is a staunch advocate of a federal prohibitions of online poker. In 2006, he cosponsored H.R. 4411, the Goodlatte-Leach Internet Gambling Prohibition Act and H.R. 4777, the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act.

Blunt opposes the federal cap and trade legislation and supports drilling for oil on the U.S. coastline. Blunt does not believe in man-made global warming, stating: "There isn't any real science to say we are altering the climate or path of the Earth."

Gun rights

Blunt has voted to prohibit lawsuits against gun manufacturers and dealers if the guns they manufacture or sell are later used in a crime. He has also voted to reduce the waiting period for purchasing a gun from 72 hours to 24 hours. He has received an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association.

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

Healthcare

Blunt, who chairs the House Republican Health Care Solutions Group, has opposed plans for health care reform supported by Democrats, including proposals that include a "public option" of medical insurance offered by the government. In July 2009 he suggested that the government should not have created Medicare and Medicaid, saying:

The government did get into the health care business in a big way in 1965 with Medicare and later with Medicaid. And government already distorts the marketplace. A government competitor would drive all of the other competitors away. What we should be doing is creating more competition.

In August 2009, Blunt stated in two separate newspaper interviews that, because he was 59 years old, "In either Canada or Great Britain, if I broke my hip, I couldn't get it replaced." Blunt stated that he had heard the statement in Congressional testimony by "some people who are supposed to be experts on Canadian health care." The PolitiFact service of the St. Petersburg Times reported that it could not find any such testimony.

Blunt opposes efforts to end the practice of charging higher rates to unhealthier groups of people. Instead, he suggests expanding the risk pool to make healthcare affordable for those people.

Blunt favors allowing dependent children to stay on their parents' health insurance plans until after the age of 27.

Social issues

Although Missouri Right to Life endorsed Webster over Blunt in the 1992 Republican gubernatorial primary, Blunt has voted pro-life in the House and has a conservative record on most other social issues. He has voted to ban partial-birth abortions and to restrict or criminalize transporting minors across state lines for the purpose of getting an abortion. He opposes federal funding for elective abortions in accordance with the Hyde Amendment. He also voted in favor of the unsuccessful Federal Marriage Amendment which sought to place a national ban on same-sex marriage, and has voted against gay adoption. He received 94 percent lifetime and 96 percent 2004 ratings from the conservative American Conservative Union, a 14 percent rating from the American Civil Liberties Union, and a 92 percent rating from the conservative Christian Coalition. In 2012, he suggested the "Blunt Amendment" an addition to a highway appropriations bill to block part of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) that requires all insurance plans to cover the birth control pill. The proposed amendment would have allowed not only religious organizations, but any employer with a "moral objection" to opt out of birth control coverage. The amendment was ultimately defeated.

Agricultural issues

Blunt anonymously introduced an amendment, the Farmer Assurance Provision, into a March 2013 spending resolution. The amendment, dubbed the "Monsanto protection act" by its critics, mandates that if the regulation status of a GMO crop is challenged and a federal court issues an injunction against said GMO crop to stop the planting of the crop while the secretary of agriculture considers the non-regulation petition, the secretary shall immediately grant temporary authority to farmers to disregard the federal court injunction. According to Blunt, "What it says is if you plant a crop that is legal to plant when you plant it, you get to harvest it." Blunt later led Senate Republicans in defeating an amendment by Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley to repeal the provision. Blunt said that all the amendment does "was repeat authority that the secretary in a hearing the other day, before the Agri Approp committee the other day, said he already had. And it didn't require the secretary to do anything that the secretary thought was the wrong thing to do. Which is one of the reasons I thought it was fine..."

Leadership

After only one term, Blunt was appointed as Chief Deputy Whip, the highest appointed position in the House Republican Caucus. In that capacity, he served as the Republicans' chief vote-counter. In 2002, when Dick Armey retired and fellow Texan Tom DeLay was elected to succeed him, Blunt was elected to succeed DeLay as House Majority Whip.

Blunt served as Majority Leader on an acting basis starting in September 2005, after DeLay was indicted on felony charges involving campaign finance. On January 8, 2006, one day after DeLay announced that he would not seek to regain his position, Blunt announced he would run to permanently replace DeLay. On January 14, 2006, he issued a release claiming that the majority of the Republican caucus had endorsed him as DeLay's successor. However, when the election was held by secret ballot on February 2, 2006, U.S. Representative John Boehner of Ohio won on the second ballot, with 122 votes to 109 for Blunt. In November 2006, Blunt was elected by House Republicans to their second-highest position during the 110th Congress, House Minority Whip. Blunt handily defeated U.S. Representative John Shadegg of Arizona for the position. He announced that he would step down from the position in late 2008, following two successive election cycles where House Republicans had lost seats and to avoid a difficult battle with his deputy, Eric Cantor, who was urged by some to challenge Blunt for the position of Republican Whip.

Committee assignments

Upon entering the U.S. House, Blunt served on the House International Relations Committee, the House Committee on Agriculture, and the House Transportation Committee. In 1999, he gave up seats on the latter two committees and joined the powerful House Committee on Energy and Commerce. In addition he became a member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He has also served on the Republican Conference Steering Committee since his election to the U.S. House of Representatives, a committee that determines to which committees Republican members of the House are assigned and elevates members to positions of ranking member or chair.

U.S. Senate (2011-present)

2010 election

Main article: United States Senate election in Missouri, 2010

On February 19, 2009, Blunt announced he would seek the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate election for the seat being vacated by incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Kit Bond. He successfully ran against Democratic nominee Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, Constitution Party nominee Jerry Beck, Libertarian nominee Jonathan Dine, and write-in candidates Mark S. Memoly, Frazier Miller, Jeff Wirick and Richie L. Wolfe.

Tenure

The Wall Street Journal reported in February 2011, that "Blunt introduced an amendment to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that would allow an employer to deny health services if they conflict with their 'religious beliefs or moral convictions'." (see Blunt Amendment) Blunt said of the amendment “was it an overreach when Mrs. Clinton put it in the Clinton health care plan in 1994? I don’t think it’s an overreach at all. It doesn’t mention any specific procedure. It doesn’t even suggest the mandate should be eliminated.”

In July 2013, Blunt indicated that he would not support efforts to tie raising the federal debt ceiling to defunding Obamacare. In an interview on MSNBC, he expressed his opinion that Obamacare is "destined to fail", but that raising the debt ceiling shouldn't be "held hostage" to "any specific thing".

Death Tax Repeal Act

On June 20, 2013, Senator Blunt co-sponsored the Death Tax Repeal Act of 2013. The bill is intended to permanently eliminate federal estate tax on family farms, ranches, and small businesses.

Other legislative activity

On January 17, 2014, Senator Blunt introduced a bill called the Partnership to Build America Act. If signed into law, the bill would create a special fund to pay for infrastructure projects across the United States, according to Ripon Advance.

Committee assignments

• Committee on Appropriations
  • Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies
  • Subcommittee on Defense
  • Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies
  • Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Chairman)
  • Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs
  • Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies
• Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
  • Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security
  • Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet
  • Subcommittee on Competitiveness, Innovation, and Export Promotion
  • Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security
• Committee on Rules and Administration (Chairman)
• Select Committee on Intelligence

Personal life

Blunt has been married twice. He married Roseann Ray in May 1967 and had three children with her: Matt (the former Governor of Missouri), Amy Blunt Mosby and Andrew Blunt. Blunt and Ray divorced after 35 years of marriage. Afterward, he married Abigail Perlman, a lobbyist for Kraft Foods, on October 18, 2003. In April 2006, he and his wife adopted an 18-month-old boy from Russia, whom they renamed Alexander Charles "Charlie" Blunt. Blunt also has six grandchildren: Davis Mosby, Eva Mosby, Ben Blunt, William Branch Blunt, Brooks Anderson Blunt, and Allyson Blunt. He is a Southern Baptist.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]