An Interview with United States Senator Paul S. Sarbanes

Abstract

Senator Paul Spyros Sarbanes is the senior Democrat on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. He was chairman of the committee when Sarbanes-Oxley was enacted. Senator Sarbanes is the longest-serving U.S. senator in Maryland history, having won his fifth term in 2000. He also serves on the Foreign Relations, the Budget and the Joint Economic Committees. He was born in Salisbury, Maryland, holds an undergraduate degree from Princeton and a law degree from Harvard. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship that brought him to Oxford, England. After law school, he clerked for Federal Judge Morris A. Soper before going into private practice with two Baltimore City law firms.

In 1966, Sarbanes ran for the Maryland House of Delegates in Baltimore City and won. During his four years as a State Legislator in Annapolis he served on the Judiciary and the Ways and Means Committees. In 1970 he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, the first of three terms. While in the House, from 1971-76, Sarbanes served on the House Judiciary Committee, the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, and the Select Committee on House Reorganization. It was during his service in the House, in August 1974, that Sarbanes was selected by his Democratic colleagues on the House Watergate Committee to introduce the first Article of Impeachment, for obstruction of justice, against President Richard Nixon.

On November 2, 1976, Sarbanes was elected to the United States Senate. He was re-elected in 1982, 1988, 1994, and 2000. Throughout his public service, Senator Sarbanes has worked hard to provide the citizens of Maryland with dedicated, independent representation; representation based upon intelligence and integrity; representation which gives people the confidence that elected officials are there to serve the public interest.

Paul Sarbanes was born in Salisbury, on Maryland's Eastern Shore on February 3, 1933. He is the son of Greek immigrants from Laconia, Greece -- Spyros (deceased 1957) and Matina Sarbanes (deceased 2001) who owned the Mayflower Restaurant on Salisbury's Main Street. The principles Senator Sarbanes learned growing up in Salisbury that have guided his public life are opportunity and fairness -principles that he strongly believes are fundamental to a decent and just society.