Ed Markey


Edward John Markey is an American politician serving as the junior United States senator from the state of Massachusetts, a seat he has held since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served 20 terms as the U.S. representative for from 1976 to 2013. Before that, he was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1973 to 1976. He has been the dean of the Massachusetts's congressional delegation since 2009.
In 2013, after John Kerry was appointed United States Secretary of State, Markey was elected to serve out the remainder of Kerry's Senate term in a 2013 special election. Markey defeated Stephen Lynch in the Democratic primary and Republican Gabriel E. Gomez in the general election. He was elected to a full term in the Senate in 2014. Markey fended off a primary challenge from Joseph Kennedy III and was reelected in 2020 by a wide margin.
Markey is a progressive who has focused on climate change and energy policy and chaired the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming from 2007 to 2011. He is the Senate author of the Green New Deal. He is now the longest-serving Democrat in Congress, having served since 1976. His progressive policies have led to widespread support among young voters. The Hill has called him "an icon to Gen Z activists". Markey is running for reelection in 2026, the oldest Democratic senator to do so. He will be 80 years old on election day.

Early life and education

Markey was born on July 11, 1946, in Malden, Massachusetts, the son of Christina M. and John E. Markey, a milkman. Markey's mother was the valedictorian of her high school class but was unable to attend college because her mother died and she was needed to care for the family. The family was Irish Catholic, and Markey was educated at Immaculate Conception School and Malden Catholic High School.
Starting in the summer of 1965, Markey was the driver and salesperson for an ice cream truck in Lexington, Massachusetts. He was known as "Eddie the Ice Cream Man" to neighborhood children and used the proceeds from the HP Hood route to pay tuition at Boston College. In the late 1960s Markey was cited by the Lexington Police for the ringing of his bell to announce the ice cream truck's presence. Soon after the citation, the selectmen of Lexington changed the ordinance and he was allowed to ring his bell.
Markey graduated from Boston College in 1968 with a Bachelor of Arts and from Boston College Law School in 1972 with a Juris Doctor.

Career

After graduating, Markey worked as a lawyer in private practice. He served in the United States Army Reserve from 1968 to 1973, attaining the rank of Specialist 4. He joined while a junior in college, and has said that he enlisted before knowing whether he would receive a Vietnam War draft notice. Markey also said that even though he opposed the war, he would have answered the induction notice and gone to Vietnam if he had been drafted, despite having secured a position in the Reserve. His South Boston reserve unit included Thomas P. O'Neill III, Steve Grossman, and Markey's brothers Richard and John.
Markey was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he represented the 16th Middlesex district and 26th Middlesex district from 1973 to 1976.

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

On May 21, 1976, incumbent Congressman Torbert Macdonald died in office. Markey, who had just been elected to a third term in the state house, entered a twelve-candidate Democratic primary for what was then the 7th district. In the primary—the real contest in this heavily Democratic district—Markey won the nomination with a plurality of 22% of the vote. In the November 1976 election he defeated Republican Richard Daly 77%–18%. That election doubled as both a special election for the balance of Macdonald's 11th term and a regular election for a full two-year term, and so Markey took office later that night. This gave him greater seniority than other Representatives first elected in 1976.
Markey was challenged in a Democratic primary three times, first in 1980, when he won 85%; then in 1984, when he won 54%; and finally in 2002, when he won 85% of the vote.
Markey was reelected 19 more times from this district, which included most of the northern suburbs of Boston. His lowest vote total was 62% in 1992, in a three-way election. Markey faced no Republican opposition in eight of his bids for reelection, in 1978, 1980, 1986, 1988, 1990, 2000, 2002, and 2006. His district was renumbered the 5th after the 2010 census, in which Massachusetts lost a district.

Tenure

Markey was a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and the National Journal gave him a "Composite Liberal" score of 89.2.

Environment and energy

In December 2007, Markey became the first US politician to use Second Life, through which he addressed the delegates of the UNFCCC in Bali as part of OneClimate's Virtual Bali event. It was estimated that the carbon dioxide he saved by not flying to Bali was around 5.5 tons. Pressure from Markey prompted BP to provide a live underwater video feed showing oil leaking out of a pipe in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Markey has been a longtime critic of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and has been critical of the NRC's decision-making on the proposed Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design and the NRC response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.
In reply to Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin's position on how the American Clean Energy and Security Act could have a negative impact for Alaskans, Markey wrote an article criticizing Palin's inaction on global warming and her environmental positions.
Markey sarcastically suggested in August 2010 that global warming deniers form their own country on an iceberg: "An iceberg four times the size of Manhattan has broken off Greenland, creating plenty of room for global warming deniers to start their own country." Markey also said that, at the time, 2010 was the hottest recorded year and that "scientists agree Arctic ice is a canary in a coal mine that provides clear warnings on climate". Markey has derided Republicans' stance on global warming, stating during a hearing: "I won't physically rise, because I'm worried that Republicans will overturn the law of gravity, sending us floating about the room."
In January 2011, House Republicans eliminated the Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming, which Nancy Pelosi created in 2006 and Markey chaired.

Objection to certifying the 2004 U.S. presidential election results

Markey was one of the 31 House Democrats who voted not to count Ohio's 20 electoral votes in the 2004 U.S. presidential election. In 2004, President George W. Bush had defeated Senator John Kerry in Ohio by 118,457 votes. Without Ohio's electoral votes, the 2004 presidential election would have been decided by the U.S. House of Representatives, with each state having one vote, as dictated by the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Domestic initiatives

Markey introduced legislation to change the duration of Daylight Saving Time and to increasing privacy controls over children online.
Markey drew some controversy through his proposal to introduce legislation that deals with amusement parks' roller coasters, believing that newer, faster rides that exert greater G-pressures on the human body are dangerous mentally and physically, despite a lack of concrete evidence to support these claims, and contrary to studies that affirmed the safety of roller coasters in general.
In 2009, Markey sponsored the Internet Freedom Preservation Act to enact principles of net neutrality. The proposed legislation received support from a few dozen co-sponsors and public interest organizations but ultimately died in committee before enactment.
File:Beijing-Tianjin High Speed Train.jpg|thumb|240px|Rep. Markey with Chinese Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun and U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in May 2009. Behind them is a Hexie Hao train on the Beijing–Tianjin Intercity Railway.

National defense

In 2003, Markey called attention to the lack of security surrounding air cargo placed on commercial passenger planes, arguing that if passenger baggage is screened for explosive devices, cargo on the plane should be as well. In 2007, he succeeded in getting a 100% air cargo screening requirement signed into law. In the law codifying the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, Markey wrote the mandate requiring all cargo on passenger planes to be screened.

Committee assignments

In 2004, Markey was considered a contender for John Kerry's seat in the U.S. Senate if Kerry were to be elected President of the United States. He was also considered a leading contender in the 2010 special election to replace the late Ted Kennedy, but on September 12, 2009, he announced his decision not to run and endorsed fellow Congressman Michael Capuano, who went on to lose the Democratic primary to Martha Coakley.

Elections

2013 special

On December 27, 2012, Markey was the first to announce his candidacy to run in a special election to fill Kerry's seat after President Barack Obama nominated him for U.S. Secretary of State. Several politicians, including Kerry, endorsed Markey even before the Senate confirmed Kerry. On April 30, 2013, Markey won the Democratic nomination by defeating fellow Congressman Stephen Lynch in the primary election. He defeated Republican nominee Gabriel E. Gomez in the general special election on June 25 and completed the remaining 17 months of Kerry's term.
Markey is the longest-tenured House member ever elected to the Senate, with his 36-plus years of service exceeding that of Frederick H. Gillett, who served in the House for 32 years before moving to the upper chamber in 1925. He is the 11th oldest candidate to win a U.S. Senate special election out of more than 170 people since the passage of the 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.