Bill Nelson
Clarence William Nelson II is an American politician, attorney, and former astronaut who served from 2001 to 2019 as a United States senator from Florida and from 2021 to 2025 as the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A member of the Democratic Party, Nelson served from 1979 to 1991 as a U.S. representative from Florida's Space Coast, and from 1972 to 1978 as a member of the Florida House of Representatives. In January 1986, he became the second sitting member of Congress to fly in space, after Senator Jake Garn, when he served as a payload specialist on mission STS-61-C aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. Before entering politics, he served in the United States Army Reserve during the Vietnam War.
Nelson retired from Congress in 1990 to run for governor of Florida, but was unsuccessful. He was later elected Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner, and Fire Marshal of Florida, serving from 1995 to 2001. In 2000, Nelson was elected to the U.S. Senate seat that had been vacated by retiring Republican senator Connie Mack III with 51% of the vote. He was reelected in 2006 with 60% of the vote and in 2012 with 55% of the vote. Nelson ran in 2018 for a fourth term, but narrowly lost to then-Governor Rick Scott. In May 2019, Nelson was appointed to serve on NASA's advisory council.
In the U.S. Senate, Nelson was generally considered a centrist and a moderate Democrat. He supported same-sex marriage, lowering taxes on lower and middle income families, expanding environmental programs and regulation, protecting the Affordable Care Act, and expanding Medicaid. Nelson chaired the Senate Aging Committee from 2013 to 2015, and served as ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee from 2015 to 2019.
On March 19, 2021, President Joe Biden announced his intention to nominate Nelson to the position of Administrator of NASA. On April 29, the Senate confirmed Nelson by unanimous consent. He was sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris on May 3. Nelson left NASA on January 20, 2025, at the end of Biden's presidency.
Early life and education
Nelson was born on September 29, 1942, in Miami, Florida, the only child of Nannie Merle and Clarence William Nelson. His father was a real estate investor and a lawyer. He is of Scottish, Irish, English, and Danish descent. His father died of a heart attack when Nelson was 14 and his mother of Lou Gehrig's disease when he was 24.Nelson grew up in Melbourne, Florida, where he attended Melbourne High School.
Nelson attended Baptist and Episcopal churches, but later was baptized through immersion in a Baptist church. He served as International President of Kiwanis-sponsored Key Club International. In 2005, he joined the First Presbyterian Church in Orlando.
Nelson attended the University of Florida, where he was a member of Florida Blue Key and Beta Theta Pi social fraternity. He transferred to Yale University after two years at the University of Florida. At Yale he would be roommates with Bruce Smathers, the son of Florida senator George Smathers. Nelson received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in political science from Yale University in 1965 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia in 1968.
In 1965, during the Vietnam War, Nelson joined the United States Army Reserve. He served on active duty from 1968 to 1970, attaining the rank of Captain, and he remained in the Army until 1971. Nelson was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1968, and began practicing law in Melbourne in 1970. In 1971, he worked as legislative assistant to Governor Reubin Askew.
Space Shuttle ''Columbia''
In 1986, Nelson became the second sitting member of Congress to travel into space. He went through NASA training with fellow "congressional observer" Senator Jake Garn, who flew on STS-51-D in 1985. Nelson served as a payload specialist on 's STS-61-C mission from January 12 to 18, 1986. Coincidentally, STS-61-C's pilot was Charles Bolden, who also went on to serve as a NASA administrator. Gregory Jarvis was originally scheduled to be on this flight, but he was reassigned to STS-51-L and replaced by Nelson; Jarvis, along with the six others on STS-51-L, died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, ten days after STS-61-C's mission ended.In 1988, Nelson published a book about his space flight experience, Mission: An American Congressman's Voyage to Space.
Early political career
Florida Legislature
In 1972, Nelson was elected to the Florida House of Representatives as the member from the 47th district, representing much of Brevard County and portions of Orange County and Seminole County. He won reelection in 1974 and 1976.U.S. House of Representatives
Nelson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978 in the open 9th congressional district after the five-term Republican incumbent, Louis Frey Jr., chose to run for governor of Florida rather than for reelection.In 1980, Nelson was reelected to that district, which encompassed all of Brevard and part of Orange County. He was redistricted to the 11th congressional district, encompassing all of Brevard and parts of Orange, Indian River, and Osceola counties; he won reelection in 1982, 1984, 1986, and 1988. He remained a member of the U.S. House of Representatives until 1991.
Nelson chaired the House Space Subcommittee for six years as a key member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. His district included Cape Canaveral and its space facility. In 1988, Bill Nelson criticized President Reagan's policy to export American satellites for launch on China's Long March rockets. Nelson called this an "inconsistent administration policy." Nelson stated that Reagan "wanted to build up commercial space ventures, and on the other hand, he is cutting off the commercial space ventures at the knees with these export licenses."
1990 gubernatorial election
In 1990, Nelson ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for governor of Florida. His primary rival was former U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles. During the campaign, the younger Nelson tried to highlight Chiles' age and use of Prozac to treat his depression, but this proved to be an unpopular strategy, and Nelson lost by a wide margin, getting 30.5% of the vote to Chiles' 69.5%. Chiles went on to win the general election.Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner and Fire Marshal
In 1994, Nelson announced his intention to seek the office of Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner, and Fire Marshal of Florida. He won the election with 52% of the vote over State Rep. Tim Ireland's 48%. In 1998, he won re-election to the office, again defeating Ireland.In 2000, Nelson announced that he would be running for the United States Senate seat held by retiring Republican Connie Mack III. Florida's resign-to-run law compelled Nelson to submit his resignation as Treasurer, Insurance Commissioner and Fire Marshal early in 2000 when he began to campaign for the U.S. Senate seat. He chose January 3, 2001, as the effective date of his resignation, as that was the date on which new senators would be sworn in.
United States Senate
Elections
2000
In 2000, Nelson ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by retiring Republican senator Connie Mack III. He won the election, defeating U.S. representative Bill McCollum, who ran as the Republican candidate.2006
Following the 2004 election, in which Republican George W. Bush was re-elected and the Republican Party increased its majority in both the House and the Senate, Nelson was seen as vulnerable. He was a Democrat in a state that Bush had won, though by a margin of only five percentage points.Evangelical Christian activist James Dobson declared that Democrats, including Nelson, would be "in the 'bull's-eye'" if they supported efforts to block Bush's judicial nominees. Nelson's refusal to support efforts in Congress to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case was seen as "a great political issue" for a Republican opponent to use in mobilizing Christian conservatives against him.
Katherine Harris, the former Florida secretary of state and two-term U.S. representative, defeated three other candidates in the September 5 Republican primary. Harris' role in the 2000 presidential election made her a polarizing figure. Many Florida Republicans were eager to reward her for her perceived party loyalty in the Bush-Gore election, while many Florida Democrats were eager to vote against her for the same reason. In May, when the party found itself unable to recruit a candidate who could defeat Harris in the primary, many Republican activists admitted that the race was already lost.
Nelson focused on safe issues, portraying himself as a bipartisan centrist problem-solver.
He obtained the endorsement of all 22 of Florida's daily newspapers. Harris failed to secure the endorsement of Jeb Bush, who publicly stated that she could not win; the United States Chamber of Commerce, which had supported her in her House campaigns, did not endorse her in this race.
As the election approached, polls showed Harris trailing Nelson by 26 to 35 points. Nelson transferred about $16.5 million in campaign funds to other Democratic candidates, and won the election with 2,890,548 votes to Harris's 1,826,127 votes. He won 57 out of the state's 67 counties.
2012
Vice President Joe Biden called Nelson crucial to President Obama's chances for winning Florida in 2012. In March 2011, Biden was reported as having said that if Nelson lost in 2012, "it means President Obama and the Democratic presidential ticket won't win the key battleground state, either." Congressman Connie Mack IV, the son of Nelson's direct predecessor in the Senate, won the Republican nomination. Nelson eventually defeated Mack with 55.2% of the vote to Mack's 42.2%.2018
Nelson ran for reelection in 2018. He ran unopposed in the Democratic Party primary on August 28 and faced Florida Governor Rick Scott in the general election on November 6. The extremely tight race—with a margin of less than 0.25% separating Nelson and Scott—triggered a manual recount, per state law. The recount showed that Scott had defeated Nelson by 10,033 votes.A paper by scholars at the MIT Election Data and Science Lab concluded that the design of Broward County's 2018 general election ballots may have resulted in Nelson receiving 9,658 fewer votes than he otherwise would have, narrowing Scott's margin of victory but not changing the result. The study found that many voters did not see the U.S. Senate race on the lower left side of the ballot and, as a result, did not vote in that race.