Charles Schumer
In 2022, Charles Ellis Schumer was elected to a fifth term in the United States Senate, extending a tenure that had already surpassed those of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jacob K. Javits to make him the longest-serving U.S. senator in New York's history. That milestone, accumulated across decades of continuous public service, reflects the arc of a career defined by sustained presence in one of the country's most consequential legislative bodies.
Born on November 23, 1950, in New York City, Schumer attended James Madison High School before going on to Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He has since built a career that spans law and politics, with his occupations listed variously as lawyer, jurist, writer, and politician. He entered the Senate in 1999 as a Democratic member representing New York, and by 2001 had become the state's senior senator. From that foundation, he rose steadily through the leadership structure of his party's caucus.
Schumer has led the Senate Democratic Caucus since 2017, a period during which he has occupied both minority and majority roles depending on the balance of power in the chamber. He served as Senate minority leader from 2017 to 2021, then as Senate majority leader from 2021 to 2025, before returning to the minority leader position in 2025. Alongside his Senate duties, he holds the distinction of being the dean of New York's congressional delegation. He has also received the Order of Merit, 1st class, and was included among the Time 100.
His 2022 reelection secured a fifth Senate term and formally cemented his place beyond the records previously held by Moynihan and Javits. The Library of Congress authorizes his name as "Schumer, Charles E.," a cataloguing detail that marks the breadth of his documented public record. As of 2025, he continues to serve as Senate minority leader, occupying a leadership role in the Democratic caucus that he has held, in one form or another, for nearly a decade.
Quotes by Charles Schumer
Charles Schumer's insights on:
The companies move labor to the lowest-cost markets. And so I don’t – I used to support these agreements. In the Congress, I lost the AFL-CIO endorsement a few years because I supported them. But when middle class incomes are declining, these agreements don’t work well for America.
Obviously, there are conservatives who are in the mainstream and conservatives who would take people’s rights away.
Ideological warriors whether from the Left or the Right are bad news for the bench. They tend to make law, not interpret law. And that’s not what any of us should want from our judges.
But these days there are a lot of younger people who would like to go into teaching but don’t because the economic opportunities are sometimes elsewhere.
Unfortunately, the administration’s plan is an ounce of cure for a pound of problems.
We need to make sure middle-class people are able to pay the bills. We need to make sure that poor people don’t starve. Those are values, too.
You can set up whatever negotiations or structure you want, but until the Palestinians are willing to accept the fact, as the majority of Israelis do, that there should be two states between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, we won’t have peace.
So I want my kids to go to public schools because I think it’s a better education overall.