Chuck Schumer

Schumer was born on November 23, 1950, in Midwood, Brooklyn, the son of Selma (née Rosen) and Abraham Schumer. His father ran an exterminating business, and his mother was a homemaker. He and his family are Jewish, and he is a second cousin, once removed, of comedian Amy Schumer. His ancestors originated from the town of Chortkiv, Galicia, in what is now western Ukraine.

Schumer attended Brooklyn public schools, scoring 1600 on the SAT and graduating as the valedictorian of James Madison High School in 1967. He competed for Madison High on the television quiz show It's Academic. He attended Harvard College, where he originally majored in chemistry before switching to social studies after volunteering on Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign in 1968. After graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1971, Schumer attended Harvard Law School, earning his Juris Doctor with honors in 1974. He passed the New York state bar exam in early 1975, but never practiced law, opting rather for a career in politics.

In 1974, Schumer ran for and was elected to the New York State Assembly, filling a seat previously held by Schumer's mentor, U.S. representative Stephen Solarz. Schumer served three terms, from 1975 to 1981, sitting in the 181st, 182nd and 183rd New York State Legislatures.

In 1980, 16th district U.S. representative Elizabeth Holtzman won the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat of Republican Jacob Javits. Schumer ran for Holtzman's vacated House seat and won. He was reelected eight times from the Brooklyn and Queens-based district, which changed numbers twice in his tenure (it was numbered the 16th from 1981 to 1983, the 10th from 1983 to 1993, and the 9th from 1993). In 1982, as a result of redistricting, Schumer faced a potential matchup with Solarz, but the matchup did not materialize. In preparation, Schumer "set about making friends on Wall Street, tapping the city's top law firms and securities houses for campaign donations. 'I told them I looked like I had a very difficult reapportionment fight. If I were to stand a chance of being re-elected, I needed some help,' he would later tell the Associated Press."

Schumer introduced the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (also known as RFRA) on March 11, 1993.

As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Schumer was one of four members of Congress who oversaw the House investigation (leading the Democratic party's defense of the Clinton administration), of the Waco siege hearings in 1995.

In 1998, Schumer ran for the Senate. He won the Democratic primary with 51% of the vote against Geraldine Ferraro (21%) and Mark Green (19%). He received 54% of the vote in the general election, defeating three-term incumbent Republican Al D'Amato (44%).

In 2004, Schumer was reelected with 71% of the vote, defeating the Republican nominee, Assemblyman Howard Mills of Middletown, and conservative Marilyn F. O'Grady. Many New York Republicans were dismayed by the selection of Mills over the conservative Michael Benjamin, who held significant advantages over Mills in both fundraising and organization. Benjamin publicly accused GOP chairman Sandy Treadwell and governor George Pataki of trying to muscle him out of the Senate race and undermine the democratic process. Schumer defeated Mills by 2.8 million votes. He won every county in the state except Hamilton County, in the Adirondacks, the least populous and most Republican county. Mills conceded defeat minutes after the polls closed, before returns had come in.

An April 2009 SurveyUSA poll placed Schumer's approval rating at 62%, with 31% disapproving.

Notable former aides to Schumer include former U.S. representative Anthony Weiner, former New York state senator Daniel Squadron, and New York state assemblymembers Phil Goldfeder and Victor M. Pichardo.

Before the 2016 United States presidential election, Schumer said, "For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia. And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin." This assertion was criticized by left-wing and conservative voices.

After the 2016 election, Schumer said the Democrats lost because they lacked "a strong, bold economic message" and he called on Democrats to push for reforms in the affordability of college and trade laws.

The Senate Democratic Caucus elected Schumer minority leader in November 2016. Schumer had been widely expected to lead Senate Democrats after Reid announced his retirement in 2015. He is the first New Yorker, as well as the first Jewish person, to serve as a Senate leader. …

Schumer is pro-choice, and has a 100% rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America.

In 2002, Schumer authored a provision to an industry-sponsored bill intended to make it harder for people to erase their debts by filing for bankruptcy. Anti-abortion activists opposed the measure, claiming it restricted their ability to use bankruptcy courts to write off court fines. After the bill appeared to die in May, J. Dennis Hastert spokesman John Feehery opined, "Schumer really was pretty obnoxious about how this provision was going to hurt people who were pro-life and that really got some of our folks ginned up." In response, Schumer said the provision was a compromise with Henry Hyde and other colleagues and it was opposed by people who did not properly read the law.

After Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy retired in 2018, Schumer voiced concern about Trump's choice of replacement, believing they would try to overturn Roe v. Wade.

In March 2019, Schumer was one of 38 senators to sign a letter to U.S. secretary of agriculture Sonny Perdue warning that dairy farmers "have continued to face market instability and are struggling to survive the fourth year of sustained low prices" and urging his department to "strongly encourage these farmers to consider the Dairy Margin Coverage program".

In January 2004, after President Bush renominated Charles Pickering to the federal appeals court along with 30 other nominees who had failed to win confirmation under the previous Democratic-controlled Senate, Schumer stated his intent to prevent Pickering's confirmation and said the US could do better.

In 2007, after Bush nominated former federal judge Michael Mukasey to become attorney general of the United States (replacing Gonzales, who had resigned), Schumer expressed support for Mukasey. Despite appearing troubled by Mukasey's refusal to declare in public that waterboarding was illegal torture, Schumer announced on November 2 that he would vote to confirm Mukasey. He said Mukasey had assured him in a private meeting that he would enforce any law declaring waterboarding illegal, and that Mukasey had told him Bush would have "no legal authority" to ignore such a law.

In April 2018, Schumer said that he would back efforts to decriminalize cannabis at the federal level. …

Schumer and his wife, Iris Weinshall, were married on September 21, 1980. The ceremony took place at Windows on the World atop the north tower of the World Trade Center. Weinshall was New York City's commissioner of transportation from 2000 to 2007. Schumer and Weinshall live in Park Slope near Grand Army Plaza.

The Schumers have two children, Jessica and Alison, both graduates of their father's alma mater, Harvard College. Jessica served as chief of staff and general counsel of the Council of Economic Advisers from May 2013 to August 2015. Alison is a marketing manager in Facebook's New York office. In 2018, Jessica gave birth to a son, making Schumer a grandfather.