Angus King

Angus Stanley King, Jr. (born March 31, 1944) is an American politician and the junior United States Senator from the state of Maine. A political independent, he served as the 72nd Governor of Maine from 1995 to 2003.

King won Maine's 2012 Senate election to replace the retiring Republican Olympia Snowe and took office on January 3, 2013. For committee assignment purposes, he caucuses with the Democratic Party.

Early life, education, and early career

King was born in Alexandria, Virginia, the son of Ellen Archer (née Ticer) and Angus Stanley King, Sr., a lawyer. He has spent most of his adult years in the state of Maine. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1966 and the University of Virginia School of Law in 1969. While a student at Dartmouth, King joined the Delta Upsilon social fraternity.

Soon after graduation from Virginia, King entered private law practice in Brunswick, Maine. He was a staff attorney for Pine Tree Legal Assistance in Skowhegan. In 1972, he served as chief counsel to U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Alcoholism and Narcotics. King served as a Legislative Assistant to Democratic U.S. Senator William Hathaway in the 1970s. He was also well-known statewide as a television host on public television in Maine. In 1973, when he was 29, King was diagnosed with an aggressive form of malignant melanoma during a routine doctor's appointment -- an appointment, King says, he never would have made had he not had health insurance at the time. As a result of the visit and the early detection, King was able to receive treatment, and today, the experience undergirds his support for the Affordable Care Act.

Angus

Angus (Scottish Gaelic: Aonghas) is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland, a registration county and a lieutenancy area. The council area borders Aberdeenshire, Dundee City and Perth and Kinross. Main industries include agriculture and fishing. Global pharmaceuticals company GSK has a significant presence in Montrose in the north of the county.

Angus was historically a county, known officially as Forfarshire from the 18th century until 1928. It remains a registration county and a lieutenancy area. In 1975 its administrative functions were transferred to the council district of the Tayside Region, and in 1995 further reform resulted in the establishment of the unitary Angus Council.

History

Prehistory

The area that now comprises Angus has been occupied since at least the Neolithic period. Material taken from postholes from an enclosure at Douglasmuir, near Friockheim, about five miles north of Arbroath have been radiocarbon dated to around 3500 BC The function of the enclosure is unknown, but may have been for agriculture or for ceremonial purposes.

Jeff Sessions

Jefferson Beauregard "Jeff" Sessions III (born December 24, 1946) is the junior United States Senator from Alabama. First elected in 1997, Sessions is a member of the Republican Party.

From 1981 to 1993 he served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. President Ronald Reagan nominated him to a judgeship on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama in 1986, but he was not confirmed. Sessions was elected to Attorney General of Alabama in 1994. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1996 and easily re-elected in 2002, 2008, and 2014. He and his colleague Richard Shelby are the state's first two-term Republican Senators since Reconstruction.

Sessions was ranked by National Journal in 2007 as the fifth-most conservative U.S. Senator, siding strongly with the Republican Party on political issues. He supported the major legislative efforts of the George W. Bush administration, including the 2001 and 2003 tax cut packages, the Iraq War, and a proposed national amendment to ban same-sex marriage. However, he was one of 25 senators to oppose the establishment of TARP. He has opposed the Democratic leadership since 2007 on most major legislation, including the stimulus bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act. As the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, he opposed both of President Barack Obama's nominees for the Supreme Court.