Mitch McConnell
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Addison Mitchell McConnell III ( mə-KON-əl; born February 20, 1942) is an American politician and attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Kentucky, a seat he has held since 1985. McConnell is in his seventh Senate term and is the longest-serving senator in Kentucky history. He served from 2007 to 2025 as the leader of the Senate Republican Conference, including two stints as minority leader (2007 to 2015 and 2021 to 2025), and was majority leader from 2015 to 2021, making him the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history. McConnell holds conservative political positions, although he was known as a pragmatist and a moderate Republican early in his political career. He led opposition to stricter campaign finance laws, culminating in the U.S. Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. FEC, which partially overturned the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold) in 2010. McConnell worked to withhold Republican support for major presidential initiatives during the Obama administration, making frequent use of the filibuster, and blocked many of President Barack Obama's judicial nominees, including Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. During the first Trump administration, the Senate Republican majority under McConnell's leadership passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act in 2018, the First Step Act, and the Great American Outdoors Act, and confirmed a record number of federal appeals court judges during a president's first two years. McConnell invoked the nuclear option to eliminate the 60-vote requirement to end a filibuster for Supreme Court nominations, after his predecessor Harry Reid had eliminated the filibuster for all other presidential nominations; Trump subsequently won Supreme Court confirmation battles over Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. While supportive of most of Trump's domestic and foreign policies, McConnell criticized Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and despite voting to acquit in Trump's second impeachment trial for reasons related to the constitutionality of impeaching a former president, deemed him "practically and morally responsible" for the January 6 United States Capitol attack. In late 2024, McConnell wrote an essay on his current view of American power and the foreign policy mistakes of former presidents. In 2015, 2019 and 2023, Time listed McConnell as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. On February 28, 2024, McConnell announced that he would step down as the Senate Republican Conference Leader in January 2025, but would serve the remainder of his Senate term. An internal election to fill the post of Senate Republican Leader was held on November 13, in which South Dakota senator John Thune was selected. On February 20, 2025, McConnell announced he would not run for an eighth Senate term in 2026 and would retire from politics. This came after increasing concerns about his health and ability to continue serving.