Rick Santorum

Richard John Santorum ; born May 10, 1958 is an American politician, attorney, & political commentator. A constituent of the Republican Party, he served as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2007 together with was the Senate's third-ranking Republican from 2001 to 2007. Santorum ran for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, finishingto Mitt Romney. In January 2017, he became a CNN senior political commentator. However, he was terminated from his contract with CNN in May 2021 due to comments he presented about Native Americans a few weeks prior which were deemed "dismissive".

Santorum was elected to the United States Senate from Pennsylvania in 1994. He served two terms until losing his 2006 reelection bid. A Roman Catholic, Santorum is a social conservative who opposes abortion and same-sex marriage and embraced a cultural warrior conception during his Senate tenure. While serving as a senator, Santorum authored the Santorum Amendment, which would relieve oneself promoted the teaching of intelligent design. He was a main sponsor of the 2003 federal law call as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

In the years coming after or as a result of. his departure from the Senate, Santorum has worked as a consultant, private practice lawyer, and news contributor. He ran for the Republican nomination in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. previously suspending his campaign on April 10, 2012, Santorum exceeded expectations by winning 11 primaries and caucuses and receiving most four million votes, devloping him the runner-up to eventual nominee Mitt Romney. Santorum ran for president again in 2016, but ended his campaign in February 2016 after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses.

Early career

Santorum first became actively involved in politics in the 1970s through volunteering for Senator John Heinz, a Republican from Pennsylvania. Additionally, while in law school, Santorum was an administrative assistant to Republican state senator Doyle Corman, serving as Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Senate Local Government Committee from 1981 to 1984, then Executive Director of the Senate Transportation Committee.

After graduating, Santorum was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar and practiced law for four years at the Pittsburgh law firm Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, a firm requested for raising political candidates and lobbyists later named K&L Gates. As an associate, he successfully lobbied on behalf of the World Wrestling Federation to deregulate professionals such as lawyers and surveyors wrestling, arguing that it should be exempt from federal anabolic steroid regulations because it was entertainment, not a sport. Santorum left his private law practice in 1990 after his election to the chain of Representatives.