Richard Joseph Durbin (born November 21, 1944) is an American politician and attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Illinois, a seat he has held since 1997. A member of the Democratic Party, Durbin is in his fifth Senate term and has served since 2005 as the Senate Democratic Whip (the second-highest position in Democratic leadership in the Senate) and since 2025 as the Senate minority whip. He is the longest-serving Democratic whip since the position was established in 1913.
Durbin was born in East St. Louis, Illinois. After graduating from the School of Foreign Service and Georgetown University Law Center, he worked in state legal counsel throughout the 1970s. Durbin made an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor of Illinois in 1978, and later maintained a private law practice and co-owned a pub in Springfield. Durbin was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, representing the Springfield-based 20th congressional district.
After serving seven House terms, Durbin was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1996, and reelected in 2002, 2008, 2014, and 2020. He has served as the Senate Democratic whip since 2005—under Harry Reid until 2017, and under Chuck Schumer since 2017. During that time, he had two periods as Senate majority whip (from 2007 to 2015 and from 2021 to 2025), and three as minority whip (from 2005 to 2007, from 2015 to 2021, and since 2025). He became the oldest serving Democratic senator upon the death of Dianne Feinstein in 2023. As of 2024, Durbin is the longest-serving Senate party whip in U.S. history.
Durbin chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee from 2021 to 2025. He also led the Ketanji Brown Jackson Supreme Court nomination hearings and is the dean of Illinois's congressional delegation. On April 23, 2025, he announced that he would not seek reelection in 2026.
Early life and education Richard Joseph Durbin was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, on November 21, 1944, to an Irish-American father, William Durbin, and a Lithuanian-born mother, Anna (née Kutkin; Lithuanian: Ona Kutkaitė). He graduated from Assumption High School in East St. Louis in 1962. During his high school years he worked at a meatpacking plant. He earned a B.S. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1966. Durbin interned in Senator Paul Douglas's office during his senior year in college, and worked on Douglas's unsuccessful 1966 reelection campaign. Durbin adopted the nickname "Dick", which he had not previously used, after Douglas called him by that name.
Durbin earned his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1969 and was admitted to the Illinois bar later that year.
Early political career After graduating from law school, Durbin started a law practice in Springfield. He was legal counsel to Lieutenant Governor Paul Simon from 1969 to 1972, and then legal counsel to the Illinois State Senate Judiciary Committee from 1972 to 1982. Durbin was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the Illinois State Senate in 1976. From 1976 to 1981 he co-owned the Crow's Mill Pub in Springfield's Toronto neighborhood, which he later called a "crash course" in running a business. He ran for lieutenant governor in 1978 as the running mate of Illinois Comptroller Michael Bakalis. They were defeated by Republican incumbents James R. Thompson and Dave O'Neal. Durbin then worked for five years as an adjunct professor of medical law at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine while maintaining his law practice.
U.S. House of Representatives (1983–1997)
In 1982, Durbin won the Democratic nomination for the 20th congressional district, which included Decatur and most of Springfield. He scored a 1,400-vote victory, defeating 22-year incumbent Republican Paul Findley, a U.S. Navy veteran, whose district lines had been substantially redrawn to remove rural farms and add economically depressed Decatur. This replaced 35% of the voters in Findley's old district and included more Democrats as part of the decennial redistricting. Durbin's campaign emphasized unemployment and financial difficulties facing farmers, and told voters that electing him would send "a message to Washington and to President Reagan that our economic policies are not working." Durbin also benefited from donations by pro-Israel groups, especially AIPAC,The Israel Lobby, p. 157, by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt that opposed Findley's advocacy on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization. In the years before the 1996 Senate election Durbin was reelected to the House six times, rarely facing substantial opposition and winning more than 55% of the vote in each election except 1994.
U.S. Senate (1997–present)
In 1996, Durbin defeated Pat Quinn to become the Democratic nominee to replace the retiring Senator Paul Simon, a longtime friend. He faced Republican State Representative Al Salvi in the general election. Although the election had been expected to be competitive, Durbin benefited from Bill Clinton's 18-point win in Illinois that year and defeated Salvi by 15 points. He was reelected in 2002, 2008, 2014, and 2020, each time by at least 10 points.
119th United States Congress Committee assignments Source: Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee on Appropriations Committee on the Judiciary (Ranking Member)
Caucus memberships Bi-Cameral High-Speed & Intercity Passenger Rail Caucus Caucus on International Narcotics Control (co-chair) International Conservation Caucus Senate Diabetes Caucus Senate Hunger Caucus (co-chair) Senate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education Caucus (co-chair) Senate Taiwan Caucus Sportsmen's Caucus Congressional COPD Caucus (co-chair) Senate Ukraine Caucus (co-chair) Afterschool Caucuses Congressional NextGen 9-1-1 Caucus Congressional Coalition on Adoption
Leadership
In November 1998, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle appointed Durbin Assistant Democratic Whip. After the 2004 election, Durbin became the Democratic Whip in the 109th Congress. He became the first senator from Illinois to serve as a Senate Whip since Everett Dirksen in the late 1950s, and the fifth to serve in Senate leadership. Durbin served as assistant minority leader from 2005 to 2007, when the Democrats became the majority party in the Senate. He then assumed the role of assistant majority leader, or majority whip.
In addition to his caucus duties, Durbin chairs the Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government.
In 2000, Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore reportedly considered asking Durbin to be his running mate for Vice President of the United States. Gore ultimately chose Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman.
When Majority Leader Harry Reid faced a difficult reelection fight in 2010, some pundits predicted a possibly heated fight to succeed him between Durbin and Senator Chuck Schumer, who is well known for his fund-raising prowess. Reid's reelection rendered such speculation moot. Upon Reid's retirement announcement in 2015, Durbin, Reid, and Schumer were aligned in elevating Schumer to party leader and Durbin to retain the Whip position.
In 2021, Durbin became Senate Majority Whip again for the 117th Congress, as well as becoming chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is the first time that the whip of either party has served as chair of this committee.
Political positions
In 2006, the National Journal rated Durbin as the most liberal U.S. senator. According to the 2019 GovTrack report card, he had the 10th-most left-leaning voting record in the Senate. The American Conservative Union gave him a 5% lifetime conservative rating in 2020.
Social issues
Abortion During his first term in Congress, Durbin supported upholding existing restrictions on abortion and imposing new limitations, including a constitutional amendment that would have nullified Roe v. Wade. Beginning in his second Senate term, he reversed his position and has since voted to maintain access to abortion, including support for Medicaid funding of it, and opposed any limitation he considers a practical or potential encroachment upon Roe. Durbin has maintained that this reversal came about due to personal reflection and his growing awareness of potentially harmful implications of his previous policy with respect to women facing dangerous pregnancies. He said, "I still oppose abortion and would try my best to convince any woman in my family to carry the baby to term. But I believe that ultimately the decision must be made by the woman, her doctor, her family, and her conscience."
In September 2020, Durbin voted to confirm judges Stephen McGlynn and David W. Dugan, who have criticized Supreme Court rulings such as Roe, to lifetime appointments to the federal judiciary in Illinois. Durbin opposed the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, saying, "millions of Americans are waking up in a country where they have fewer rights than their parents and grandparents."
Criminal justice reform In July 2017, Durbin and Senators Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris introduced the Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act, legislation implementing a ban on the shackling of pregnant women and mandating that the Federal Bureau of Prisons form superior visitation policies for parents and provide parenting classes and health products such as tampons and pads. The bill also restricted prison employees from entering restrooms of the opposite sex except in pressing circumstances.
In December 2018, Durbin voted for the First Step Act, legislation aimed at reducing recidivism rates among federal prisoners by expanding job training and other programs in addition to expanding early-release programs and modifying sentencing laws such as mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, "to more equitably punish drug offenders."
Freedom of expression In 2007, as Senate Majority Whip, Durbin said on record, "It's time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine."
In 2010, Durbin cosponsored and passed from committee the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, a bill to combat media piracy by blacklisting websites. Many who oppose the bill argue that it violates First Amendment rights and promotes censorship. The announcement of the bill was followed by a wave of protest from digital rights activists, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, calling it censorship and saying that action could be taken against all users of sites on which only some users are uploading infringing material.
Durbin sponsored the PROTECT IP Act.
Gun control Durbin received an "F" grade from the National Rifle Association (NRA) for his consistent support for gun control. Durbin supports a national assault weapon ban.
Durbin sent Attorney General Jeff Sessions a letter in May 2017 asking for support in expanding the Chicago Police Department's violence prevention programs by expanding access to the Strategic Decision Support Centers and the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network. He also asked the Justice Department to support the Stop Illegal Trafficking in Firearms Act, which would stop illegal state-to-state gun trafficking.
In response to mass shootings, such as the Orlando nightclub shooting and Las Vegas shooting, Durbin has repeatedly called for expanded gun control laws, saying that Congress would be "complicit" in the shooting deaths of people if it did not act.
After the October 2017 Las Vegas shooting, Durbin was one of 24 senators to sign a letter to National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins espousing the view that it was critical that the NIH "dedicate a portion of its resources to the public health consequences of gun violence" at a time when 93 Americans die per day from gun-related fatalities and noted that the Dickey Amendment did not prohibit objective, scientific inquiries into shooting death prevention.