Senator Ben Cardin
Senator Cardin currently serves as Chair or the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee and the U.S. Helsinki Commission. He is a senior member of the Senate Finance, Foreign Relations and Environment and Public Works committees. The interconnectivity of these assignments allows him to promote policies, legislation and programs that help grow our state and national economies and create job opportunities; support small businesses; protect our middle class and most vulnerable citizens; maintain clean air and water; expand opportunities for public transit and energy independence; and promote transparency, good governance and the protection of universal civil and human rights.
Serving as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee during his first four years in the U.S. Senate, Cardin has developed a reputation for seeking a balance between protection of civil liberties and national security. He participated in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for associate justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. He is the lead Senate sponsor of legislation to prohibit racial profiling by all levels of law enforcement, as well as the Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act, which would help rebuild trust between police departments and their community with incentives for voluntary training and oversight. Cardin is the lead author of legislation to prohibit the use of deceptive practices and prevent voter intimidation in federal elections, and to restore the voting rights of returning citizens. He is the author of bipartisan legislation to remove the deadline for ratification of the Equal Right Amendment (ERA), which would finally give women full equality in the United States Constitution.
Committed to ensuring that all Americans have legal representation, Cardin served as chairman of the Maryland Legal Services Corporation from 1988-1995, and led the effort to convert the Interest on Lawyer Trust Account (IOLTA) program from voluntary to mandatory, which is now a major sources of funds for IOLTA. He worked with the Maryland bar to boost pro bono service of Maryland attorneys for those who could not afford legal assistance, including through the Cardin Requirement for law students at the University of Maryland Francis Key Carey School of Law.
Cardin is the author of the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act. This new law ensures that the U.S. government has a full range of tools to help prevent mass atrocities against civilians. He also is the author of the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act and the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which have transformed how the U.S. deals with gross violators of human rights.
From 1987-2006, Ben Cardin represented Maryland's Third Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He served in the Maryland House of Delegates from 1967-1986, including Speaker from 1979-1986.