Стени Хойер: Биография американского политика

American politician (born 1939)

Steny Hamilton Hoyer (/'//s//t//ɛ//n//i// /'/h//ɔɪ//ər/ STENee HOYər; born June 14, 1939) is an American politician and retired attorney who has served as the U. S. representative for since 1981. He also served as House Majority Leader from 2007 to 2011 and again from 2019 to 2023. Hoyer first attained office through a special election on May 19, 1981. As of 2023, he is in his 22nd House term. His district includes a large swath of rural and suburban territory southeast of Washington, D. C. Hoyer is the dean of the Maryland congressional delegation and the most senior Democrat in the House. From 2003 to 2023, Hoyer was the second ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives behind Nancy Pelosi. He is a two time House majority leader, having served in the post from 2007 to 2011 under Speaker Pelosi. During two periods of Republican House control (2003–2007 and 2011–2019), Hoyer served as House minority whip, both times under Minority Leader Pelosi. Following the 2018 midterm elections in which the Democrats took control of the House, Hoyer was reelected majority leader in 2019 for the 116th Congress; he remained the number two House Democrat behind Speaker Pelosi. He announced on November 17, 2022, that he, along with Pelosi, would not seek a leadership position in the 118th Congress, though he would remain a member of the House.

Hoyer was born in New York City but grew up in Mitchellville, Maryland, the son of Jean (née Baldwin) and Steen Theilgaard Høyer. His father was Danish and a native of Copenhagen; "Steny" is a variant of his father's name, "Steen". His mother was an American with Scottish, German, and English ancestry and a descendant of John Hart, a signer of the US Declaration of Independence. Steny Hoyer graduated from Suitland High School in Suitland, Maryland. In his early college years at the University of Maryland College Park, Hoyer held a 1.9 grade point average. In 1963, Hoyer received his B. A. degree magna cum laude and graduated Omicron Delta Kappa from the University of Maryland, College Park. He was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity.

From 1962 to 1966, Hoyer was a member of the staff of U. S. Senator Daniel Brewster; also on Brewster's staff at that time was Nancy Pelosi. In 1966, Hoyer won a newly created seat in the Maryland State Senate, representing Prince George's County–based Senate district 4C. The district, created in the aftermath of Reynolds v. Sims, was renumbered as the 26th in 1975, the same year that Hoyer was elected president of the Maryland State Senate, the youngest in state history. From 1969 to 1971, Hoyer served as the first vice president of the Young Democrats of America. In 1978, Hoyer sought the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor of Maryland as the running mate of then acting Governor Blair Lee III, but lost to Samuel Bogley, 37%–34%. The same year, Hoyer was appointed to the Maryland Board of Higher Education, a position he held until 1981. Audrey Scott, in the May 19 special election. 56%–44%, earning himself the nickname "boy wonder". In the 1982 general election, Hoyer was reelected to a full term with 80% of the vote. He has faced only one relatively close contest since then, when he defeated future Governor of Maryland Larry Hogan with 53% of the vote in 1992. His second lowest margin of victory was his 1996 race against Republican State Delegate John Morgan, when he received 57% of the vote. Hoyer has been reelected 14 times with no substantive opposition and is the longest serving House member ever from Maryland. Hoyer is pro choice on abortion rights. He voted against the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003. (However, at the height of national polarization after the Supreme Court's intention to overturn Roe v. Wade leaked, Hoyer controversially endorsed a pro life incumbent House member over his pro choice primary challenger.) Hoyer supports affirmative action and LGBT rights. He is rated "F" by the NRA Political Victory Fund, indicating that he tends to vote in favor of gun control. In 2008, Hoyer said he opposed providing immunity to telecom companies, but then negotiated a bill, which Senators Patrick Leahy and Russ Feingold called a "capitulation", that would provide immunity to any telecom company that had been told by the George W. Bush administration that its actions were legal. "No matter how they spin it, this is still immunity", said Kevin Bankston, a senior lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy rights group that sued over Bush's wiretapping program. "It's not compromise, it's pure theater." In June 2010, Hoyer brought up the idea that Congress could temporarily extend middle class tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year, suggesting that making them permanent would cost too much. President Obama wanted to extend them permanently for people making less than $200,000 a year and families making less than $250,000. Hoyer voted against the impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1999. In 2019 and 2021, Hoyer voted to impeach President Donald Trump. In February 2021, Hoyer made a speech in Congress that has been viewed online more than two million times, criticizing a Facebook post by U. S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. The post featured a gun toting Greene next to three members of the "Squad"—Representatives Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib—with the caption "Democrats' Worst Nightmare". In his speech, Hoyer compared Greene's words with those of Representative Steve King, who was removed from the Judiciary and Agriculture Committees in 2019 after comments he made to The New York Times questioning why white supremacy was considered offensive. Hoyer said that, in both posts, Greene had promoted baseless conspiracy theories far more offensive and incendiary than the comment that led Republicans to strip King of his committee roles. He asked his colleagues on both sides of the aisle to "do the decent thing" and strip Greene of her committee roles. The vote succeeded, with 11 Republicans joining Democrats to pass the motion to remove.

Hoyer supports civilian nuclear cooperation with India. Hoyer initially supported the Iraq War and was recognized by the DLC for his vocal leadership on this issue. After the war became publicly unpopular, he said he favored a "responsible redeployment". But he repeatedly supported legislation to continue funding the war without deadlines for troop withdrawal, most recently in return for increased funding of domestic projects. Hoyer is a supporter of Israel, and has often been allied with American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In September 2007, he criticized Representative Jim Moran for suggesting that AIPAC "has pushed [the Iraq] war from the beginning", calling the comment "factually inaccurate". In January 2017, he voted for a House resolution condemning UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which called Israeli settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories a flagrant violation of international law and a major obstacle to peace. Hoyer supported President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. In 2023, he voted with an overwhelming bipartisan majority to provide Israel with whatever support is necessary in the "barbaric war" in Gaza started by Hamas and other terrorists following the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. Hoyer has said that a nuclear Iran is "unacceptable" and that the use of force remains an option. In January 2019, Hoyer opposed Trump's planned withdrawal of U. S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan as "impulsive, irresponsible, and dangerous". He supports former President Obama's call for authorizing limited but decisive military action in response to the Assad regime's alleged use of chemical weapons. Hoyer is a former chair of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

On February 28, 2014, Hoyer introduced the bill to amend the National Law Enforcement Museum Act to extend the termination date (H. R. 4120; 113th Congress). The bill would extend until November 9, 2016, the authority of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a nonprofit organization, to construct a museum on federal lands in the District of Columbia honoring law enforcement officers.

Hoyer is a prolific fundraiser for House Democrats. He has been the top giver to fellow party members in the House. In the 2008 election cycle, he contributed more than $1 million to the party and individual candidates as of July 14, 2008.

Hoyer has three daughters from his marriage to Judy Pickett Hoyer, who died of cancer in February 1997. A widower for 26 years, Hoyer married Elaine Kamarck, a Clinton administration official and the director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution, in June 2023. Judy Hoyer was an advocate of early childhood education, and child development learning centers in Maryland have been named in her honor ("Judy Centers"). She also suffered from epilepsy, and the Epilepsy Foundation of America sponsors an annual public lecture in her name. Steny Hoyer, too, has been an advocate for research in this area, and in 2002 the Epilepsy Foundation gave him its Congressional Leadership Award. Hoyer serves on the board of trustees for St. Mary's College of Maryland He is also an Advisory Board Member for the Center for the Study of Democracy. Hoyer is a member of a Baptist church.