Charles Ellis Schumer (born November 23, 1950) is an American politician serving as Senate Majority Leader since 2021 and the senior United States senator from New York since 1999. A member of the Democratic Party, he has led the Senate Democratic Caucus since 2017 and was Senate Minority Leader from 2017 to 2021. Schumer is in his fifth Senate term, making him the longest-serving US senator from New York, having surpassed Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jacob K. Javits in 2023. He is the dean of New York’s congressional delegation.
A native of Brooklyn and a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Schumer was a three-term member of the New York State Assembly from 1975 to 1980. He served nine terms in the United States House of Representatives from 1981 to 1999, first representing New York’s 16th congressional district before being redistricted to the 10th congressional district in 1983 and the 9th congressional district 10 years later. In 1998, Schumer was elected to the Senate, defeating three-term Republican incumbent Al D’Amato. He was reelected in 2004 with 71% of the vote, in 2010 with 66% of the vote, in 2016 with 70% of the vote, and in 2022 with 56% of the vote. Schumer chaired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from 2005 to 2009, overseeing 14 Democratic gains in the Senate in the 2006 and 2008 elections. He was the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, behind Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Majority Whip Dick Durbin. He served as Vice Chair of the Democratic Caucus in the Senate from 2007 to 2017 and chaired the Senate Democratic Policy Committee from 2011 to 2017. Schumer won his fourth term in the Senate in 2016 and was then unanimously elected Democratic leader to succeed Reid, who was retiring. In January 2021, Schumer became Senate Majority Leader, becoming the first Jewish Senate majority leader. As majority leader, Schumer shepherded through the Senate some of the Biden administration’s major legislative initiatives, such as the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the CHIPS and Science Act, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and the Respect for Marriage Act. Under his leadership, the Senate confirmed the most federal judges during the first two years of any presidency since John F. Kennedy’s, and the most diverse slate of federal judicial nominations in American history, including Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first African American woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
Charles Schumer Quotes
1. “Anyone who thinks they have a monopoly on truth, and there is only one way to see the world, always gets us into trouble.”
— Charles Schumer
2. “In today’s competitive economy, to stand still is to die.”
— Charles Schumer
3. “Inaction is perhaps the greatest mistake of all.”
— Charles Schumer
4. “If we say the Geneva Convention is obsolete, then what do others who have our soldiers say?”
— Charles Schumer
5. “I think we could be at a tipping point.”
— Charles Schumer
6. “I’d like to see the health care professionals making decisions, not some bureaucrat in Indianapolis working for an insurance company.”
— Charles Schumer
7. “Bigotry has always been the poison of America, and we oughta do everything to eradicate it with no excuses or explanations.”
— Charles Schumer
8. “Candidates With Deeply Held Christian Beliefs Are Unfit and Disqualified From Serving As A Federal Judge.”
— Charles Schumer
9. “When Mitt Romney says he wants to reform the tax code, hold onto your wallets.”
— Charles Schumer
10. “We’re going to hammer guns on the anvil of relentless legislative strategy! We’re going to beat guns into submission!”
— Charles Schumer
11. “When Mitt Romney says he wants to reform the tax code, hold on to your wallets. We know Mitt Romney never met a tax haven he didn’t like. But his new favorite tax haven is actually not the Cayman Islands – its Paul Ryan’s budget.”
— Charles Schumer
12. “All we ask for is registration, just like we do for cars.”
— Charles Schumer
13. “I’m strongly for a patient Bill of Rights. Decisions ought to be made by doctors, not accountants.”
— Charles Schumer
14. “Giving up even an ounce of precious freedom is a very serious thing to do.”
— Charles Schumer
15. “Let me say this, to all of the chattering class that so much focuses on those little tiny, yes, porky amendments – the American people really don’t care.”
— Charles Schumer
16. “In a brave new world, a post-September 11 world, anyone is going to make certain mistakes. The mistakes that have been made on homeland security, on protecting our Nation from another terrorist attack, are mistakes of omission. We are simply not doing enough.”
— Charles Schumer
17. “There are two tests in life, more important than any other test. On Monday morning, when you wake up, do you feel in the pit of your stomach you can’t wait to go to work? And when you’re ready to go home Friday afternoon, do you say, ‘I can’t wait to go home?’”
— Charles Schumer
18. “Soft money will find its way and seep into the political system and corrode it unless we plug every hole.”
— Charles Schumer
19. “Democrats don’t relate to middle-class people.”
— Charles Schumer
20. “I basically believe that until China stops stealing our intellectual property, and until they stop keeping our companies out that do good things, the amount we will gain from export jobs is minimized, and the amount we lose in middle-class incomes is maximized.”
— Charles Schumer
21. “When someone takes a private photo, on a private cell phone, it should remain just that: private.”
— Charles Schumer
22. “We’re here to tell the NRA their nightmare is true…”
— Charles Schumer
23. “Palestinians don’t really believe in a state of Israel. They, unlike a majority of Israelis, who have come to the conclusion that they can live with a two-state solution to be determined by the parties, the majority of Palestinians are still very reluctant, and they need to be pushed to get there.”
— Charles Schumer
24. “Biking through New York’s boroughs in 2005, I thought about some old friends, Joe and Eileen Bailey. Though they are imaginary, I frequently talk to them.”
— Charles Schumer
25. “The greatest problem America faces is the decline of middle-class incomes.”
— Charles Schumer
26. “Arafat was a barrier to peace.”
— Charles Schumer
27. “I think on this issue more than any other we’re going to see sort of a bipartisan longing to get something done, and hopefully you’re not going to find the fisticuffs that you would find on lots of other issues. I think you’ll be able to glean a sense of progress without us revealing the specifics.”
— Charles Schumer
28. “I made education the highest priority of my campaign – actually, education and jobs – and the reason is a simple one: I think the future of America depends on it.”
— Charles Schumer
29. “You do have to change things as warfare changes.”
— Charles Schumer
30. “The export market is based, on high-paying jobs. I’ve seen statistics that show that people make over 88 a year generally benefit from this because these are export jobs.”
— Charles Schumer
31. “I think teaching should be an exalted profession, not a picked-on profession.”
— Charles Schumer
32. “I respect people who feel things passionately. I do. But when someone is a judge, that is not what they should bring to the bench. It is not really passion, except in rare instances, that serves the bench well. It is, rather, an ability to understand the law and follow it.”
— Charles Schumer
33. “A devastating commentary on the war in Iraq is that we have been unable to spend money on infrastructure.”
— Charles Schumer
34. “It is essential that all Americans take the time to honor and remember those individuals who gave their lives in defense of our liberty.”
— Charles Schumer
35. “America is a place where we all come together. It is a place of consensus.”
— Charles Schumer
36. “But I don’t think the Democratic Party is at eye level with the middle class.”
— Charles Schumer
37. “Ideological warriors whether from the Left or the Right are bad news for the bench. They tend to make law, not interpret law. And that’s not what any of us should want from our judges.”
— Charles Schumer
38. “When one has success, the answer is not to undo that success. It is to continue what has been done.”
— Charles Schumer
39. “Well, I think it’s too early to call Fallujah a failure.”
— Charles Schumer
40. “I want to attract the best people into teaching.”
— Charles Schumer
41. “You can set up whatever negotiations or structure you want, but until the Palestinians are willing to accept the fact, as the majority of Israelis do, that there should be two states between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, we won’t have peace.”
— Charles Schumer
42. “As long as the Palestinians send terrorists onto school buses and to nightclubs to blow up people, Israel has no choice but to build the fence.”
— Charles Schumer
43. “The bottom line is very simple. You negotiate on this, they will up the ante for the debt ceiling.”
— Charles Schumer
44. “We need to make sure middle-class people are able to pay the bills. We need to make sure that poor people don’t starve. Those are values, too.”
— Charles Schumer
45. “I went to the public schools myself. And they were great for me.”
— Charles Schumer
46. “So I want my kids to go to public schools because I think it’s a better education overall.”
— Charles Schumer
47. “Unfortunately, the administration’s plan is an ounce of cure for a pound of problems.”
— Charles Schumer
48. “There are many reasons why Mitt Romney should not become president, but perhaps the most important of all is the narrowness of his experience, perspective and vision.”
— Charles Schumer
49. “Do not let arguments of expediency persuade you. That is the slow road to oblivion. That is the tortured path to undoing step by step, bit by bit, as the river creates a canyon, the way of life that we love.”
— Charles Schumer
50. “We tend to talk, Democrats, as a party, in legislative terms.”
— Charles Schumer
