Jeff Bingaman

Jesse Francis " Jeff" Bingaman ( born October 3, 1943 in El Paso, Texas ) is an American politician of the Democratic Party. He represented the state of New Mexico from 1983 to 2013 in the U.S. Senate.

Bingaman completed a bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1968 and then made his degree in law from the Law School of Stanford University. After that, he served as legal advisor to the Constitutional Convention of New Mexico in 1969, before he practiced as a private attorney since 1970. In 1978 he was elected to succeed Toney Anaya to the Attorney General of New Mexico and held that post until 1982.

In the elections to the U.S. Senate in 1982, he won with 53.8 percent of the vote against the incumbent Republican, former astronaut Harrison Schmitt. As a result, it was confirmed four times in his mandate: in 1988 with 63.3 percent of the vote against Bill Valentine, 1994 with 54 per cent against Colin R. McMillan, 2000 with 61.7 percent against William T. Redmond and 2006 with 70.6 percent against Allen McCulloch.

In the Senate, Bingaman was most recently as Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. He also sat on the committees of Finance, the armed forces and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and the Joint Economic Committee. He was among the 23 senators who voted against the authorization of the Iraq war.

In February 2011, Bingaman announced not to run again for the Senate elections in 2012 and thus in January 2013 to withdraw from the Congress. He was succeeded by Martin Heinrich, previously Democrat member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He stood up to the Republican Heather Wilson.