Rick Santorum

He is the second of the three children of Aldo Santorum (1923–2011), a clinical psychologist who immigrated to the United States at age seven from Riva, Trentino, Italy, and Catherine (Dughi) Santorum (1918–2019), an administrative nurse who was of Italian and Irish ancestry.

Santorum grew up in Berkeley County, West Virginia, and Butler County, Pennsylvania.

In West Virginia, his family lived in an apartment provided by the Veterans Administration.

Santorum attended elementary school at Butler Catholic School and then went on to Butler Senior High School.

He was nicknamed "Rooster", supposedly for both a cowlick strand of hair and an assertive nature, particularly on important political issues.

Richard John Santorum Sr. (born May 10, 1958) is an American politician, attorney, author, and political commentator who represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate from 1995 to 2007.

He was the Senate's third-ranking Republican during the final six years of his tenure.

Santorum first became actively involved in politics in the 1970s through volunteering for Senator John Heinz, a Republican from Pennsylvania.

After his parents transferred to the Naval Station Great Lakes in northern Illinois, Santorum attended the Roman Catholic Carmel High School in Mundelein, Illinois, for one year, graduating in 1976.

Santorum attended Pennsylvania State University for his undergraduate studies, serving as chairman of the university's College Republicans chapter and graduating with a B.A. degree with honors in political science in 1980.

While at Penn State, Santorum joined the Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity.

He then completed a one-year M.B.A. program at the University of Pittsburgh's Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, graduating in 1981.

Additionally, while in law school, Santorum was an administrative assistant to Republican state senator Doyle Corman, serving as Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Senate Local Government Committee from 1981 to 1984, then Executive Director of the Senate Transportation Committee.

After graduating, Santorum was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar and practiced law for four years at the Pittsburgh law firm Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, a firm known for raising political candidates and lobbyists (later named K&L Gates).

As an associate, he successfully lobbied on behalf of the World Wrestling Federation to deregulate professional wrestling, arguing that it should be exempt from federal anabolic steroid regulations because it was entertainment, not a sport.

In 1986, Santorum received a J.D. degree with honors from Dickinson School of Law.

Santorum left his private law practice in 1990 after his election to the House of Representatives.

Having been groomed by Kirkpatrick & Lockhart, Santorum decided Democratic congressman Doug Walgren was vulnerable, and took up residence in Walgren's district.

Needing money and political support, he courted GOP activist and major donor Elsie Hillman, the chair of the state Republican Party.

In 1990, at age 32, Santorum was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives to represent Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district, located in the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh.

He scored a significant upset in the heavily Democratic district, defeating seven-term Democratic incumbent Doug Walgren by a 51%–49% margin.

During his campaign Santorum repeatedly criticized Walgren for living outside the district for most of the year.

Although the 18th District was redrawn for the 1992 elections, and the new district had a 3:1 ratio of registered Democrats to Republicans, Santorum still won reelection with 61% of the vote.

In 1993, Santorum was one of 17 House Republicans who sided with most Democrats to support legislation that prohibited employers from permanently replacing striking employees.

He also joined a minority of Republicans to vote against the North American Free Trade Agreement that year.

As a member of the Gang of Seven, Santorum was involved in exposing members of Congress involved in the House banking scandal.

Santorum was elected to the United States Senate from Pennsylvania in 1994.

Santorum served in the United States Senate representing Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2007.

He was a leading sponsor of the 2003 federal law known as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

In the years following his departure from the Senate, Santorum has worked as a consultant, private practice lawyer, and news contributor.

He served two terms until losing his 2006 reelection bid.

A Roman Catholic, Santorum is a social conservative who opposes abortion and same-sex marriage and embraced a cultural warrior image during his Senate tenure.

While serving as a senator, Santorum authored the Santorum Amendment, which would have promoted the teaching of intelligent design.

He also ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in the 2012 Republican primaries, finishing second to Mitt Romney.

He ran for the Republican nomination in the 2012 U.S. presidential election.

Before suspending his campaign on April 10, 2012, Santorum exceeded expectations by winning 11 primaries and caucuses and receiving nearly four million votes, making him the runner-up to eventual nominee Mitt Romney.

Santorum ran for president again in 2016, but ended his campaign in February 2016 after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses.

In January 2017, he became a CNN senior political commentator.

However, he was terminated from his contract with CNN in May 2021 due to comments he made about Native Americans a few weeks prior which were deemed "dismissive".

Richard John Santorum was born in Winchester, Virginia.