About the Bipartisan Policy Center

The Bipartisan Policy Center was established in 2007 to provide a forum for national dialog across party lines. An incubator for solutions to the tough national challenges of our time, the center engages top political figures, issues advocates, academics and business leaders in discourse to develop constructive, pragmatic, politically viable policies.

Four former Senate majority leaders joined together to establish the nonprofit organization and serve as its first advisory board: Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and George Mitchell. Issues undertaken by the center include health care, energy, agriculture, transportation, national security and global warming.

For more information about the Bipartisan Policy Center, go to its Web site, www.bipartisanpolicy.org

Biographies of Advisory Board members

Howard H. Baker, Jr., Tennessee's first popularly elected Republican senator, served three terms in the U.S. Senate (1967-1985).

     In 1973 Senator Baker gained national recognition as vice chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee. Three years later, he was keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention and was a 1980 candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. He concluded his Senate career in 1985 after two terms as Majority Leader (1981 to 1985) and two terms as Minority Leader (1977 to 1981). From February 1987 to July 1988 he served as President Reagan's Chief of Staff.

     A delegate to the United Nations in 1976, Senator Baker has extensive foreign policy experience. He served on the President's Foreign Intelligence Board from 1985 to 1987 and from 1988 to 1990 and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs. He serves on the board of the Forum of International Policy and is an international counselor for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

     Among his many awards are the 1984 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, and the Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service Performed by an Elected or Appointed Official, which he received in 1982.

     In 2001 President George W. Bush appointed him as U.S. Ambassador to Japan.

Tom Daschle was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Upon graduating from South Dakota State University in 1969, he entered the United States Air Force, where he served as an intelligence officer in the Strategic Air Command until mid-1972.

     In 1978, after serving on the staff of Sen. James Abourezk, Daschle was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He is one of the first members of Congress to serve in a Democratic leadership position, Regional Whip, during his first term of office.

     Following eight years in the House of Representatives, Daschle was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986. Two years later he became the first co-chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee and the first South Dakotan elected to a leadership position in the U.S. Congress. In 1994, Senator Daschle was elected by his colleagues as their Democratic Leader; only Lyndon Johnson served fewer years in the Senate before being elected to the position. Senator Daschle is one of the longest-serving Senate Democratic Leaders in history and the only one to serve twice as both Majority and Minority Leader. During his tenure as Leader, Senator Daschle co-managed the impeachment trial of a U.S. president, only the second such trial in history, and led the Senate response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the anthrax attack on his office one month later.

     Today, Daschle is an adviser to the law firm of Alston and Bird, where he provides strategic advice on public policy issues such as climate change, energy, health care, trade, financial services and telecommunications. He is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for American Progress, a visiting professor at Georgetown University and a public speaker.

     In 2007, he joined with former Majority Leaders George Mitchell, Bob Dole, and Howard Baker to create the Bipartisan Policy Center. He also is co-chair, along with former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, of the ONE Vote '08 Campaign, aggressively and successfully addressing health and poverty in the developing world.

     Senator Daschle serves on the advisory boards of Intermedia Partners and BP Energy. He serves on the boards of CB Richard Ellis, Mascoma Corporation, Prime BioSolutions, The Freedom Forum, the Mayo Clinic, the Center for American Progress, the LBJ Foundation and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. He is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations. He has published articles in numerous newspapers and periodicals, is the author of the book Like No Other Time and holds a number of honorary doctorate degrees.

Bob Dole, renowned as a statesman, was elected to Congress from his home state of Kansas in 1960 and to the U.S. Senate in 1968. He gained national prominence as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1971 to 1972. In 1976, President Gerald Ford tapped him to be his vice presidential running mate. Elected Senate Majority Leader in 1984, Senator Dole set a record as the nation’s longest-serving Republican leader. He resigned from the Senate in 1996 to pursue his campaign for president of the United States.

     Senator Dole served as national chairman of the World War II Memorial Campaign from 1997 to 2004 and was chairman of the International Commission on Missing Persons in the former Yugoslavia. Following September 11, he joined former President Bill Clinton in helping to raise over $120 million as co-chair of the Families of Freedom Scholarship Fund, which enables families of victims to attend a college or trade school of their choice. Senator Dole also served as president of the influential Federal City Council in Washington, D.C., and is honorary co-chair of the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation, a part of the U.S.A. Freedom Corps.

     In 2004, Dole received the Golden Medal of Freedom from the president of Kosovo in recognition of Dole’s role in the protection of freedom, independence and democracy of Kosovo, as well as for the promotion of a special friendship between Kosovo and the United States. In 1997, Senator Dole received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, awarded by the president to persons deemed to have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interest of the United States, to world peace, to culture or to other significant endeavors, public or private. Other celebrated honors that Dole has received include the American Legion's prestigious Distinguished Service Medal, the Horatio Alger Award from The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, the U.S. Defense Department’s Distinguished Public Service Award, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Teddy Roosevelt Award.

     Senator Dole’s record of public service includes numerous distinguished appointments, including adviser, U.S. Delegation to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 1965, 1968, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1979; member, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 1977; member, National Commission on Social Security Reform, 1983; member, U.S. National Commission for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, 1970, 1973; adviser, U.S. Delegation to Study the Arab Refugee Problem, 1967; and adviser, President's Delegation to Study the Food Crisis in India, 1966.

     Senator Dole served as chairman of the board of The Dole Foundation, which he established in 1983 to advance educational and workforce opportunities for the disabled. Recently the United Negro College Fund established the Robert Dole Scholarship Fund for Disabled Students in his honor. Additionally, Dole is a major spokesman for men’s health issues, hospice care and Americans with disabilities.

     Dole’s personal history of service includes active duty in World War II, during which he was gravely wounded and for heroic achievement received two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster. Senator Dole attended the University of Kansas, Lawrence, and received an A.B. and LL.B from Washburn Municipal University in 1952. He is admitted to practice law in Kansas.

George J. Mitchell began an illustrious, 14-year career in the U.S. Senate in 1980 when he was appointed to complete the unexpired term of Edmund S. Muskie, who resigned to become secretary of state. In 1988 Mitchell won election by the largest margin in Maine’s history, with 81 percent of the vote. In January 1989, he became Senate Majority Leader and held that position until he left the Senate in 1995.

     During his tenure, Senator Mitchell earned enormous bipartisan respect. It has been said, "There is not a man, woman or child in the Capitol who does not trust George Mitchell." For six consecutive years he was voted "most respected member" of the Senate by a bipartisan group of senior congressional aides.

     While in the Senate, Senator Mitchell served on the Finance, Veterans Affairs, and Environment and Public Works committees. He led the successful 1990 reauthorization of the Clean Air Act, which included new controls on acid rain toxins. He was the author of the first national oil spill prevention and cleanup law. Senator Mitchell led the Senate in passing the nation's first childcare bill and was the principal author of the low-income housing tax credit program. He was instrumental in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, landmark legislation that extended civil rights protections to the disabled, and of a higher-education bill that expanded opportunities for millions of Americans. He was a leader in opening markets to trade and led the Senate in ratifying the North American Free Trade Agreement and creating the World Trade Organization.

    Mitchell has received numerous awards and honors recognizing his service in peace talks. These include the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor the U.S. government can bestow; the Philadelphia Liberty Medal; the Truman Institute Peace Prize; the German (Hesse) Peace Prize; and the United Nations (UNESCO) Peace Prize. Senator Mitchell has received honorary degrees from more than 40 colleges and universities in several countries.