With his election in 2004, Ken Salazar became
the first Hispanic American from Colorado
to serve in the U.S. Senate. A fifth-generation
Coloradan, Salazar crafted a reputation as an independent
voice supporting agricultural and conservation interests
and an advocate for comprehensive immigration reform.
“My view is that U.S. Senators are elected for a six-year
period because we are supposed to exercise our
own independent judgment,” Salazar noted en route to
becoming one of the Senate’s key centrists.1
Kenneth Salazar was born March 2, 1955, in Alamosa,
Colorado, to Henry Salazar and Emma M. Montoya
Salazar.2 He and his seven siblings were raised on the
family ranch in the San Luis Valley, where his ancestors
settled in the 1850s. Salazar grew up poor—his family’s
house was not equipped with electricity until the 1980s—and the foundation for his future was his experience on
the family farm. He graduated from Centauri High School
in Conejos County, Colorado. Raised in a devout Catholic
family, Salazar spent two years in the seminary before
attending Colorado College, graduating in 1977 with a
degree in political science. He went on to earn his law degree
from the University of Michigan in 1981. Salazar met Hope
Hernandez in Denver in 1980. The couple married in 1985
and raised two children, Melinda and Andrea.3
After practicing law in Denver for several years, Salazar
served as chief legal counsel for Colorado Governor
Roy Romer from 1987 to 1990. He then accepted an
appointment to head the state department of natural
resources, where he gained bipartisan acclaim for authoring
the state constitutional amendment creating the Great
Outdoors Colorado program. It was, Salazar said, “the only
tool ever created at state level to help in the preservation
of farmlands, open spaces and river corridors.”4 Funded
through lottery proceeds, the program became one of the
most successful land conservation efforts in the United
States.5 Salazar’s knowledge about and passion for land
issues prompted Senator Ben Campbell of Colorado
to recommend him as head of the federal government’s
Bureau of Land Management, but Salazar declined this
opportunity and returned to private practice in Denver.
On November 3, 1998, Salazar won election as
Colorado’s 36th attorney general, making him the first
Hispanic to win statewide office.6 He established a
Fugitive Prosecutions and Gang Prosecution Unit and an
Environmental Crimes Unit within the attorney general’s
office.7 In the wake of the shooting at Columbine High
School, Salazar joined the governor in organizing a summit
on youth violence and supporting a ballot measure to limit
the sale of firearms at gun shows.8 As in his initial victory,
Salazar was re-elected in 2002 as a centrist candidate who
drew unaffiliated and crossover voters.9
In early 2004, Senator Campbell announced his
intention to retire from the Senate, triggering a scramble
in both parties to produce a nominee. Salazar announced
in March that he planned to run for the open seat.10 After
soundly defeating Colorado Springs educator Mike Miles
in the Democratic primary, with 73 percent of the vote,
Salazar faced Pete Coors, chairman of the Coors Brewing
Company, in the general election.11 The candidates agreed
on the need for investment in renewable energy and
domestic exploration for oil and gas. Both candidates also
supported the PATRIOT Act and gun rights, but Salazar
backed additional privacy protections and a ban on assault
weapons. The candidates differed principally on tax policy.
Salazar proposed allowing federal tax rates to return to
their pre-2001 levels for those earning more than $250,000
a year and supported the inheritance tax for estates worth
more than $10 million. Coors, on the other hand, proposed
making all President George W. Bush’s tax cuts permanent
and further reducing dividend and capital gains taxes.12
Salazar defeated Coors on November 2, 2004, with 51.3
versus 46.5 percent of the vote.13
Salazar and newly elected Senator Mel Martinez of
Florida became the first Hispanics to serve in the U.S.
Senate since 1977. Salazar’s older brother, John, was elected
to the U.S. House of Representatives the same day to
represent a Colorado district, making the Salazar brothers
the second pair of Hispanic brothers to serve simultaneously
in Congress. Ken Salazar consistently resisted attempts to
label him as an advocate for Hispanic issues. “It wasn’t the
Hispanic community that voted me in,” he said. “I have
to work on all the issues that affect the state of Colorado. I
don’t see myself working on a specific Hispanic agenda.”14
Salazar was sworn in as a Member of the 109th Congress
(2005–2007) on January 4, 2005, and received assignments
on the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry; Veterans’ Affairs;
and Energy and Natural Resources Committees. Two
years later, he relinquished his seat on the Veterans’ Affairs
Committee for a spot on the influential Finance Committee.
He also served on the Select Committee on Ethics and on
the Special Committee on Aging.15
Salazar’s self-description as “a moderate Democrat
with an independent streak” was evidenced throughout
his Senate service.16 He was a member of the “Gang of
14,” a group of seven Republicans and seven Democrats
who forged a compromise on judicial nominees. Salazar
also joined several other Senators to filibuster the
reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act on the basis of
civil rights. He voted with Republicans to protect gun
manufacturers from lawsuits, enhance bankruptcy rules,
and confirm Judge John G. Roberts as Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court.17 Salazar’s independent streak gave him
more clout in a Senate that was evenly and sharply divided
along party lines. A seasoned political observer noted,
“The relatively small number of people who are near the
center become significant players. And he’s done that.
He’s now one of the go-to guys.”18
Salazar used his position to weigh in on two of the
day’s most contentious issues: energy development policy
and immigration reform. Based on his earlier work at the
state level and on his experience as a longtime sportsman,
he emerged as one of the Senate’s leading advocates
for balancing energy development with environmental
sustainability. In 2005 he worked with colleagues from
both parties to pull from a defense bill language that would
have authorized drilling for oil and gas in Alaska’s Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). As the debate about
exploration in the ANWR intensified, Salazar pushed
his colleagues to seek long-term solutions to meet energy
needs. “Ultimately, this fight is not about barrels of oil,
it’s about the deeper moral decisions we make as a nation
about how best to address our energy needs,” Salazar said.19
He was a primary cosponsor of the Renewable Fuels,
Consumer Protection, and Energy Efficiency Act of 2007,
which sought to increase America’s use of renewable fuels.
Salazar was also intimately involved in grueling
negotiations in 2006 and 2007 within the Senate and
with President George W. Bush to craft comprehensive
immigration legislation. “Failure on immigration reform
is not an option,” he said.20 The resultant proposal—the
Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006—passed
the Senate in May 2006. The bill featured provisions
for border security and a guest worker program for the
estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the
United States.21 Salazar described the effort, which he
helped advance with leading Democrats like Edward (Ted) Kennedy of Massachusetts and Republicans like
John McCain of Arizona, as one “that dealt with creating
a system of law and order, that would have taken us out
of the lawlessness we currently have in our country with
respect to immigration and have created a comprehensive
system to deal with these major issues of national security,
economic security, and moral values.”22 Ultimately, the
immigration measure did not clear the House, and efforts
to revive it in the following Congress failed.
Salazar was nominated December 17, 2008, to serve
in President Barack Obama’s Cabinet as the nation’s 50th
Secretary of the Interior. He was unanimously confirmed
by the Senate on January 20, 2009.23 “I look forward to
helping build our clean energy economy, modernize our
interstate electrical grid and ensure that we are making wise
use of our conventional natural resources,” he said after his
nomination.24 Salazar worked to reform regulatory agencies,
particularly the Minerals Management Service, after he
took office. He also continued to support the forms of
renewable energy that he had championed as a legislator.25
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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