Richard Shelby (born 6 May 1934) was the US Senator from Alabama from 3 January 1987, serving alongside Jeff Sessions. Shelby was a member of the US Republican Party, and he chaired the Senate Banking Committee from 2003 to 2007.
Biography[]
Richard Shelby was born in Birmingham, Alabama on 6 May 1934, and he received an undergraduate degree from the University of Alabama in 1957. Shelby became a lawyer and a city prosecutor in Tuscaloosa, and he was affiliated with the conservative Southern Democrats until 1994. From 1970 to 1978, he served in the State Senate, and he was elected to the federal government as a senator in 1987 alongside Jeff Sessions. In 1994, he switched his allegiance to the US Republican Party after it became the new conservative party in American politics, and he opposed abortion, taxes, and earmarks. From 2003 to 2007, he served as chair of the Senate Banking Committee, a post which he returned to in 2015.