Roy Blunt Biography | Roy Blunt | Senator Roy Blunt
Roy Blunt(full name: Roy Dean Blunt) is an American politician who is the senior United States Senator from Missouri, serving since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a member of the United States House of Representatives and as Missouri Secretary of State.
Born in Niangua, Missouri, Blunt is a graduate of Southwest Baptist University and Missouri State University. After serving as Missouri Secretary of State from 1985 to 1993, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for Missouri’s 7th Congressional District in 1996. There he served as Republican Whip from 2003 to 2009.
Blunt successfully ran for United States Senate in 2010. The following year, he was elected vice-chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. He is the dean of Missouri’s Congressional delegation and was elected to serve as Policy Committee chairman in November 2018.
Blunt was born in Niangua, Missouri, the son of Neva Dora (nėe Letterman) and Leroy Blunt, a politician. He earned a B.A. degree in history in 1970 from Southwest Baptist University.
During his time in college, he received three draft deferments from the Vietnam War. Two years later, he earned a master’s degree in history from Missouri State University (then Southwest Missouri State University).
Blunt was a high school history teacher at Marshfield High School from 1970 to 1972 and later taught at Southwest Baptist University and as a member of the adjunct faculty at Drury University.
He went on to serve as president of Southwest Baptist University, his alma mater, from 1993-96.
Roy Blunt Age
Roy Dean Blunt is an American politician who is the senior United States Senator from Missouri, serving since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a member of the United States House of Representatives and as Missouri Secretary of State.
Blunt is 69 years old as of 2019. He was born on 10 January 1950, in Niangua, Missouri, United States
Roy Blunt Family and personal life
Blunt has been married twice. He married Roseann Ray on May 1967 and had three children with her: Matt, the former governor of Missouri, Amy Blunt Mosby and Andrew Blunt. All three children are corporate lobbyists.
He married Abigail Perlman, a lobbyist for Kraft Foods, in 2003. In April 2006, he and Perlman adopted an 18-month-old boy from Russia. The family lives in Washington D.C. Blunt owns a condominium in Springfield, Missouri. Roy Blunt has six grandchildren. He is a practicing Southern Baptist.
Roy Blunt Political positions
Agriculture
In 2013, he worked with Monsanto to author a rider called the Farmer Assurance Provision, which was added into the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013. The rider’s language originated in an agriculture spending bill in the U.S. House.
Since 2014, he has been the largest recipient of campaign contributions from Monsanto, which is headquartered in Missouri.
According to progressive news magazine The Nation, the rider “curtailed already weak oversight over the handful of agro-giants that control the GMO market by allowing crops that a judge ruled were not properly approved to continue to be planted.”
According to Blunt, who did not add the rider to the bill but who supported it, “What it says is if you plant a crop that is legal to plant when you plant it, you get to harvest it”. He later led Senate Republicans in defeating an amendment by Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley to repeal the provision.
Blunt claimed all the amendment did ” repeated authority that the secretary in a hearing the other day, before the Agri Approp committee the other day, said he already had. And it didn’t require the secretary to do anything that the secretary thought was the wrong thing to do. Which is one of the reasons I thought it was fine…”
Economic policy
He has been opposed to raising the federal minimum wage.
On June 20, 2013, Blunt co-sponsored the Death Tax Repeal Act of 2013. The bill was intended to permanently eliminate the federal estate tax and it did not pass.
On January 17, 2014, Blunt introduced a bill called the Partnership to Build America Act. If signed into law, the bill would create a special fund to pay for infrastructure projects across the United States, according to Ripon Advance.
Energy and environment
According to The Guardian, Blunt has acknowledged that climate change exists, however, he said that the human role in it is “unclear”.
In 2015, he voted against a nonbinding Senate resolution stating that “climate change is real and caused by human activity and that Congress needs to take action to cut carbon pollution.”
According to The Springfield News-Leader, “Blunt has railed against the Obama administration’s proposed rules to combat global warming, which could deal a blow to Missouri’s coal-fired power plants.”
In 2015, Blunt sponsored an unsuccessful amendment which “called on the Senate to nullify a climate change agreement in November between the United States and China in which both nations pledged to reduce their carbon emissions.”
He has worked to protect the coal industry and co-sponsored an amendment to urge President Obama to consult with the Senate before ratifying the Paris climate agreements.
In 2017, Blunt was one of 22 senators to sign a letter to President Donald Trump urging the President to have the United States withdraw from the Paris Agreement. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Blunt has received over $400,000 from the oil and gas industry since 2012.
In 2016, he worked to block a carbon tax on emissions. He supports the expanded domestic exploration for coal and natural gas. Citing his support for agriculture and energy production, Blunt “has aggressively pushed to block a rule that would allow the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate some streams, wetlands and other waters.”
Foreign policy
In 2011, Blunt called for a no-fly zone over Libya.
In 2018, Blunt rejected the CIA’s “high confidence” assessment that Saudi prince Mohammed bin-Salman ordered the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent critic of the Saudi regime. Blunt said, “we don’t quite have all the information we’d like to have yet.”
Gun policy
He has an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA) for his continued support of the 2nd amendment. The NRA has donated $4,551,146 to his political activities as of 2017.
In April 2013, Blunt was one of forty-six senators to vote against the passing of a bill which would have expanded background checks for all gun buyers. Blunt voted with 40 Republicans and 5 Democrats to stop the bill, which failed to pass.
One month after the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting, Blunt voted for two Republican-sponsored bills. The first was proposed by John Cornyn and would have enabled a 72-hour waiting period for federal authorities to investigate individuals seeking to buy guns who are listed on the terrorist watch list.
The second bill, proposed by Chuck Grassley, would have expanded background checks and made it illegal for individuals with certain mental health disorders to purchase guns. Neither bill passed.
Blunt voted against two Democrat-sponsored bills, both which also did not pass, including one that would have made background checks required for online gun sales and gun sales at gun shows and another that would have not allowed anyone on the terrorist watchlist to purchase a gun.
In response to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, Blunt stated that he was “saddened by the tragic loss of life” and offered his thoughts to the victims.
Health policy
The Wall Street Journal reported on February 2011 that “Blunt introduced an amendment to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that would allow an employer to deny health services if they conflict with their ‘religious beliefs or moral convictions’.”
He said of the amendment, ” as it an overreach when Mrs. Clinton put it in the Clinton health care plan in 1994? I don’t think it’s an overreach at all. It doesn’t mention any specific procedure. It doesn’t even suggest the mandate should be eliminated.”
In 2012, he proposed the “Blunt Amendment,” which would have amended the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) provision that requires all insurance plans to cover the birth control pill to allow moral and religious objectors to opt-out of birth control coverage. The amendment was ultimately defeated.
In July 2013, Blunt indicated that he would not support efforts to tie raising the federal debt ceiling to defund Obamacare. In an interview on MSNBC, he expressed his opinion that Obamacare is “destined to fail”, but that raising the debt ceiling shouldn’t be “held hostage” to “any specific thing”.
In 2016, Senators Blunt and Patty Murray (D-WA) co-sponsored a successful $2 billion funding increase for the National Institutes of Health, the first such research increase in over a decade.
National security
He supported President Donald Trump’s 2017 executive order to temporarily curtail Muslim immigration until better screening methods are devised. He stated ” Trump is doing what he told the American people he would do.
I would not support a travel ban on Muslims; I do support increased vetting on people applying to travel from countries with extensive terrorist ties or activity. These seven countries meet that standard. Our top priority should be to keep Americans safe.”
Social Security and Medicare
Blunt has argued for the need to reduce fraud and waste in Medicare and Social Security. He has spoken out for the need to reform entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security.
Trade
He has been a supporter of free-trade agreements. The Springfield News-Leader wrote: ” Blunt has supported a spate of free-trade agreements during his nearly 20 years in Congress, including a U.S-Singapore deal in 2003, the Central American Free Trade agreement in 2005 and the U.S-Korea agreement in 2011.” After early enthusiasm, Blunt has been ambivalent about supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Roy Blunt Wife
Roy has been married twice until now. Currently, he is in a marital relationship with his second wife, Abigail Perlman Blunt. The couple got married on October 18, 2003.
Abigail works as a lobbyist for the company, “Kraft Foods”. As of now, the married couple lives in Washington D.C. They don’t have any biological child together. Instead, they adopted an 18-month old Russian child in 2006. His name is Charlie Blunt.
Before this marriage, he was married to Roseann Ray. The marriage ceremony took place on May 1967. They shared a long 3 and a half-decade of marriage. But after 35 years of marriage, things stopped working out. As a result, they got divorced. During their time together, they had three children. They are Matt, Amy, and Andrew. All of them work as a lobbyist as of now.
Body Measurement
Roy still has maintained his body in his 60’s. The details about his body measurements including height and the weight are not available as of now.
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Roy Blunt Net Worth, Salary
Roy started his political career in 1973. Previously, he worked as a University President at Missouri State University and a teacher. In the initial phase of his political career, he worked as a county clerk and chief election official of Greene County, Missouri. Afterward, he worked as the secretary of the state from January 8, 1985, to January 8, 1993.
Then he won general election multiple times to become the member of U.S. House of Representative. He served as the member from January 3, 1997, to January 3, 2011. Until now, he has worked hard to improve several policies like Health, Gun, Minimum Wage, and other social issues.
Furthermore, he is serving as the Senator of U.S. from Missouri since 2011. Presently, he holds the position of Junior Senator.
He earns a pretty average salary as he is a government worker. Similarly, he has accumulated some net worth. According to some sources, it is estimated at around $4.6 million.
Previous Offices
Representative, MO 7th District
1997–2011
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