John Olver

Vorlage:Infobox Congressman John Walter Olver (born September 3 1936), American politician, has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1991, representing Vorlage:Ushr, a primarily rural district that makes up most of Western Massachusetts.

Education and family life

Olver was born in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. He earned a B.S. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at the age of 18, an M.S. from Tufts University, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He served as a chemistry professor at the Franklin Technical Institute in Joplin, Missouri, at MIT and at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

John Olver is married to Rose Olver, a professor at Amherst College. They have one daughter, Martha. The family has lived in Amherst, Massachusetts, where Olver has lived since 1963.

Political career

He served two terms as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1969 to 1973, and then nine terms in the Massachusetts Senate from 1973 to 1991.

On February 18, 1991, 1st District Congressman Silvio Conte died just one month after taking office for his 17th term. That June, Olver, who had just been sworn in for his 10th term in the state senate, narrowly defeated Republican Steve Pierce in a special election for the seat, becoming the first Democrat to win the seat since it changed from being the Vorlage:Ushr in 1895. He won election to a full term by 8 points in 1992 and has only faced one truly serious challenge since, from future Acting Governor Jane Swift in 1996 (the same year Governor William Weld gave Senator John Kerry the closest race a Democratic senator has faced in Massachusetts in almost two decades). The 1st District had long been considered the most Republican district in heavily Democratic Massachusetts, but rapidly swung into the Democratic column in the 1990s. For example, in 1994, a year in which district after district fell to the Republicans nationally, Olver ran unopposed.

Committees and caucuses

Olver is the only member of the Appropriations Committee from Massachusetts, and serves as chair of the Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies. He is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He the co-chairman of the Congressional Climate Change Caucus.

Positions

Olver has been critical of the United States lack of involvement with the genocide in Darfur. Olver was one of five members of Congress arrested April 28, 2006 after protesting outside the Sudanese Embassy.^[1]

He was one of the 31 who objected in the House to the counting of the electoral votes from Ohio in the United States presidential election, 2004.^[2]