Conrad Burns
Official U.S. Senate Biography
Conrad R. Burns (born January 25, 1935) is a Republican United States Senator from Montana.
Conrad Burns became only the second Republican Senator in Montana's history, defeating incumbent John Melcher in 1989. Now in his third-term, Senator Burns is the longest-serving Republican Senator in Montana history.
With a seat on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Burns has been able to bring in over $1 billion in federal funds to the state since he took office. He has been a champion of a fiscally conservative government and a strong voice for lower taxes to create new businesses and more jobs. He has expanded Montana's job base by establishing more balanced trade with Canada and brought better education and health care to Montanans by encouraging hi-tech investment in the state. He has pursued new markets for agricultural producers while securing millions of dollars in grants for research and marketing improvements.
Serving as Chairman of the Senate Interior Appropriations subcommittee for the 108th Congress, Senator Burns has jurisdiction over all the country's federal lands and the National Park Service. His love of the outdoors brings him back to Montana several times each month and has made him a guardian of the state's vast natural resources. As a result of his work in the Senate, over 70 rural Montana communities have adopted enforceable drinking water protection programs and funding has become available to safeguard acres of Montana through the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
In 1997, Senator Burns became Chairman of the Communications Subcommittee, one of the major regulatory posts in Congress. Since then he has been praised as "one of the fathers of the modern Internet," standing for deregulation, the roll-out of broadband in rural areas, and pushing for new Internet and mobile phone technologies. He authored section 706 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act and in 1999 unveiled the "Digital Dozen" proposal of telecom legislation. During the 107th Congress, Senator Burns pushed his "Tech 7" agenda, which aimed to bring greater security to the Internet. At the open of the 108th Congress, Senator Burns unveiled his "NexGenTen" Tech Agenda, ten top priority items to strengthen security and usher reform for 21st century communication.
Burns was born on a farm near Gallatin, Missouri to Russell and Mary Frances (Knight) Burns. Graduating from Gallatin High School in 1952, Senator Burns enrolled in the College of Agriculture at the University of Missouri. Two years later Burns enlisted in the Marine Corps and was posted in East Asia.
Following his military service Burns began working for TWA and Ozark airlines until 1962, when he became a field representative for Polled Hereford World magazine in Billings, Montana. Named the first manager of the Northern International Livestock Expo in 1968, Burns began his career in radio and television broadcasting, reporting on agricultural market news and establishing his reputation as the voice of Montana agriculture.
In 1975, Burns founded four radio stations known as the Northern Ag Network, which grew to serve 31 radio and TV stations across Montana and Wyoming when he sold it in 1986.
Burns began his career in politics when he was elected to the Yellowstone County Commission, serving for two years before deciding to run for the U.S. Senate.
A Controversial Speaker
In 1994 Burns told the editorial board of the Bozeman Chronicle that when asked by a constituent, "how can you live back there Washington, DC with all those niggers?" he replied, "[It's] a hell of a challenge." About the use of the racial slur: "I never give it much thought."
On February 17, 1999, while at a meeting of the Montana Implement Dealers Association in Billings, Montana, Burns referred to Arabic people as "ragheads".
His detractors would point out that Burns also has a legislative history of supporting measures and bills which would reduce (American) Indian tribal sovereignty, including a bill, co-sponsored with Slade Gorton, that would require tribes to waive sovereignty rights such as immunity from lawsuits, in addition to meeting means testing, before they could receive federal funds. He has also sponsored legislation that some say would violate treaties by eliminating Native jurisdiction of reservation land owned by non-Indians.
