Cory Booker — The Man Behind the Senator Seat
Cory Booker has been the junior senator of New Jersey since October 31, 2013. He identifies with the Democrat Party. He was born in 1969 in Washington D.C. to civil rights activist parents, Cary Alfred and Carolyn Rose Booker. Among the first black executives at IBM, Alfred and Booker eventually relocated their family to Harrington Park, New Jersey.
Before his political career, Cory Booker was known as the varsity football star, senior class president, and head of a student-run crisis hotline at his high school. He went on to attend Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in sociology. Booker also attended Yale Law School where he valued being a part of the National Black Law Students Association and the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization.
Booker became the first African American to represent New Jersey in the Senate. He was elected as mayor of Newark primarily for his public vows to reduce the city’s crime rate and improve its education and city services. He attained national attention for his initiatives on gun control and violence abatement.
Although Booker resigned from his law firm to become mayor, he was reported to be receiving annual payments until 2011. Unlike his mission to reduce crime and improve Newark’s safety, murder, violent crime, unemployment, and taxes rose dramatically under his stewardship.
When Frank Lautenberg died in 2013, a special election was held and Booker quickly won over the Senate seat. In 2017, Booker called for Trump to resign due to sex abuse allegations. Soon after his plea, information surfaced regarding Booker’s 1992 column for the Stanford Daily. In the column, he admitted to groping his female friend without her consent at a previous New Year’s party.
Throughout his senatorial experience, Booker has been known to prolifically use Twitter for expressing his opinions and to post selfies with his federal lawmaker friends. Earlier this year, he announced his bid for the presidency.