U.S. Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi is the Senate's Republican Leader. From June 12, 1996, until June 5, 2001, he served as the Senate's 16th Majority Leader, the first Mississippian to hold that leadership post.A native Mississippian, Senator Lott began his political career in 1968 as Administrative Assistant to U.S. Representative William Colmer, D-Mississippi. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1972 and served until 1988 when he was elected to the Senate. He was re-elected to a second term in 1994 and a third term in 2000.
The respect shown Senator Lott by his colleagues in both the House and Senate is reflected by the leadership positions to which he has been elected. In 1979, he was elected Chairman of the House Republican Research Committee, the fifth ranking Republican leadership position in the House. In 1980 he was elected Republican Whip, the second ranking Republican leadership position. The first Southerner to be elected to that position, he was re-elected to the post three times.
In the Senate, Senator Lott continued his leadership service as Secretary of the Senate Republican Conference. In 1995, he was elected Senate Majority Whip. Senator Lott is the first person to be elected to the position of Whip in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.
Senator Lott has won the admiration of his constituents with his service to Mississippians. A June 1995 Political/Media Research Inc. poll asked the constituents of 89 sitting Senators (the 11 freshmen were not included) how they rated the job performance of their Senator. Senator Lott received a 75 percent positive rating from Mississippians, earning him the second best constituent ranking in the Senate.
In the Senate, Lott serves on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, the Finance Committee, and the Rules Committee.
He was born October 9, 1941, in Grenada County, Mississippi, the son of a sharecropper farmer turned shipyard worker and a school teacher. He received his Bachelor of Science in Public Administration degree in 1963 and his Juris Doctorate in 1967 from the University of Mississippi in Oxford. He is married to Patricia (Tricia) Thompson Lott, originally of Pascagoula, Mississippi. Senator and Mrs. Lott are the parents of son, Chet, and daughter, Tyler, who have blessed them with three grandchildren: Trent, Shields Elizabeth, and Lucie Sims.
