Raphael Warnock facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Raphael Warnock
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Official portrait, 2021
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| United States Senator from Georgia |
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| Assumed office January 20, 2021 Serving with Jon Ossoff
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| Preceded by | Kelly Loeffler |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Raphael Gamaliel Warnock
July 23, 1969 Savannah, Georgia, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse |
Oulèye Ndoye
(m. 2016; div. 2020) |
| Children | 2 |
| Residences | Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. |
| Education | Morehouse College (BA) Union Theological Seminary (MDiv, MPhil, PhD) |
| Occupation |
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| Religion | Christian |
| Denomination | Baptist (Progressive National Baptist Convention) |
| Church | Ebenezer Baptist Church |
| Religious career | |
| Post | Senior pastor (2005–present) |
Raphael Gamaliel Warnock ( RAH-fee-EL-_-WOR-nok; born July 23, 1969) is an American Baptist pastor and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Georgia since 2021.
Warnock was the senior pastor of Douglas Memorial Community Church from 2001 to 2005. He came to prominence in Georgia politics as a leading activist in the campaign to expand Medicaid in the state under the Affordable Care Act. On January 30, 2020, he announced his candidacy in Georgia's 2020 United States Senate special election, seeking to unseat incumbent Republican Kelly Loeffler. No candidate received a majority of the vote on election day, so Warnock faced Loeffler again in a January 5, 2021, runoff election, which he won by more than 93,000 votes. With Warnock's win and Jon Ossoff's victory in the concurrent regularly scheduled election, Democrats won control of the Senate for the first time since 2015.
Warnock and Ossoff are the first Democrats elected to the U.S. Senate from Georgia since Zell Miller in 2000. Warnock is the first African American to represent Georgia in the Senate, and the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate from a Southern state. He was reelected to a full term in 2022, defeating Republican nominee Herschel Walker.
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Early life and education
Warnock was born in Savannah, Georgia, on July 23, 1969. He grew up in public housing as the eleventh of twelve children born to Verlene and Jonathan Warnock, both Pentecostal pastors. His father served in the U.S. Army during World War II, where he learned automobile mechanics and welding, and subsequently opened a small car restoration business where he restored junked cars for resale. His mother picked cotton and tobacco in the summers in Waycross, Georgia, as a teenager and became a pastor.
Warnock graduated from Sol C. Johnson High School in 1987, and having wanted to follow in the footsteps of Martin Luther King Jr., attended Morehouse College, from which he graduated cum laude in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology. He credits his participation in the Upward Bound program for making him college-ready, as he was able to enroll in early college courses through Savannah State University. He then earned Master of Divinity, Master of Philosophy, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Union Theological Seminary, a school affiliated with Columbia University.
Religious work
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Warnock began his ministry as an intern and licentiate at the Sixth Avenue Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, under the civil rights movement leader John Thomas Porter. In the 1990s, he served as youth pastor and then assistant pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York. While Warnock was pastor at Abyssinian, the church declined to hire workfare recipients as part of organized opposition to then-mayor Rudy Giuliani's workfare program. The church also hosted Fidel Castro on October 22, 1995, while Warnock was youth pastor. There is no evidence Warnock was involved in that decision. During the 2020–21 United States Senate special election in Georgia, his campaign refused to say whether Warnock attended the event.
In January 2001, Warnock was elected senior pastor of Douglas Memorial Community Church in Baltimore, Maryland.
On Father's Day 2005, Warnock was named senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King Jr.'s former congregation; he is the fifth and the youngest person to serve as Ebenezer's senior pastor since its founding. He has continued in the post while serving in the Senate.
As pastor, Warnock advocated for clemency for Troy Davis, who was executed in 2011. In 2013, he delivered the benediction at the public prayer service at the second inauguration of Barack Obama. After Fidel Castro died in 2016, Warnock told his church to pray for the Cuban people, calling Castro's legacy "complex, kind of like America's legacy is complex". In March 2019, Warnock hosted an interfaith meeting on climate change at his church, featuring Al Gore and William Barber II. He presided at Representative John Lewis's funeral at Ebenezer Church in July 2020.
On Easter Sunday 2021, Warnock's Twitter account tweeted, "The meaning of Easter is more transcendent than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Whether you are a Christian or not, through a commitment to helping others we are able to save ourselves." Some conservative Christians and political commenters criticized the tweet, including Benjamin Watson, Allie Beth Stuckey, and Jenna Ellis, who called it "heretical". The tweet was deleted that afternoon, with a spokesperson for Warnock saying, "the tweet was posted by staff and was not approved" but declining to say whether it reflected Warnock's beliefs.
Political activism
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Warnock came to prominence in Georgia politics as a leader in the campaign to expand Medicaid in the state. In 2013, he wrote an editorial for the Atlanta Journal Constitution that criticized Governor Nathan Deal for not supporting an integrated prom at the Wilcox County High School. In March 2014, Warnock led a sit-in at the Georgia State Capitol to press state legislators to accept the expansion of Medicaid offered by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. He and other leaders were arrested during the protest. Warnock also actively campaigned for Georgia Democrats to increase outreach to low-income communities. In 2015, Warnock considered running in the 2016 election for the United States Senate seat held by Johnny Isakson as a member of the Democratic Party. He opted not to run.
From June 2017 to January 2020, Warnock chaired the New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan organization focused on increasing voter registration.
Warnock supports expanding the Affordable Care Act and has called for the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. He also supports increasing COVID-19-relief funding. Warnock has long opposed the death penalty.
U.S. Senate
Elections
2020–21 Special
In January 2020, Warnock decided to run in the 2020 special election for the United States Senate seat held by Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed after Johnny Isakson's resignation. Stacey Abrams encouraged him to run and coordinated his support from Democratic leadership. He was endorsed by Democratic senators Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, Kirsten Gillibrand, Jeff Merkley, Chris Murphy, Bernie Sanders, Brian Schatz, and Elizabeth Warren; the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Stacey Abrams, and former presidents Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter.
The closing argument of Warnock's campaign focused on the $2,000 stimulus payments that he and Ossoff would approve if they were elected, giving Democrats a Senate majority.
In the January 5 runoff election, Warnock defeated Loeffler with 51.04% of the vote. With this victory, he became the first African American to represent Georgia in the Senate, the first Black Democratic U.S. senator elected in the South, and the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate by a former state of the Confederacy. Warnock and Ossoff are the first Democrats elected to the U.S. Senate from Georgia since Zell Miller in 2000. On January 7, Loeffler conceded. The election result was certified on January 19.
2022
On January 27, 2021, Warnock announced that he would seek election to a full term in 2022.
Since no candidate received a majority of the vote in the general election on November 8, 2022, Warnock faced Walker in a runoff election on December 6, and won. He became the first Georgia Democrat to win reelection to the Senate since Sam Nunn in 1990 and the first Deep South Democrat to win reelection to the Senate since Mary Landrieu of Louisiana in 2008.
Tenure
On January 20, 2021, Warnock was sworn into the United States Senate in the 117th Congress by Vice President Kamala Harris.
Warnock voted to convict former president Donald Trump for his role in inciting the Capitol riots on February 13, 2021.
On March 5, 2021, he co-sponsored an amendment to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, along with 29 other Democratic and independent senators.
On March 17, 2021, he delivered his first speech on the Senate floor, in support of the passage of the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
In January 2022, when former U.S. senator Johnny Isakson died, Warnock introduced a Senate resolution to honor Isakson, which was enacted with bipartisan support, while commenting that Isakson was "a patriot, a public servant" who "knew how to show up for people".
In October 2022, a bill by Warnock and Senator Jon Ossoff was enacted into law, naming a United States Post Office building in Atlanta, Georgia after John Lewis, who was a U.S. representative for Atlanta until his death in 2020.
Committee assignments
Warnock has been assigned to the following committees for the 117th United States Congress:
- Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
- Subcommittee on Commodities, Risk Management, and Trade (chair)
- Subcommittee on Food and Nutrition, Specialty Crops, Organics, and Research
- Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, Poultry, Local Food Systems, and Food Safety and Security
- Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
- Subcommittee on Aviation Safety, Operations, and Innovation
- Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband
- Subcommittee on Space and Science
- Subcommittee on Surface Transportation, Maritime, Freight, and Ports
- Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
- Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investment
- Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development
- Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection (chair)
- Congressional Joint Economic Committee
- Special Committee on Aging
Caucuses
Political positions
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Warnock is the main sponsor of S.278 - Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act of 2021. The bill would aid historically disaffected minority groups in the agriculture sector.
He also supports raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.
In 2022, Warnock emphasized the importance of the national climate bill within his campaign. Warnock referenced the contaminated water and air in Black and brown communities, such as the water crises in Jackson, Mississippi, and Flint, Michigan, and the burden placed on low-income families that pay a larger portion of their income on utilities.
After attending a groundbreaking at Hyundai's electric vehicle plant in Savannah, Georgia alongside Brian Kemp, Warnock told reporters that climate policy is a "moral" issue. He said, "I've also put forward a lot of legislation focused on creating a green energy future, everything from electric vehicles to electric batteries being manufactured in the state to investing in solar manufacturing".
Warnock was a cosponsor of the Recycling Infrastructure and Accessibility Act of 2022, a bipartisan bill that "requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish a pilot grant program for improving recycling accessibility in communities".
In October 2021, Warnock and Ossoff said that they had acquired federal funding under the American Rescue Plan for health centers across Georgia, including two in Macon and four in Albany, each of which received between $500,000 to $1,100,000. Reacting to this, Warnock affirmed his support for the American Rescue Plan, saying: "We must continue to do all we can to provide support and funding to our health care infrastructure and workers on the front lines of this pandemic."
A bipartisan bill on maternal health by Warnock and Senator Marco Rubio was incorporated into a $1.5 trillion federal spending package that passed Congress in March 2022. Warnock's bill allocated $50 million for integrated healthcare services grants, $45 million to innovation grants, $25 million for training of healthcare workers, and approval of a study on how to teach health professionals to reduce discrimination. Warnock said, "Georgia is dead last when it comes to women and their access to healthcare" and that the bill's aim was "to make sure that when women are trying to bring a child in this world, they don't have to do so with one foot in the grave".
In August 2022, the Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which included two proposals by Warnock: a $2,000 annual limit on prescription drug costs for seniors on Medicare, and a $35 monthly limit on insulin costs for people on Medicare. Republican lawmakers removed a third proposal by Warnock that would have imposed a $35 monthly limit on out-of-pocket insulin costs for people on private insurance.
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In June 2021, Warnock and Ossoff assisted six Georgia organizations that work to reduce veteran homelessness by obtaining between $375,000 to $500,000 of federal funds for each organization, using funds from the Department of Labor's Homeless Veterans' Reintegration Program, which are intended to help the veterans find jobs.
In September 2021, Warnock worked together with Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith to introduce legislation designating September 19 to 25 as Gold Star Families Remembrance Week nationwide, to honor sacrifices made by families of servicemen who died serving the United States; the legislation passed the Senate unanimously.
Personal life
Warnock lives in Atlanta. He married Oulèye Ndoye in a public ceremony on February 14, 2016; the couple had held a private ceremony in January. They have two children. The couple separated in November 2019, and their divorce was finalized in 2020.
In October 2022, Savannah's city government honorarily renamed Cape Street, the street where Warnock grew up in public housing during the 1980s, Raphael Warnock Way.
See also
In Spanish: Raphael Warnock para niños
