Paul Sarbanes

Early life

Sarbanes was born on Maryland's Eastern Shore in the city of Salisbury to Greek immigrant parents, Matina (née Tsigounis) and Spyros P. Sarbanes, who had emigrated from Laconia, Greece and owned a Salisbury restaurant.

A graduate of Wicomico High School in Salisbury, Maryland, Sarbanes attended Princeton University, where he played basketball and earned a bachelor's degree in 1954 from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs after completing a senior thesis titled "The Smith Act: A Denial of American Freedoms". At Princeton, Sarbanes was a member of the American Whig–Cliosophic Society. As a senior, he received the Moses Taylor Pyne Honor Prize, Princeton's highest undergraduate honor. He also was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship that brought him to Balliol College of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. He graduated with a First Class degree in 1957.

After graduating in 1960, he clerked for Federal Judge Morris Ames Soper before entering private practice with two Baltimore law firms.

Political career

State legislature

In 1966 Sarbanes ran for the Maryland House of Delegates in Baltimore and won. During his four years as a State delegate in Annapolis, Maryland he served on both the Judiciary and the Ways and Means Committees.

U.S. House of Representatives

Sarbanes was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1970 from the fourth district of Maryland and was reelected in 1972 and 1974 from the third district. While in the House, Sarbanes served on the Judiciary Committee, the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, and the Select Committee on House Reorganization.

As a member of the Judiciary Committee, he participated in the impeachment process against Richard Nixon.

U.S. Senate

Sarbanes was elected to the United States Senate in 1976 and re-elected in 1982, 1988, 1994, and 2000. In 2002, he was the United States Senate sponsor of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, which reformed federal securities laws in the wake of the 2002 accounting scandals.

Sarbanes served on the following Senate committees:

• Ranking Member, Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs
• Ranking Member, Special Whitewater
• Senior Member, Foreign Relations
• Senior Member, Budget
• Senior Member, Joint Economic

By 1981, Sarbanes had become noted as a frequent critic of military budgets. In December he voted in favor of an amendment to President Ronald Reagan's MX missiles proposal that would divert the silo system by $334million as well as earmark further research for other methods that would allow giant missiles to be based.

On March 11, 2005, Sarbanes, the longest-serving senator in Maryland history, announced at a news conference his decision not to seek reelection in 2006. Colleagues of Sarbanes said that the reason for his retirement from the Senate was due to his annoyance with not having any leadership roles on committees.

Sarbanes received the Foreign Language Advocacy Award in 2007 from the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in recognition of his lifelong commitment to the values, languages, and cultures of the ancient world in service to the modern world.

Personal life and death

In June 1960 Sarbanes married Christine Dunbar of Brighton, England; they had three children (John Sarbanes, Michael Anthony Sarbanes, and Janet Matina Sarbanes) and seven grandchildren. Sarbanes held the highest lay office in the Greek Orthodox Church, "Order of St. Andrew, Archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate" and was a member of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation in Baltimore.

His son, John Sarbanes, won the general election for Maryland's 3rd congressional district in 2006, the district that Paul Sarbanes represented prior to his election as senator.

Paul Sarbanes died at his home in Baltimore on December 6, 2020, at the age of 87.

In April 2021 Wicomico Public Libraries announced that the library in downtown Salisbury would be renamed after Sarbanes.

Election history

• Sources:

Publications

• "The premise of the U. S. Constitutional system", Perspectives on culture and society, vol. 1 (1988), 119–126

References

1. Charles Babington. (March 12, 2005). "Cerebral Sarbanes Aloof to Limelight". washingtonpost.com.
2. Greg Farrell. (July 30, 2007). "The men behind the Sarbanes–Oxley Act". usatoday.com.
3. Dick Carozza. "An Interview with Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes Sarbanes–Oxley Act Revisited". fraud-magazine.com.
4. "Paul S. Sarbanes, U. S. Senator (bio)". [[National Institutes of Health]].
5. "Paul Sarbanes, Greek-American Senator, dies at 87". Elathimerini.
6. McPhee, John. (2023-10-09). "Under the Carpetbag".
7. Stevens, Ruth. (November 16, 2006). "Sarbanes and Coles to Be Honored with Alumni Awards".
8. Sarbanes, Paul Spyros. (1954). "The Smith Act: A Denial of American Freedoms". Princeton University.
9. (February 23, 1954). "Sophs receive study honors".
10. (December 6, 2020). "Paul Sarbanes, senator from Maryland who led overhaul of corporate accounting rules, dies at 87". [[The Washington Post]].
11. "Former U.S. Senator and anti-fraud law co-sponsor Paul Sarbanes dies at 87". Reuters.
12. (December 6, 2020). "Paul Sarbanes, longtime U.S. senator from Maryland who championed protection of Chesapeake Bay, dies at 87". Baltimore Sun.
13. (May 15, 1981). "Senate Votes Military Funds in Victory for Reagan". New York Times.
14. (December 3, 1981). "The 90–4 vote by which the Senate approved the ...". UPI.
15. Roberts, Steven V.. (December 3, 1981). "Senators Reject Plan for Placing MX Missile in Silos". New York Times.
16. Webbe, Stephen. (December 4, 1981). "Reagan scorns Senate rejection of silo-based MX missile plan". The Christian Science Monitor.
17. Kirkpatrick, David K.. (March 12, 2005). "Senator Sarbanes, Maryland Democrat, Will Retire in '06". [[The New York Times]].
18. (March 12, 2005). "Senator Sarbanes, Maryland Democrat, Will Retire in '06". New York Times.
19. "The James W. Dodge Foreign Language Advocate Award". Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.
20. (October 26, 2008). "Archbishop Demetrios presides at Investiture of Twenty-Two New Archons | Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle – Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate". Archons.org.
21. "PAUL SPYROS SARBANES, Esq. (Democrat) (1933-2020): U.S. Senator from Maryland, 1977-2007". Maryland State Archives.
22. (December 6, 2020). "Paul Sarbanes, U.S. Senator Who Co-Wrote Anti-Fraud Law, Dies at 87". [[Bloomberg News]].
23. Dwyer, Colin. (December 8, 2020). "Paul Sarbanes, Longtime Senator From Maryland And Financial Reformer, Dies At 87". [[NPR]].
24. Hooper, Bethany. (April 8, 2021). "Library Branch Renaming Planned". The Dispatch.
25. "Sen. Paul Sarbanes". Gov Track.us.
26. "SARBANES, Paul Spyros (1933-)". Bio Guide Retro.