Open VISIONS :: Harold Ford, Jr.

Harold Ford, Jr. served Tennessee in the United States Congress for 10 years. Described by President Bill Clinton as "the walking, living embodiment of where America ought to go in the 21st century," Ford is now Chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council and Vice Chairman of Merrill Lynch

First elected in 1996 at the age of 26, Ford represented the Memphis-based ninth district of Tennessee for 10 years. During his time in Congress, he served on the House Committees on the Budget, Financial Services, and Education and the Workforce, and was a member of both the New Democrat Coalition and the Congressional Black Caucus. Earning a reputation as a fiscal watchdog conservative, he played an active role as a member of the moderate and fiscally conservative Democrats' Blue Dog Coalition.

In January, following his narrow loss for the open Tennessee senate seat, he was selected as the chair of the Democratic Leadership Council, a network of elected officials and community leaders whose goal is to proffer innovative ideas to modernize progressive politics for the 21st century. He also recently was appointed as a visiting professor of public policy at Vanderbilt University.

Prior to his election to Congress, he served as a staff aide to the Senate Committee on the Budget as a special assistant at the Department of Commerce. The keynote speaker of the 2000 Democratic National Convention and author of "Tomorrow's Patriots," Ford received a bachelor's degree in American History from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 1996.

Ford lives in Memphis and Nashville, and has offices in New York and Nashville.