Larry Craig

U.S. Senator / Political Scandal Figure

Larry Craig is the U.S. senator from Idaho who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in 2007 after being arrested on a charge of lewd conduct in a Minnesota men's room. Craig graduated from the University of Idaho in 1969, spent a few years in the family ranching business, and was elected to the Idaho State Senate in 1974. In 1981 he moved up to the U.S. Congress, representing Idaho's First District. He was re-elected four times and then elected to the U.S. Senate in 1990, 1996, and 2002. As a senator he has been a proponent of reduced government and a reliable conservative on social issues like abortion, gay marriage, and gun control. (He joined the board of directors of the National Rifle Association in 1983.) In August of 2007, the newspaper Roll Call reported that Craig had been arrested on suspicion of lewd conduct at Minneapolis International Airport on 11 June 2007, and that he had pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor. A few days after the story broke, Craig held an extraordinary news conference in Boise at which he denied wrongdoing and said, "I am not gay. I never have been gay." Craig announced that he would resign his Senate seat on September 30th, but then changed his mind and filed legal papers to withdraw his guilty plea, saying he had mistakenly agreed to the plea in a "state of intense anxiety" after his arrest.

Extra credit: Craig served in the Idaho National Guard from 1970-72... He married Suzanne Thompson (some sources call her Suzanne Scott) in July of 1983, and adopted her three children from a former marriage: sons Mike and Jay and daughter Shae... By coincidence, the story of Craig's guilty plea broke on the same day as the resignation announcement by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Blog posts mentioning Larry Craig:
Craig Resignation Stalled More on Craig Larry Craig: 'I Should Not Have Pled Guilty'