Cory Anthony Booker (born April 27, 1969)[1][2] is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from New Jersey, a seat he has held since 2013.

He won an upset victory for a seat on the Municipal Council of Newark in 1998, staging a 10-day hunger strike and briefly living in a tent to draw attention to urban development issues in the city.

Throughout his Senate tenure, Booker has written, sponsored, and voted for legislation advancing women's rights, affirmative action, same-sex marriage, and single-payer healthcare.

Booker has pursued measures to reform the criminal justice system, combat climate change, and restructure national immigration policy.

In foreign policy, he has voted for tougher sanctions against Iran, voiced support for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and lobbied for increased diplomacy in the Middle East.

[9][10] In addition, Booker ran The Bridge Peer Counseling Center, a student-run crisis hotline, and organized help from Stanford students for youth in East Palo Alto, California.

[12] He obtained his Juris Doctor in 1997 from Yale Law School and operated free legal clinics for low-income residents of New Haven, Connecticut.

[17] To draw attention to the problems of open-air drug dealing and associated violence, he went on a 10-day hunger strike, living in a tent and later in a motor home near drug-dealing areas of the city.

[18] Booker also proposed council initiatives that affected housing, young people, law and order, and the efficiency and transparency of City Hall, but was regularly outvoted.

[26] Although James filed paperwork to run for reelection, he announced shortly thereafter that he would instead cancel his bid to focus on his work as a state senator, a position to which he was elected in 1999.

Specifically, Booker referenced a parcel at Broad and South Streets that would generate only $87,000 under the proposed land deals yet was valued at $3.7 million under then-current market rates.

[54][55] In an effort to make government more accessible, Booker held regular open office hours during which city residents could meet with him to discuss their concerns.

[64] Booker gained national attention on December 28, 2010, when a constituent asked him on Twitter to send someone to her elderly father's house to shovel his driveway because he was about to attempt to do it himself.

[68] After Hurricane Sandy destroyed much of New Jersey's and New York's shoreline areas in late October 2012, Booker invited Newarkers without electricity and similar services to eat and sleep in his home.

[110] Booker and Mehta participated in a virtual debate sponsored by the New Jersey Globe, in which they sparred over issues including the Trump presidency, COVID-19 lockdowns, the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and systemic racism.

"[126] In 2018, Politico named Booker part of the "Hell-No Caucus", along with Senators Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders, after he voted "overwhelmingly to thwart his [Trump's] nominees for administration jobs" (including Rex Tillerson, Betsy DeVos, and Mike Pompeo).

At the same time, according to The Hill, the bill would "codify regulations" that a special counsel could be fired by only a senior Justice Department official, while having to provide reasons in writing.

[147] Within a month after Booker announced his candidacy, Governor Phil Murphy,[148] Bob Menendez,[149] and every Democratic member of the House of Representatives from New Jersey endorsed him.

[160] Booker supports long-term deficit reduction efforts to ensure economic prosperity, cap and trade taxation to combat climate change, and increased funding for education.

[182] In May 2009, Booker received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from the Newark-based New Jersey Institute of Technology for "his outstanding career in public service as the Mayor of Newark.

[184] Booker received another honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree in December 2010 from Yeshiva University for "his bold vision for Newark and setting a national standard for urban transformation.

"[185] In June 2011, Booker received an honorary doctor of laws degree for the urban transformation of Newark and served as that year's commencement speaker at Williams College.

[192] During the 2016 presidential election, when Clinton had an illness described as pneumonia, Donna Brazile, the then-DNC interim chair considered that her ideal replacement ticket would consist of Biden and Booker.

[199][200] Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for the feud to end during a prepared comedy skit, telling Booker to chalk it up to a head injury O'Brien suffered less than two weeks earlier.

[202] In 2012, Booker and tech executives Sarah Ross and Nathan Richardson formed Waywire, a company focused on video sharing technology.

[203] After Booker's relationship to Waywire was discussed in a front-page New York Times story,[204] board member Andrew Zucker stepped down from his position.

In an article in HuffPost, Shmuly Yanklowitz said of the book: If there is anything that Booker repeatedly returns to in United, it is that the myopia of contemporary politics leads citizens astray, and leaves them vulnerable to ignoring issues of tangible importance.

To repeat an earlier point, what sets Senator Booker's work apart from that of similar political books is that it seeks to elevate discourse rather than bring down opponents of the opposite partisan persuasion.

In November 2006, as one of the last remaining tenants in Brick Towers, Booker left his apartment for the top unit in a three-story rental on Hawthorne Avenue in Newark's South Ward, an area described as "a drug- and gang-plagued neighborhood of boarded-up houses and empty lots.

[220] Since 2013, Booker has lived in a townhouse he owns in the Lincoln Park section of Newark's Central Ward, also known as "the Coast" for its arts, jazz, and nightlife history.