page_title: Roger Wicker
section_title: Tenure
hierarchical_section_title: Roger Wicker / U.S. Senate / Tenure
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S. Senator Roger F. Wicker meets with U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi in the Dirksen Senate Office building.
context_page_description: Roger Frederick Wicker is an American attorney and politician who is the senior United States Senator from Mississippi, in office since 2007. A member of the Republican Party, Wicker previously served as a member of the United States House of Representatives and the Mississippi State Senate.
  Born in Pontotoc, Mississippi, Wicker is a graduate of the University of Mississippi and the University of Mississippi School of Law. Wicker was an officer in the United States Air Force from 1976 to 1980 and later served as a member of the United States Air Force Reserves from 1980 to 2003. During the 1980s, he worked as a political counselor to then-Congressman Trent Lott on the House Rules Committee. In 1987, Wicker was elected a member of the Mississippi State Senate representing the 6th district, which included Tupelo.
  Wicker was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994, succeeding long-time Democrat Jamie Whitten. Wicker served in the House from 1995 to 2007, when he was appointed to the Senate by Governor Haley Barbour to fill the seat vacated by Trent Lott.
context_section_description: On September 16, 2010, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Wicker as representative of the United States to the Sixty-fifth Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.
  In the Senate, Wicker is a member of the Senate Republicans' whip team and has repeatedly introduced a bill to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion. Wicker called the health care overhaul the "great fight for the rest of this term, maybe our lifetimes" and later introduced a bill to enable state officials to challenge the law. In the interest of protecting gun owners, he amended a fiscal 2010 transportation spending bill to allow Amtrak passengers to carry firearms and ammunition in checked baggage.
  With Democratic Rep. Gene Taylor, he pushed amendments allowing purchasers of federal flood insurance to add wind coverage to their policies, helpful to a hurricane-prone state. As a member of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission) monitoring human rights and other issues, Wicker worked with Maryland Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin to push into law in late 2012 a bill imposing penalties on Russians accused of violating human rights. The measure led Russian President Vladimir Putin to announce a subsequent ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian-born children.
  In July 2013, Wicker proposed that the Senate meet to discuss a controversial change to filibuster rules. The Senate held the private meeting in the Old Senate chamber to discuss Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's threat of the so-called "nuclear option", which would change the rules for Senate votes on President Obama's executive branch nominees. Wicker said he hoped the chamber's bipartisan past could serve as an inspiration for the debate about the nuclear option: "I think there are concessions that can be made on both sides. And then I would just hope that, institutionally, we can get away from this mindset."
  Wicker supported the Bipartisan Sportsmen's Act of 2014 (S. 2363; 113th Congress), a bill related to hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation in the United States, aimed at improving "the public's ability to enjoy the outdoors." He said that "Mississippians know the importance of efforts to preserve our natural resources for future generations."
  He was elected to serve as Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee for the 114th U.S. Congress on November 13, 2014.
  Weeks after the 2014 Hong Kong class boycott campaign and Umbrella Movement broke out which demands genuine universal suffrage among other goals, Wicker among bipartisan colleagues joined U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown and Rep. Chris Smith's effort to introduce the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act which would update the United States–Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992 and U.S. commitment to Hong Kong's freedom and democracy. "U.S. should stand steadfast with the people of Hong Kong in their fight to exercise self-determination," Wicker, vice-chairman of the Helsinki Commission said. "... speak with a unified American voice in support of universal freedom and democratic values. The Congress and the Obama Administration should act to ensure China honors its longstanding obligation under international law to maintain Hong Kong's autonomy."
  In March 2017, Wicker co-sponsored the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (s. 720), which made it a federal crime for Americans to encourage or participate in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the West Bank if protesting actions by the Israeli government.
  In May 2020, group of Senate Republicans is planning to introduce a privacy bill that would regulate the data collected by coronavirus contact tracing apps. The COVID-19 Consumer Data Protection Act would“ provide all Americans with more transparency, choice, and control over the collection and use of their personal health, geolocation, and proximity data,” according to a joint statement. Roger Wicker said the legislation also would “hold businesses accountable to consumers if they use personal data to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.” The act would permi
caption: U.S. Senator Roger F. Wicker meets with U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi in the Dirksen Senate Office building.
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