WASHINGTON-Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.) announced his retirement once his term is over in 2006 after serving Maryland in the Senate since 1977. Sarbanes is Maryland's longest serving senator ever as he nears the end of his fifth term. He is also a senior member of the Foreign Relations, Budget and Joint Economic Committees. Sarbanes was the son of Greek immigrant restaurateurs who instilled the values of hard work and the benefits of living in a democratic society, which pushed him to run for public office. In 1966, Sarbanes won a seat in the Maryland House of Delegates in Baltimore City and served four years as a state legislator. In 1970 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for the first of three terms. While in the House, Sarbanes was selected by his Democratic colleagues on the House Watergate Committee to introduce the first Article of Impeachment, for obstruction of justice, against President Richard Nixon. More recently, Maryland's senior senator has been known for his fight to create corporate transparency with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, following the failure of Enron in 2001, which was signed into law in July 2002. Because of his work on this law, he was chosen for the prestigious Paul H. Douglas Ethics in Government Award from the University of Illinois. He was also picked by then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) to deliver the Democratic response to the President's weekly national radio address on June 29, 2002. Other awards Sarbanes has received include the Rolfe Award for Extraordinary Impact on Policy in Economics, Business and Finance from the Women's Economic Roundtable in November 2003, and the Cox, Coleman, Richardson Award for Distinguished Public Service from Harvard Law School, where he had received his law degree in 1960, in March 2004. The senator has been married to Christine Dunbar since June 1960, with whom he has three children who have six grandchildren.
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