Updated

Bob Graham was first elected to the U.S. Senate from Florida in 1986. In the 108th Congress, Graham serves as a senior member of the powerful Finance Committee and the committees on Environment and Public Works, Energy and Natural Resources. He also will be the ranking Democrat on the Veterans Affairs Committee.

Bob Graham was first elected as a Florida State Representative in 1966 and was later elected to the state Senate in 1970.  He was elected to be Florida's 38th governor in 1978 (he was reelected in 1982).

Graham received a bachelor of law degree from Harvard Law School in 1962 and a bachelor's degree from the University of Florida in 1959. He began his political career as the student body president of Miami Senior High School.

Graham was born in 1936 in Dade County, Florida and is the son of the late Ernest "Cap" Graham, a Florida state senator.  He is the youngest of four children and brother to the late Philip Graham, former publisher of The Washington Post and Newsweek. Graham married Adele Khoury in 1959. They have four daughters: Gwen Graham Logan, Cissy Graham McCullough, Suzanne Graham Gibson and Kendall Graham Elias.