Jim DeMint

James Warren DeMint (born September 2, 1951) is an American businessman, author, and retired politician who served as a United States senator from South Carolina and as president of The Heritage Foundation. A leading figure in the Tea Party movement, DeMint is a member of the Republican Party and is the founder of the Senate Conservatives Fund.

DeMint served as the United States representative for South Carolina's 4th congressional district from 1999 to 2005. He was elected to the U.S. Senate from South Carolina in 2004 and reelected in 2010. DeMint served in the Senate until January 2, 2013, when he stepped down to become president of The Heritage Foundation. On May 2, 2017, DeMint resigned his position at Heritage at the request of its board. He later became a senior advisor to Citizens for Self-Governance and the founding chairman of the Conservative Partnership Institute.

DeMint was born in Greenville, South Carolina, one of four children. His parents, Betty W. (née Rawlings) and Thomas Eugene DeMint, divorced when he was five years old. Following the divorce, Betty DeMint operated a dance studio out of the family's home.

DeMint attended Christ Church Episcopal School and Wade Hampton High School. He played drums for a cover band called Salt & Pepper. He received a bachelor's degree in 1973 from the University of Tennessee, where he is a member of the Tennessee Kappa chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, and received an MBA in 1981 from Clemson University.

DeMint joined his father-in-law's advertising firm in Greenville in 1981, working in the field of market research. In 1983, he founded The DeMint Group, a research firm with businesses, schools, colleges, and hospitals as clients.

DeMint's first involvement in politics began in 1992, when he was hired by Republican Representative Bob Inglis to work on his campaign for South Carolina's Fourth Congressional District. Inglis defeated three-term incumbent Democrat Liz J. Patterson, and DeMint performed message-testing and marketing for Inglis through two more successful elections.

In 1998, Inglis ran for the U.S. Senate instead of seeking re-election to the House of Representatives. DeMint left his firm to run for Inglis' House seat. The district was considered the most Republican in the state, and it was understood that whoever won the primary would be heavily favored to be the district's next congressman. DeMint finished second in the Republican primary behind State Senator and fellow Greenville resident Michael Fair. In the runoff, DeMint narrowly defeated Fair by 2,030 votes. He then defeated Democratic State Senator Glenn Reese with 57 percent of the vote to Reese's 40 percent. DeMint faced no major-party opposition in 2000, and defeated an underfunded Democrat in 2002.

DeMint was elected president of the freshman class of House Republicans. DeMint pledged to serve only three terms in the House.

The Washington Post and The Christian Post have described DeMint as a "staunch conservative", based on his actions during his time in the House. He broke rank with his party and powerful state interests several times: DeMint was one of 34 Republicans to oppose President Bush's No Child Left Behind program and one of 25 to oppose Medicare Part D. He sought to replace No Child Left Behind with a state-based block-grant program for schools. DeMint also worked to privatize Social Security by allowing the creation of individual investment accounts in the federal program. In 2003, DeMint sponsored legislation to allow people under the age of 55 to set aside 3 percent to 8 percent of their Social Security withholding income in personal investment accounts. DeMint was also the only South Carolina House member to vote for normalizing trade relations with China, arguing in favor of free trade between the countries. He also provided a crucial swing vote on a free trade bill regarding Caribbean countries. His votes led South Carolina's influential textile industry to heavily oppose him in his subsequent House and Senate races.

DeMint declared his candidacy for the Senate on December 12, 2002, after Sen. Ernest Hollings announced that he would retire after the 2004 elections. DeMint was the White House's preferred candidate in the Republican primary.

In the Republican primary on June 8, 2004, DeMint placed a distant second, 10.3% behind former governor David Beasley and just barely ahead of Thomas Ravenel. Ravenel endorsed DeMint in the following runoff. DeMint won the runoff handily, however.

DeMint then faced Democratic state education superintendent Inez Tenenbaum in the November general election. DeMint led Tenenbaum through much of the campaign and ultimately defeated her by 9.6 percentage points. DeMint's win meant that South Carolina was represented by two Republican senators for the first time since Reconstruction, when Thomas J. Robertson and John J. Patterson served together as senators.

DeMint stirred controversy during debates with Tenenbaum when he stated his belief that openly gay people should not be allowed to teach in public schools. When questioned by reporters, DeMint also stated that single mothers who live with their boyfriends should similarly be excluded from being educators. He later apologized for making the remarks, saying they were "distracting from the main issues of the debate." He also noted that these were opinions based on his personal values, not issues he would or could deal with as a member of Congress.

DeMint easily won re-nomination in the Republican Party primary. Democratic Party opponent Alvin Greene won an upset primary victory over Vic Rawl. Greene received scrutiny from Democratic Party officials, with some calling for Greene to withdraw his candidacy or be replaced on the ballot. DeMint, largely campaigned outside South Carolina for Republican Senate candidates identified with the Tea Party. Diverse media outlets frequently referred to DeMint as a party "kingmaker" for supporting successful primary challengers to mainstream Republican candidates. On November 2, 2010, DeMint defeated Greene by a margin of 63% to 28%, with Green Party candidate Tom Clements receiving 9% of the vote.

DeMint is a member of the Republican Party and is aligned with the Tea Party movement. In 2011, DeMint was identified by Salon as one of the most conservative members of the Senate.

Throughout his political career, DeMint has supported a type of tax reform that would replace the federal income tax with a national sales tax and has favored abolishing the Internal Revenue Service. He has supported many changes to federal spending, such as prioritizing a balanced budget amendment instead of increasing the national debt limit. As a senator, DeMint proposed a two-year earmark ban to prevent members of Congress from spending federal money on projects in their home states. In 2008, presidential candidates John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama co-sponsored DeMint's earmark reform proposal, although it ultimately failed to pass in the Senate. In March 2010, DeMint's earmark reform plans were again defeated. In November of the same year, DeMint, along with nine other senators including Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, proposed another moratorium on earmarks which was adopted by Senate Republicans.

DeMint has also been a proponent of free trade agreements, advocated for the privatization of Social Security benefits, and in 2009 authored the "Health Care Freedom Plan", which proposed giving tax credits to those who are unable to afford health insurance. DeMint opposed President Barack Obama's health care reform efforts, saying of the Affordable Care Act, "If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

DeMint was the sole 'Nay' vote for the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008.

DeMint was opposed to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and the bailouts during the automotive industry crisis of 2008–2010. He also led a group of senators in opposing government loans to corporations. He supports a high level of government accountability through the auditing of federal agencies.

In 2008, DeMint formed the Senate Conservatives Fund (SCF), a political action committee with the intention of supporting conservative candidates that may have otherwise been overlooked by the national party. The SCF is associated with the Tea Party movement. It supports conservative Republican politicians in primary challenges and general elections. SCF states that it raised $9.1 million toward the 2010 U.S. Senate elections and which endorsed successful first-time Senate candidates Pat Toomey, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Ron Johnson, Marco Rubio. DeMint left SCF in 2012.

On April 4, 2013, DeMint started his first full day as president of The Heritage Foundation. The Washington Post reported that DeMint's predecessor at the Heritage Foundation, Edwin Feulner, was paid a base salary of $477,097 in 2010 compared to a U.S. Senator's salary of $174,000 and that year DeMint was one of the poorest members of the Senate, with an estimated wealth of $40,501.

On May 2, 2017, DeMint was fired from The Heritage Foundation following a unanimous vote of the foundation's board of trustees, which had lost confidence in his ability to maintain the organization's role as a fount of conservative thinking. A public statement by the board said a thorough investigation of the foundation's operations under DeMint found "significant and worsening management issues that led to a breakdown of internal communications and cooperation." "While the organization has seen many successes," the board statement said, "Jim DeMint and a handful of his closest advisers failed to resolve these problems."

In June 2017, DeMint became a senior advisor to Citizens for Self-Governance, a group which is seeking to call a convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution in order to reduce federal government spending and power. According to DeMint, "The Tea Party needs a new mission. They realize that all the work they did in 2010 has not resulted in all the things they hoped for. Many of them are turning to Article V." The proposed constitutional convention would impose fiscal restraint on Washington D.C., reduce the federal government's authority over states, and impose term limits on federal officials.

In 2017, DeMint founded the Conservative Partnership Institute, of which he serves as chairman. The stated purpose of the CPI is the professional development of conservative staffers and elected officials. Mark Meadows joined as senior partner in January 2021. The Save America PAC donated $1 million to the CPI.

DeMint's wife, Debbie, is one of three children of the late Greenville advertising entrepreneur and South Carolina Republican figure James Marvin Henderson Sr.