Faculty Profile: Thomas Daschle

Founder and Chairman of The Daschle Group, A Public Policy Advisory of Baker Donelson, Senator Tom Daschle provides clients with strategic public policy advice on a wide range of international and economic issues ranging from financial services reform and telecommunications to international trade and tax developments. 

Senator Daschle has participated in the development and debate of almost every major public policy issue of the last three decades. In 1978, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served for eight years. In 1986, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and was chosen as Senate Democratic Leader in 1994. Senator Daschle is one of the longest-serving Senate Democratic leaders in history and served as both Majority and Minority Leader. During his tenure, Senator Daschle navigated the Senate through some of its most historic economic and national security challenges. In 2003, he chronicled some of these experiences in his book, Like No Other Time: The 107th Congress and the Two Years That Changed America Forever. In the 2013 book The U.S. Senate: Fundamentals of American Government, Senator Daschle explored the inner workings of this important part of the legislative branch. 

Since leaving the Senate, Senator Daschle has remained an active and learned voice among policy-makers. He has distinguished his experience in health care through the publication of "Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis" and "Getting It Done: How Obama and Congress Finally Broke the Stalemate to Make Way for Health Care Reform." Senator Daschle has also emerged as a leading thinker on climate change, food security and renewable energy policy. He serves as the chair of the DuPont Advisory Committee on Agriculture Innovation and Productivity as well as the BP Tangguh Independent Advisory Panel. 

In 2007, Senator Daschle joined with former Majority Leaders George Mitchell, Bob Dole and Howard Baker to create the Bipartisan Policy Center, an organization dedicated to finding common ground on some of the pressing public policy challenges of our time. Senator Daschle serves on numerous public and private boards, including the Center for American Progress and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He also serves on the Health Policy and Management Executive Council at the Harvard School of Public Health, as well as the Council on Governance for Sustainability at the World Economic Forum and the Federal Advisory Board of Accenture.