2019 Carl Levin Award for Effective Oversight
U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chair Richard Burr (R-NC) and Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-VA)
The Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy named North Carolina Republican Senator Richard Burr and Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner as recipients of the second annual Carl Levin Award for Effective Oversight. The award was given to the two senators for their roles as Chairman and Vice Chairman, respectively, of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, in conducting the committee’s bipartisan, fact-based investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“Through their leadership, Senators Burr and Warner have demonstrated a commitment to the principles of effective oversight that are foundational to the Levin Center and this award,” former Senator and Chair of the Center, Carl Levin, said. “As Chairman and Vice Chairman, they have taken on a matter of fundamental importance to our democracy and issued a clearly written, straight-forward, fact-based report that received broad, bipartisan approval by the Senate Intelligence Committee. That is a noteworthy accomplishment under any circumstances, but it is particularly noteworthy in this deeply partisan era.”
Levin added, “There is no subject more important to this country than the fairness and honesty of our elections, and no greater danger to our elections than to have any foreign country exerting influence on the outcome of our elections. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report clearly spells out the efforts made by the Russian hierarchy to skew the outcome of the 2016 election and raises a needed alarm that similar efforts are still underway. That Senators Burr and Warner were able to achieve unanimous approval of the two volumes of the report issued thus far (with one minority view on Volume 1) which is exactly what our founding fathers had hoped for from Congress.” The relevant committee reports can be found here.
Senator Burr was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994. In 2004 he was elected to the U.S. Senate. He became Chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2015. Senator Warner was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2008. He became Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2017.
