Phil Gramm is the senior Republican senator from Texas. He is known for switching parties in the early 1980s during the supply-side economic popularity of the Reagan presidency. He is also known for running twice for the Republican nomination for President, in 1996 and in 2000.

Phil Gramm was born on July 8, 1942, in Fort Benning, GA, and now lives in College Station, TX. He is Episcopalian and married to Wendy. They have two children: Marshall and Jeff.

Gramm holds a B.A. (1964) and a Ph.D. (1967) in economics from the University of Georgia. He taught economics at Texas A & M University from 1967 through 1978 and has written several books, including The Evolution of Modern Demand Theory and The Economics of Mineral Extraction.

In 1978 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat and was reelected in 1978, 1980, and 1982. In 1983 he resigned from the House and was reelected as a Republican in a special election held in February of 1983. He won his first Senate seat the next year, was last elected in 1996 with almost 55 percent of the vote, and is up for reelection in 2002.

Senator Gramm served as the chair of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and is a member of the Budget and Finance committees.