John Sarbanes is the eldest son of former U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes and Christine Dunbar Sarbanes, a teacher. He was born in Baltimore, having Greek origin on his father's side and English on his mother's, and graduated from the Gilman School there in 1980. He received a B.A., cum laude, from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1984, after completing a 194-page long senior thesis titled "The American Intelligence Community Abroad: Potential for a Breakdown Case Study, Greece, 1967". Sarbanes then received a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was co-chair of the Law School Democrats, in 1988. After college, Congressman Sarbanes served for seven years with the Maryland State Department of Education, working on Maryland’s public school system. He later clerked with Baltimore Judge J. Frederick Motz on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Sarbanes spent his professional legal career at the law firm of Venable LLP in Baltimore from 1989 to 2006, where he was chair of health care practice from 2000 to 2006 and a member of the hiring committee from 1992 to 1996.
Congressman Sarbanes has introduced H.R. 2054, the No Child Left Inside Act. This Act seeks to both improve education in the nation's public schools and to protect the environment by "creating a new environmental education grant program, providing teacher training for environmental education, and including environmental education as an authorized activity under the Fund for the Improvement of Education." NCLI also requires states that participate in the environmental education grant programs to develop a plan to ensure that high school graduates are environmentally literate. This legislation is supported by a "coalition of over 1200 local, regional, and national organizations representing millions of concerned citizens who are anxious to see a new commitment to environmental education."
Good-government reforms
After the mid-term elections in November 2018, the Democratic Party unveiled as its first House bill for the 116th Congress. The bill was primarily authored by Sarbanes. The bill would enable small-dollar public funding of congressional elections, sought to establish automatic national voter registration, as well as expand early and online voter registration, and provide greater federal support for state voting systems. The bill proposed banning members of Congress from serving on corporate boards, and called for requiring political advocacy groups to disclose donors. The bill required presidents to disclose their tax returns, and proposed establishing a Supreme Court ethics code.
Campaigns
Sarbanes sought the Democratic nomination for Maryland's 3rd congressional district after 10-term incumbent Ben Cardin gave up the seat to run for the Senate seat of John Sarbanes' father, Paul Sarbanes. The primary campaign included State Senator Paula Hollinger, former Baltimore City Health Commissioner Peter Beilenson, and former Maryland Democratic Party Treasurer Oz Bengur. Sarbanes won the nomination on September 12, 2006 with 31.9% of the vote. His Republican opponent in the general election was Annapolis marketing executive John White. However, the 3rd is a heavily Democratic district that has been in that party's hands since 1927, and few expected Sarbanes to have much difficulty in the election. Sarbanes also benefited from name recognition; his father represented the district from 1971 to 1977. On November 7, 2006, Sarbanes won the general election with 64% of the vote, while White received 34% of the vote and Libertarian Charles Curtis McPeek received 2%. He has been reelected six times with no substantive opposition.
Personal life
Sarbanes lives in Towson, Maryland, with his three children and wife Dina Eve Caplan, whom he met at Harvard and married in 1988.
