Background
Porter was born in Evanston, Illinois, was educated in public schools, and then attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology for one year before receiving a B.S. and B.A. from Northwestern University in 1957.
United States representative lawyer politician member of the Illinois House of Representatives
Porter was born in Evanston, Illinois, was educated in public schools, and then attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology for one year before receiving a B.S. and B.A. from Northwestern University in 1957.
Bachelor of Business Administration, Northwestern University, 1957. Juris Doctor with distinction, University Michigan, 1961. Doctor of Laws (honorary), Northwestern University.
Doctor of Laws (honorary), Tufts University. Doctor of Laws (honorary), Mount Sinai School Medicine. Doctor of Laws (honorary), Oregon Health Sciences University.
Doctor of Laws (honorary), Howard University. Doctor of Laws (honorary), Rush University.
He then received his Juris Doctor (JD) degree with distinction at the University of Michigan Law School in 1961, and was admitted to the Illinois bar that same year. He also served in the United States Army Reserves from 1958 to 1964. He served two years in the United States Department of Justice in the Honor Law Graduate Program from 1961 to 1963.
He entered private practice in Evanston, Illinois from 1963 to 1979. He was a Representative in total from January 22, 1980 to until his retirement on January 3, 2001. Currently he is a partner of the law firm Hogan Lovells and serves as chairman of Research ! America, Vice Chair of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.
Previously, he was Chairman of PBS and served on the boards of the RAND Corporation, the American Heart Association and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
When Mikva resigned from Congress in 1979, Porter won a special election to succeed him and continued to serve for the next ten Congresses. A moderate Republican, he served as a founder and co-chair for the Congressional Human Rights Caucus for 18 years and oversaw budget appropriations for all federal health and education programs and agencies, including NIH, CDC and AHRQ. In 2000, he was awarded The Mary Woodard Lasker Public Service Award "for wise and perceptive leadership on behalf of medical research funding and a deep commitment to strengthening the science enterprise." He has also received the Albert Sabin Hero of Science Award from Americans for Medical Progress for his consistent advocacy for medical research.
During this time he entered politics. First by becoming a member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1973 to 1979, then by running an unsuccessful first campaign for a seat in the Ninety-sixth United States Congress in 1978 against Representative Abner J. Mikva. He is a member of the Boards of the PBS Foundation and the First Focus Campaign for Children , and a trustee for the Brookings Institution.
Porter is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the Bretton Woods Committee, the InterAmerican Dialogue and Council for Foreign Relations.
Married Kathryn Cameron. 5 children.
