Sheldon Whitehouse (born October 20, 1955) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Rhode Island since 2007. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the United States Attorney for the District of Rhode Island from 1993 to 1998 and as the 71st attorney general of Rhode Island from 1999 to 2003. A political progressive and climate hawk, Whitehouse became chair of the United States Senate Committee on the Budget in 2023. He has given hundreds of Senate floor speeches about climate change and has made his assertion that politically conservative "dark money" groups are conducting a campaign to seize control of the American government, specifically the Supreme Court of the United States, a hallmark of his Senate tenure.