Levin, Carl, 1934-2021

Carl Milton Levin (June 28, 1934 – July 29, 2021) was an American attorney and retired politician who served as a United States Senator from Michigan from 1979 to 2015. He was the chair of the Senate Committee on Armed Services and a member of the Democratic Party.

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Levin was a graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School. He worked as the General Counsel of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission from 1964 to 1967, and as a special assistant attorney general for the Michigan Attorney General's Office. Levin was elected to the Detroit City Council in 1968, serving from 1969 to 1977, and was president of the City Council from 1973 to 1977.

In 1978, Levin ran for the United States Senate, defeating Republican incumbent Robert P. Griffin. Levin was re-elected in 1984, 1990, 1996, 2002 and 2008. On March 7, 2013, Levin announced that he would not seek a seventh term to the Senate. On March 9, 2015, Levin announced he was joining the Detroit-based law firm Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP. At the same time, he founded the Levin Center at Wayne State University Law School, dedicated to "strengthening the integrity, transparency, and accountability of public and private institutions by promoting and supporting bipartisan, fact-based oversight; advancing good governance, particularly with respect to the legislative process; and promoting civil discourse on current issues of public policy".

Levin became Michigan's senior senator in 1995, and he is the longest-serving senator in the state's history. At the time of his retirement Levin was the fourth longest-serving incumbent in the U.S. Senate. He released his memoir, Getting to the Heart of the Matter: My 36 Years in the Senate, in March 2021 through Wayne State University Press. On July 29, 2021, Levin passed away at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.