King, Angus, 1944-
Angus Stanley King Jr. (born March 31, 1944) is an American politician and lawyer who is the junior United States senator from Maine since 2013. A political independent since 1993, he was the 72nd governor of Maine from 1995 to 2003.
King won Maine's 2012 Senate election to replace the retiring Republican Olympia Snowe and took office on January 3, 2013. He was reelected to a second term in 2018, following the state's inaugural instant-runoff voting elections. For committee assignment purposes, he caucuses with the Democratic Party. He is one of two independents currently serving in the Senate, the other being Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who also caucuses with the Democrats.
King was born in Alexandria, Virginia, the son of Ellen Archer (née Ticer) and Angus Stanley King, a lawyer. His father was a U.S. magistrate for the Eastern District of Virginia.
He attended Dartmouth College, earning his B.A. in 1966. While a student at Dartmouth, King joined the Delta Upsilon social fraternity. He then attended the University of Virginia School of Law, graduating in 1969.
Soon after graduating from law school, King entered private law practice in Brunswick, Maine. He was a staff attorney for Pine Tree Legal Assistance in Skowhegan.
In 1972, he served as chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Alcoholism and Narcotics. King served as a legislative assistant to Democratic U.S. Senator William Hathaway in the 1970s. He was also well-known statewide as a host on public television.
In 1973, when he was 29, King was diagnosed with an aggressive form of malignant melanoma. King has said he believes he survived cancer only because he had health insurance, and has highlighted this experience when explaining his support for the Affordable Care Act.
In 1975, King returned to Maine to practice with Smith, Loyd and King in Brunswick. In 1983 he was appointed vice president of Swift River/Hafslund Company, which developed alternative energy (hydroelectric and biomass) projects in New England.
In 1989, King founded Northeast Energy Management, Inc., a company that developed and operated electrical energy conservation projects. In 1994 he sold the company. As of 2012 King's investments were valued at between $4.8 million and $22.5 million.
