Pete V. Domenici was born Pietro Vichi Domenici in Albuquerque, New Mexico on May 7, 1932. He received a bachelor's degree in education from the University of New Mexico in 1954. He spent a year teaching junior high school science and math before deciding to go to law school. He received a law degree from the Denver University law school in 1958.
He entered politics in 1966, when he was elected to the Albuquerque City Commission. He went on to become a six-term Republican senator from New Mexico. He served from 1972 until 2008. During his time in office, he was chairman of the Budget Committee, chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy, and served on the Appropriations and Indian Affairs committees. His book, A Brighter Tomorrow: Fulfilling the Promise of Nuclear Energy, was published in 2004. He had frontotemporal lobar degeneration, a progressive disease of the brain that causes forms of dementia. He died from complications of abdominal surgery on September 13, 2017 at the age of 85.
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