About Dennis Kucinich
http://www.kucinich.us/bio.shtml
A lifetime of public serviceThe public service career of Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich dates back more than 40 years, beginning in his late teens when his growing interest in government, public policy, and politics attracted him to Cleveland City Hall for regular meetings of the City Council and other municipal boards and commissions. Inspired deeply by President John F. Kennedy, Kucinich saw government as the vehicle to address the problems of poverty, unemployment, crime, and social injustice that he had seen firsthand growing up. As the oldest of seven children whose parents, Frank and Virginia, struggled daily to pay the rent and meet living expenses, he developed a strong sense of self reliance and a burning desire to address the ills of society that had afflicted his family and families like theirs.
He mounted his first campaign for elected office when he was only 20 years old, and, like most political newcomers, he lost to a longtime incumbent Councilman – but only barely. Two years later, in 1969, he ran again, won, and took office at the age of 23.
After several years on City Council as the outspoken champion of his working class neighborhood, Kucinich was elected citywide to the post of Clerk of Cleveland Municipal Court. Then in 1977, he ran for Mayor and defeated a three-term incumbent who, most analysts said at the time, had lost touch with his own grassroots base. When Kucinich took office in 1977 at the age of 31, he was the youngest person ever elected to lead a major American city.
Mayor of Cleveland and Muny LightKucinich was elected Mayor in large part on his promise to save the city’s municipally owned electric system which offered customers significantly lower rates than the private, investor-owned utility. His predecessor had agreed to sell it, creating an electric monopoly that Kucinich and his supporters saw as dangerously anti-consumer. Barely a year after taking office, Cleveland’s banks, which had close ties with the private utility, demanded that he sell “Muny Light” as a pre-condition of extending credit to the city.
The attempted political blackmail failed to persuade the courageous, young Mayor. But, in an incident unprecedented in modern American politics, the Cleveland banks plunged the city into fiscal default for a mere $15 million despite being offered triple collateral to protect the loan.
By holding to his promise and putting principle above politics, Kucinich lost his re-election bid and his political career was temporarily derailed. He served one additional term in the Cleveland City Council before taking a 12-year sabbatical from public life. But today, Kucinich stands vindicated for having confronted the Enron of his day, and for saving the municipal power company.
"There is little debate," wrote Cleveland Magazine in May 1996, "over the value of Muny Light today. Now Cleveland Public Power, it is a proven asset to the city that between 1985 and 1995 saved its customers $195,148,520 over what they would have paid CEI." He also preserved hundreds of union jobs. In 1998 the Cleveland City Council honored Dennis for “…having the courage and foresight to refuse to sell the city’s municipal electric system.”
He returned to public office in 1994 when he was elected to the Ohio State Senate. In 1996, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he is now serving his sixth consecutive term.
U.S. Congress
Since being elected to Congress in 1996, Kucinich has been a tireless advocate for workers’ rights, civil rights and human rights.
He has authored and co-sponsored legislation to create a national, not-for-profit health care system, preserve Social Security, lower the costs of prescription drugs, provide economic development through infrastructure improvements, abolish the death penalty, provide universal pre-kindergarten to all 3, 4, and 5 year olds, create a Department of Peace, regulate genetically engineered foods, repeal the USA PATRIOT Act, and provide tax relief to working class families. He has also opposed trade policies that resulted in the out-sourcing of millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs. And, he has also introduced legislation to begin impeachment proceedings against Vice President Dick Cheney to investigate his role in providing false and misleading information to the Congress and to the American people leading up to the invasion of Iraq.
Kucinich is widely regarded as the most vocal opponent of the Iraq War in the U.S. Congress. In 2002, when the Administration was pushing for a resolution of authorization to proceed with military intervention, Kucinich rallied 125 member of the House to vote against the authorization measure. He has voted against every war funding authorization bill since, and he is the author of legislation to end the war, withdraw all U.S. forces, and turn security and peace-keeping responsibilities over to a multi-national force that includes representatives from countries in the region.In 2004 and in 2007, he brought many of those issues to the national debate as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President. He has been widely credited with shaping the debate on those issues and forcing the other candidates to re-visit, modify, and in many cases reverse their past positions.
In his Congressional District, which includes parts of Cleveland and several western and southern suburban communities, Kucinich has been recognized by the Greater Cleveland AFL-CIO as a tireless advocate for the social and economic interests of his constituents.
Kucinich led the effort to save Cleveland's 90 year-old steel industry and the thousands of jobs and retiree benefits it provides. While hundreds of community hospitals have been closed throughout the country, Kucinich led a community-based effort to reopen two Cleveland neighborhood hospitals.
He also worked with the nation's largest railroads to create a merger agreement that improved rail safety while diverting a heavy volume of train traffic away from heavily populated residential areas of his district. Kucinich has also been a strong advocate for preserving and expanding the critical the role of the NASA Glenn Research Center, which is in his district.
For those efforts and others, he has been honored by the Cleveland AFL-CIO, the Ohio PTA, the NASA Glenn Research Center, the Salvation Army, the United States Post Office, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services, Ohio’s Boys Town, and the Human Rights Campaign.
Nationally, he has received similar honors and accolades from Public Citizen, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and the League of Conservation Voters as a champion of clean air, clean water and an unspoiled earth. Kucinich has twice been an official United States delegate to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (1998, 2004) and attend the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa.He currently serves as Chairman of the Domestic Policy subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Biographical informationKucinich was born in Cleveland, Ohio on October 8, 1946. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters in Speech Communications from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio in 1974. Aside from his public service positions, over the years he has held a number of other jobs, including hospital orderly, newspaper copy boy, teacher, consultant, television analyst and author. In 2005, he married British-born Elizabeth Harper. They reside in a working-class neighborhood on Cleveland’s West Side, in a home he purchased in 1971.
Kucinich is a current member of The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States (IATSE), an AFL-CIO affiliated union.
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