Dennis Kucinich

Dennis Kucinich, 2010

Dennis John Kucinich ([ kuːsɪnɪtʃ ] * 8. October 1946 in Cleveland , Ohio ) is an American politician of the Democrats and former member of the House of Representatives of the US Congress . His political career began in Cleveland, where he also served as mayor from 1977 to 1979. After a temporary departure from professional politics, he was a member of the House of Representatives from 1996 to 2013. He ran as a nominee for the 2004 and 2008 presidential election .

Career

He was born as the eldest of seven children of Frank and Virginia Kucinich ( Croatian : Kučinić). His father worked as a truck driver and his mother did the housework and family work . From 1967 to 1970 he attended Cleveland State University . In 1970 he moved to Case Western Reserve University , where he graduated in 1973. The name Dennis Kucinich became known to a broader public in the wake of debates in Congress about a possible military operation in Iraq . As chairman of the group of progressive members of the House of Representatives, Kucinich mobilized and coordinated the opposition to the plans of the US government. A few months later, Kucinich announced his candidacy for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination for the November 2, 2004 elections. For the nomination for the presidential election 2008 Kucinich ran again. In 2009 he received the Thomas Merton Award for Peace and Social Justice.

politics

Kucinich, who comes from a humble background, has been involved in politics since his youth. As a 23-year-old student, he won a seat on his hometown Cleveland council in 1969, which he served until 1975 and from 1983 to 1985. In 1977, at the age of 31, Kucinich ran successfully against Republican incumbent Ralph Perk and was elected as the youngest candidate in the United States for Mayor of Cleveland .

His tenure was very turbulent, as the strongest blizzard in the city's history caused severe damage and the city was in a financial crisis. However, Kucinich opposed the will of the creditor banks, which had invested in the private competitor ( CEI ) of the municipal electricity company ( Municipal Light ) to sell the municipal electricity company to CEI. With this decision and the decision to review previous city contracts and renegotiate them if they were questionable, Kucinich became uncomfortable for organized crime. According to a newspaper report, the mafia even hired a contract killer in the meantime, but the plan was abandoned because of Kucinich's popularity (which made it likely that he would lose the election). Meanwhile, in response to the denial, the Cleveland Trust Company demanded that city debts be paid back immediately, which temporarily led to the community's default. As his popularity fell, Kucinich was ousted from office by his Republican successor in 1979. However, in 1998 the Cleveland City Council honored Kucinich for its decision not to sell Municipal Light, according to the city's calculations, the decision by Kucinich saved the city between 1985 and 1995 costs of around 195 million dollars.

Kucinich got out of professional politics after serving as a councilor in Cleveland, worked as a teacher, radio and television journalist and took up consulting activities. In 1994, Kucinich started his political career again. For his constituency in Cleveland, he was elected by voters to the Ohio Senate , the upper house of the state parliament. Since 1996, he has represented the tenth constituency of Ohio, which also includes Cleveland, in the House of Representatives in Washington, having won six elections so far .

In July 2007, Kucinich filed an impeachment motion against Vice President Dick Cheney , in whose three articles he mentioned, among other things, manipulation of intelligence gathering and deliberate lies against the nation in connection with the Iraq war and al-Qaida, as well as an unfounded threat of aggression against Cheney the Iran accuses. On 9 June 2008 he brought the House to table a resolution with 35 counts, the one impeachment (Impeachment) against President George W. Bush should take.

He is critical of nuclear power.

Due to the recalculation of the congressional electoral districts as a result of the 2010 census , Kucinich had to compete against his party colleague Marcy Kaptur in the primary for the 2012 congressional election in Ohio's ninth constituency . She decided the duel between the two incumbents clearly for themselves, with which Kucinich left parliament at the end of the legislative period in January 2013. In the speech in which he admitted defeat, he accused his competitor of having conducted an election campaign that "completely lacked integrity".

On the occasion of the international military operation in Libya in 2011 , Kucinich and other congressmen sued President Obama and Defense Secretary Gates because the US operation took place without a declaration of war by Congress.

Since January 2013, Kucinich has appeared regularly as a commentator on the Fox News Channel .

Presidential candidacies

In 2003 he announced his candidacy for the presidential nomination in the Democratic Party primary . He entered the election campaign with a program that was relatively left-wing for the United States and the Democratic Party and was in unconditional opposition to the republican US government in office at the time. In terms of economic policy, Kucinich called for the abolition of the free trade institutions, the World Trade Organization and NAFTA , a drastic increase in minimum wages for workers and the expansion of employee participation rights. He demanded that the FED be placed under the US Treasury Department and that the banks should be deprived of the privilege of creating money . To this end, he submitted the National Emergency Employment Defense Act of 2010 to Congress , but it was rejected. With this monetary reform he was referring to a proposal by Stephen Zarlenga. He would also like to completely convert the national health system of the United States to (public) statutory health insurance . In foreign policy, the US's expansive course should change in favor of a strengthening of the United Nations , and American troops should be withdrawn from Iraq within 90 days of the new US president taking office. Kucinich also called for the repeal of the so-called PATRIOT Act , against which he was one of the few MPs who voted, and the establishment of a peace ministry.

On December 12, 2006, Kucinich announced his candidacy for the 2008 presidential election with similar goals, although he again took positions that differed from the democratic majority opinion, for example with regard to the further financing of the warfare in Iraq. During the pre-election nomination appearances on television, he was the most resolute of any Democratic candidate against a continuation of the war in Iraq. He was also the only candidate who unreservedly supports the opening of marriage to homosexuals. However, his candidacy brought only respectable successes, Kucinich could not win any of the democratic primary elections (see primary results of the presidential election in the United States in 2008 )

Private life

Dennis Kucinich is divorced twice and has a daughter named Jackie. Kucinich, who lived alone at the time, received a lot of attention during the 2004 election campaign with his public declaration that he was looking for a partner. Since August 2005 he is in what is now his third marriage to Elizabeth Jane Kucinich, born Harper. Kucinich is an avowed vegan .

Web links

Commons : Dennis Kucinich  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikiquote: Dennis Kucinich  - Quotes

Wikisource: Dennis Kucinich  - Sources and full texts (English)

• Official website
• Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich ( memento January 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) on the US Congress website
• Dennis Kucinich's blog at the Huffington Post
• Dennis Kucinich in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

Footnotes

1. ↑ Lynn Okamoto: Kucinich's hard childhood a "gift" yielding strength, compassion. In: Des Moines Register . September 7, 2003, archived from the original on February 9, 2004 ; Retrieved February 2, 2013 . 
2. ^ Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich: About Me: Biography ( Memento December 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). US Congress website
3. ↑ James Renner: The Mafia Plot To Kill Dennis Kucinich. In: The Cleveland Free Times. July 4, 2007, accessed February 2, 2013 . 
4. ↑ David Lamb: "Boy Mayor" Kucinich Took Charge in Utility Debt Crisis ( Memento of the original from November 22, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Los Angeles Times . January 23, 2003  
5. ^ Text of Resolution as Introduced in the House of Representatives ( Memento of December 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). April 24, 2007 (PDF; 78 kB)
6. ↑ Synopsis of Resolution ( Memento of December 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF 411 kB)
7. ^ Dennis Kucinich: New Nuclear Reactors Would Be Too Risky . In: US News & World Report . July 19, 2010
8. ↑ Caitlin Huey-Burns: Kucinich Falls to Kaptur in Ohio's 9th District . In: RealClearPolitics. March 7, 2012
9. ^ Jonathan Turley: Members of Congress Challenge Libyan War in Federal Court . June 15, 2011 (with application in full text: PDF; 6.93 MB ).
10. ^ Tom McCarthy: Dennis Kucinich shows appetite for punishment by joining Fox News . In: The Guardian . January 16, 2013
11. ↑ National Emergency Employment Defense Act of 2010 ( Memento of October 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 115 kB)
12. ↑ See Helge Peukert : The great financial market and national debt crisis. Marburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-89518-909-8 , p. 362
13. ↑ Scott Baker: Stephen Zarlenga's American Monetary Act: A Review . In: The Huffington Post . December 20, 2010. See Stephen Zarlenga in the English language Wikipedia.
14. ↑ dennis4president.com: Issues. Archived from the original on April 23, 2008 ; Retrieved February 2, 2013 . 
15. ↑ Democrats wary of gay marriage . In: Queer.de. July 24, 2007