GK Butterfield

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GK Butterfield (2019)

George Kenneth "G. K. “Butterfield (born April 27, 1947 in Wilson , North Carolina ) is an American politician of the Democratic Party . The lawyer has represented Northeast North Carolina in the United States House of Representatives since 2004 .

Family, education and work

George Kenneth Butterfield came from a family where the racial issue in the United States became apparent. One of his great-grandmothers was an African American slave , and his great-grandfather was a white man who may have been a slave owner. Her son, Butterfield's maternal grandfather, became a Baptist priest in Wilson, his mother Addie Lourine Davis was a teacher who could not attend regular high school during the segregation and therefore attended a boarding school at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina.was trained. Butterfield grew up in his mother Wilson's hometown when racial segregation was still prevalent there. His father, George Kenneth Butterfield, Sr., immigrated from Bermuda to North Carolina at the age of sixteen , had established himself as a dentist there and co-founded the local section of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1947.

He attended Charles H. Darden High School in his native Wilson and studied until 1971 at North Carolina Central University in Durham , from which he graduated with bachelor's degrees in sociology and political science. In between he served in the US Army as a specialist from 1968 to 1970 . After studying law at the same university, which he completed in 1974 with a Juris Doctor , and his admission in the same year, he began to work as a lawyer. From 1975 to 1988 he was a partner in the law firm Fitch, Butterfield and Wynn. Between 1988 and 2004 he held various judicial posts in his home state of North Carolina, and from 2001 to 2002 at the North Carolina Supreme Court . He has served as Vice President of the North Carolina Bar Association since 2003.

Baptist Butterfield is divorced with three children. He lives in Wilson.

Political career

After the resignation of Congressman Frank Ballance , he was elected as its successor to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC at the by-election due for the first seat of North Carolina , where he took up his new mandate on July 20, 2004. This constituency comprises the northeast of the state and is very democratic. In all subsequent elections Butterfield was confirmed with clear majorities; only in the 2010 mid-term election , when Republicans won a majority in the House of Representatives at the height of the tea party movement , did he fall just under 60 percent of the vote. Butterfield is or was a member of the Energy and Trade Committee and two of its sub-committees. He was previously a member of the Ethics Committee , the Armed Forces Committee , and the Agriculture Committee . For the period of the 114th Congress from 2015 to 2017 he was chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus , the association of African Americans in Congress. As one of the eight Chief Deputy Whips of the Democrats under Jim Clyburn since 2007, Butterfield is considered influential in his group in the background.

Positions

GK Butterfield supported Obamacare , President Barack Obama's health care reform . He advocates higher taxes for higher earners and tax cuts for people on average and low incomes. One of his priorities is an expansion of the right to vote. He campaigned for an improvement to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which protects the rights of minorities, but which was partially repealed after a 2013 Supreme Court ruling .

Web links

Commons : GK Butterfield  - collection of images, videos and audio files

supporting documents

  1. ^ A b c Renee Schoof: Rep. GK Butterfield will lead black caucus. In: The News & Observer , November 19, 2014
  2. ^ Congressman GK Butterfield. In: Crossing the Tracks: An Oral History of East and West Wilson, North Carolina , Barton College .
  3. ↑ GK Butterfield, Jr.'s Biography. In: Vote Smart.
  4. ↑ Butterfield, George Kenneth “GK” In: Our Campaigns.
personal data
SURNAME Butterfield, GK
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Butterfield, George Kenneth (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer and politician (Democratic Party)
DATE OF BIRTH April 27, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Wilson , North Carolina