Mark Sanford

Mark Sanford (2013)

Marshall Clement "Mark" Sanford Jr. (* 28. May 1960 in Fort Lauderdale , Florida ) is an American politician of the Republican Party and author . He is a former governor of South Carolina and a former member of the House of Representatives.

He represented South Carolina's 1st Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 2001 . In 2002 he won the South Carolina gubernatorial election against Democrat Jim Hodges . From 2003 to 2011 he was governor of this state . As governor, he attempted to reject $ 700 million in stimulus money for South Carolina under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. However, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that only Parliament, and not the South Carolina Governor, has the authority to accept or reject the stimulus funds

In June 2009, Sanford admitted to an extramarital affair after leaving the United States for nearly a week. He had told his employees that he wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail . However, he traveled to Argentina to visit his affair there. The scandal received national media coverage and led to his resignation as chairman of the Republican Governors Association. Although the South Carolina Parliament rejected him in a vote of no confidence, he ended his second term as governor.

In the 2013 by-election in the 1st Congressional District of South Carolina, he ran again for a seat in the House of Representatives. He won the election and was again a member of the House of Representatives from 2013 to 2019. In 2018, he lost the Republican primary for the seat of parliament. In September 2019, Sanford announced that he would run for the presidency in the Republican Party primary . However, he ended his campaign on November 12, 2019.

Childhood, Youth & Family

Sanford was born in Fort Lauderdale. His parents are Marshall Clement Sanford, a cardiac surgeon, and Margaret Elise Pitz. Although his family was relatively well off financially, his whole family slept in one room to save energy. In his senior year at school, he and his family moved from Fort Lauderdale to the 1,200 acre Coosaw Plantation near Beaufort, South Carolina. Sanford received the Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America .

Sanford studied business administration from Furman University (Bachelor of Arts 1983) and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1988 with a Master of Business Administration (MBA).

In November 1989 he married Jenny Sullivan. The separated couple has four sons.

From 1983 he worked in the banking and real estate sector , from 1983 as a partner at Coldwell Banker and from 1984 to 1986 as a project manager at Beachside Real Estate. In 1987 he completed the trainee program at Goldman Sachs and worked as a financial analyst at Chemical Realty Corporation from 1988 to 1990 and as a real estate agent at Brumley Company in 1990/91 . In 1992 he co-founded the brokerage company Norton and Sanford Real Estate Investment and ran it until 1994. Sanford also worked as a commentator for the conservative television station Fox News and has been captain of the Air Force Reserve since 2003 .

The Protestant lives in Mount Pleasant and stayed in his congressional office during the session weeks.

US House of Representatives 1995 to 2001

Mark Sanford (1999)

elections

1994

In 1994 Sandford ran for the 1st Congressional electoral district of South Carolina, which includes parts of the coastal strip with the city of Charleston . The previous MP for this district, Republican Arthur Ravenel , did not run again because he was unsuccessful for election as governor of South Carolina. Although he had no political experience, he finished second in the primary behind Van Hipp Jr., a former George H. W. Bush administration and former leader of the Republican Party of South Carolina. Sanford won the Republican primary in the second ballot runoff. He prevailed in the main election with 66.3 to 32.4 percent of the vote against the Democrat Robert A. Barber .

1996-1998

In 1996 and 1998, Sanford was re-elected unopposed Democrats with over 90 percent of the vote. In 1996 he prevailed against Joseph Innella of the Natural Law Party with 96.36% of the vote. In 1998 he beat Innella again, this time with 91% of the vote. In the 2000 election, Sanford no longer ran for his seat in Congress . His mandate ended on January 3, 2001.

Governor 2003 to 2011

In 2002, Sanford was nominated by his party as a candidate for governorship. As a candidate for the office of Lieutenant Governor was André Bauer nominated. In the November 2002 election, Sanford managed to beat Democratic incumbent Jim Hodges with 52.9% of the vote. Four years later he was confirmed in office with 55.1% of the vote against Tommy Moore. Sanford was often at odds with the state's parliament, even though the Republicans had majorities in both houses.

At the end of June 2009, Sanford could not be reached for a week, while his government was neither informed of the whereabouts nor were there any official rules on representation. He later claimed to have been hiking in the Appalachians. However, it turned out that he had been having an extramarital affair with an Argentine woman for a long time and had visited her in Argentina . Since then, “ Hiking the Appalachian Trail ” has been synonymous with adultery in the United States. The House of Commons of the State Legislature censured Sanford for this, and Sanford resigned as chairman of the Republican Governors Association , but remained in the governorship. He fined $ 74,000 and a prosecutor's investigation into his travel expenses has been suspended.

His second term ended in January 2011 when he passed his post to Nikki Haley .

US House of Representatives 2013 to 2019

Due to the extramarital affair, Sanford were initially no longer given any political opportunities. Nevertheless, in May 2013 he won the by-election for the 1st Congressional constituency of South Carolina against the Democratic candidate Elizabeth Colbert Busch. His ex-wife Jenny Sanford had previously announced that she would not run for the Republicans, which was also a promising candidate. He then moved back into the US House of Representatives on May 15, 2013, where he was a member of the Budget Committee, the Homeland Security Committee and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, as well as five subcommittees and two congressional caucuses.

Re-elected twice, Sanford was defeated in the Republican primary on June 12, 2018 against State MP Katie Arrington with 46.5 to 50.6 percent of the vote. Sanford had criticized President Donald Trump more often and was therefore unpopular with the party base. Arrington, on the other hand, presented himself as a Trump supporter. A few hours before the polls closed, Trump tweeted a call for Arrington's election, which observers classified as crucial. Therefore, he did not run in the main election in November 2018 ; his mandate ended on January 3, 2019. Shortly before the main election, Sanford decided not to support Arrington, which was defeated by Democrat Joe Cunningham .

2020 presidential candidacy

Sanford did not rule out a return to politics after his primary election defeat in 2018 and continued to raise funds for his Political Action Committee . In July 2019, he announced that he would keep a 2020 presidential nomination in the Republican primary against incumbent Donald Trump open. On September 8, 2019, Sanford ran in the presidential primary election, but withdrew on November 12, 2019, justifying the fact that his fiscal policy message had not been received because of the ongoing impeachment proceedings against President Trump. Alongside him, former Congressman Joe Walsh and former Governor Bill Weld ran for the Republican presidential nomination.

Positions and Style

Sanford entered Congress in the 1995 mid-term election for Bill Clinton's first presidency, when the Republicans under Newt Gingrich made broad gains and captured a majority in the House for the first time in decades. As a young MP, Sanford relied on sharp rhetoric and radical reforms, in particular lowering taxes and downsizing the state apparatus. However, according to McClatchy DC , his commitment to fiscal policy remained unsuccessful throughout his membership in Congress, most recently during the 2017 tax reform implemented by the Republicans, which greatly increased the deficit in the federal budget. Sanford replied to this criticism that he saw it as his job to plant flags. While in his first term in the House of Representatives he was a spokesman for the Republicans on reform of the social security systems, he was largely left out of important decisions during his second term. He was supported by Ron Paul in 2013 and, like him, is considered a libertarian . In 2015 he joined the Freedom Caucus , which is considered the congressional arm of the tea party movement , and introduced a law into the House of Representatives in early 2017 that Obamacare would have completely abolished. The Republican leadership put pressure on Sanford not to pursue this radical move that would have overturned many health care standards.

With his unyielding straightforwardness he achieved little assertiveness in Congress, and as governor he vetoed a large number of laws, rejected investment aid under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act , and attracted attention with provocations. So he brought two pigs into the state legislature to protest against wasted spending (subsidies are pejoratively called "pork" in the USA). However, his consistency and rhetorical charisma ensured that he was traded as a possible Republican candidate for the presidency or vice-presidency in the mid-2000s. Especially in environmental issues, Sanford deviates from the party line, is against oil production off the coast (offshore drilling) and recognizes the scientific consensus on man-made climate change .

Before the 2018 election, Sanford had frequently criticized his party and the president in Donald Trump's presidency , but supported Trump's projects such as the construction of a border wall to Mexico in the internal party primary .

Web links

Commons : Mark Sanford  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Mark Sanford in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Mark Sanford at the National Governors Association (English)
• Mark Sanford, Jr.'s Biography. In: Vote Smart (English)
• Sanford, Mark. In: Our Campaigns (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ South Carolina governor trumped, must take stimulus money - CNN.com. Retrieved February 19, 2020 . 
2. ↑ What does Mark Sanford believe? Where the candidate stands on 6 issues. September 11, 2019, accessed February 19, 2020 (American English). 
3. ↑ ABC News: Mark Sanford announces he will challenge President Trump in 2020 GOP primary. Retrieved February 19, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Caitlin Byrd: Former SC Gov. Mark Sanford has dropped out of the presidential race. Retrieved February 19, 2020 . 
5. ↑ Alt-Weekly Contributors: From Charleston to Los Angeles, New York to Miami, here are the bottom feeders of public office. Retrieved February 19, 2020 . 
6. ↑ Alex Altman, Randy James: Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews . In: Time . December 14, 2009, ISSN  0040-781X ( time.com [accessed February 19, 2020]).
7. ↑ ABC News: Jenny Sanford Exclusive: Husband Refused to Be Faithful in Wedding Vows. Retrieved February 19, 2020 . 
8. ^ The State | 10/13/2002 | Anti-politics Sanford stresses family, country. November 4, 2002, accessed February 19, 2020 . 
9. ↑ Mark Sanford, Jr.'s Biography. In: Vote Smart
10. ↑ ^{a b c} Emma Dumain: Mark Sanford came to DC vowing change. He leaves with few wins. In: McClatchy DC , October 8, 2018.
11. ↑ Markc Pitzke: “Do something exotic”. In: Spiegel Online , June 25, 2009
12. ↑ “Five days of crying in Argentina”. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , June 25, 2009.
13. ↑ Jon Kelly: The 10 most scandalous euphemisms. In: BBC News , May 15, 2013.
14. ^ Glenn Thrush: South Carolina House censures Sanford. In: Politico , January 13, 2010
15. ^ Robbie Brown: Gov. Sanford Accepts Fine in Ethics Case. In: The New York Times , March 18, 2010
16. ↑ Mark Sanford Avoid's Criminal Charges. In: CBS News , May 3, 2010.
17. ↑ With a cardboard cutout to a surprise victory. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 8, 2013.
18. ^ South Carolina's 1st Congressional District election, 2018. In: Ballotpedia.
19. ↑ Caitlin Byrd: 'It's like emotional torture': The day Mark Sanford lost it all. In: Charleston Post and Courier , June 15, 2018
20. ^ Karl Doemens: A party called Trump. In: Frankfurter Rundschau , June 14, 2018.
21. ^ Caitlin Byrd: Mark Sanford won't endorse Katie Arrington in SC congressional race. In: Charleston Post and Courier , October 29, 2018.
22. ^ Caitlyn Byrd: Mark Sanford, SC Republican, former US Rep, considers presidential run against Trump. In: Charleston Post and Courier , July 16, 2019.
23. ↑ Caitlin Byrd: He's in: Mark Sanford, SC Republican, formally declares GOP White House 2020 bid. In: Charleston Post and Courier , September 8, 2019
24. ↑ Simone Pathé: Mark Sanford ends his primary challenge to President Trump. In: Roll Call , November 12, 2019.
25. ↑ Aaron Blake: Ron Paul endorses Mark Sanford. In: The Washington Post , April 25, 2013.
26. ↑ South Carolina governor trumped, must take stimulus money. In: CNN.com , June 4, 2009.