Mike Capuano

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Mike Capuano

Michael Everett "Mike" Capuano (born January 9, 1952 in Somerville , Massachusetts ) is an American politician of the Democratic Party . From 1999 to 2019 he represented most of the city of Boston and its suburbs in the United States House of Representatives . In 2018 he lost the internal party primary against his successor Ayanna Pressley .

Family, education and work

Mike Capuano is the descendant of immigrants from Ireland and Italy . His father Andrew Capuano was the first Italian American to be elected to political office in Somerville. Mike Capuano grew up in Somerville, attended high school there until 1969 and then studied at Dartmouth College in Hanover ( New Hampshire ), from which he graduated in 1973 with a bachelor's degree in psychology. He then completed a law degree at the Law School of Boston College in 1977 with a Juris Doctor . After admission the same year, he returned to Somerville and began working as a lawyer. Between 1978 and 1984 he served as senior legal advisor to the joint tax committee of the two chambers of the Massachusetts General Court .

Mike Capuano has two children with his wife Barbara. The family lives in Somerville. He is the uncle of actors Chris and Scott Evans .

Political career

From 1977 to 1979 and again from 1985 to 1989 he sat on the Somerville Town Council and enforced the city's declaration of Sanctuary City . In 1989 he was elected mayor of the city in the third attempt. He held this office from 1990 to 1999.

In the 1998 election , Capuano was elected to the 8th Congressional constituency of Massachusetts in the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC , where he succeeded Joseph Patrick Kennedy on January 3, 1999 . In this reliably democratic electoral area, which had been represented by political greats such as James Michael Curley , John F. Kennedy and Tip O'Neill , he had to prevail, especially in the party's internal primary . The Democrats had ten candidates, including former Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn , who Capuano won by running a dedicated doorstep campaign and getting a high turnout in Somerville. According to a poll by the Boston Herald , 44 percent of those who voted for Capuano had met him in person. The constituency comprised much of the metropolitan area of ​​Boston and northern and southern suburbs. After the death of US Senator Edward Kennedy in 2009, he unsuccessfully sought his party's nomination for the upcoming by-election, which went to Martha Coakley .

After the constituencies were redesigned as a result of the 2010 United States Census , the digits and boundaries of the congressional constituencies changed. From 2013 Capuano therefore represented the 7th constituency of his state, which geographically largely corresponded to its previous one. Capuano won seven out of nine of his re-elections without a candidate. In the internal code of his party on September 4, 2018 he lost to the former councilor of Boston, Ayanna Pressley , and therefore retired after the general election in 2018 from the Congress of. His defeat was interpreted in Politico as an expression of a trend that the old political machines with their networks and patronage structures in the large, democratic and union-dominated cities of the northeastern United States by the diversification of the population and dissatisfaction with the establishment in the elections 2018 came to an end. Just as the victory of John F. Kennedy shortly after the Second World War as a sign of identity politics can be considered as the puritanical embossed Brahmins Boston were replaced by a long series of ethnic Irish Catholics as a political representative of Boston, were ethnic with the defeat Capuanos against Pressley Minorities and the previously disadvantaged came to political power.

Capuano has served on finance , transport and ethics committees, as well as five sub-committees. His mandate ended on January 3, 2019.

Positions

Capuano is considered a progressive and thus a member of the left wing of his party and belonged to the Congressional Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives . In his left-wing constituency - the only one in Massachusetts where minorities were in the majority - he was popular, among other things, because of his political weight in Washington and the support he gained for local projects. He made a name for himself by criticizing financial corporations, invasions of privacy, and overseas operations by the United States Army, and brought legal proceedings against both the Bush administration and the Obama administration for illegally expanding their powers on military matters. Capuano was one of the few Democrats to vote against authorizing the Iraq war and against the No Child Left Behind Act, and advocated universal public health care long before it gained a majority among Democrats. He supported the American troop withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan . Interest groups for the protection of minorities, workers and women's rights gave Capuano the highest marks, while the National Rifle Association gave him the worst grade F. Unlike his successor Ayanna Pressley, Capuano was reluctant to call for the immigration service to be abolished and was open to proposing stronger border security to Mexico in return for securing the status of immigrants.

Web links

Commons : Mike Capuano  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

supporting documents

  1. ^ Matt Murphy: Capuano makes his pitch to Greater Lowell voters. In: The Lowell Sun , October 5, 2009.
  2. ↑ Angela Veltsos: Michael Capuano: Biography. In: The Depot (private website), July 24, 1998.
  3. ^ A b Lisa Furlong: Michael Capuano '73. In: Dartmouth Alumni Magazine , March / April 2019.
  4. ↑ Kevin Slane: Chris Evans says he might want to get into politics someday. In: Boston.com , April 6, 2016.
  5. ^ A b c Nick DeCosta-Klipa: Everything you need to know about Michael Capuano. In: Boston.com , August 31, 2018.
  6. ↑ Jonathan Martin: The battle for Teddy's seat. In: Politico , December 4, 2009.
  7. ↑ Capuano concedes to Pressley in congressional race. In: The Boston Globe , September 4, 2018.
  8. ^ Reid Wilson: The year the party machines broke. In: The Hill , September 8, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Capuano, Mike
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Capuano, Michael Everett (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician (Democratic Party)
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Somerville , Massachusetts