Pete Stark

Pete Stark

Fortney Hillman "Pete" Stark Jr. (born November 11, 1931 in Milwaukee , Wisconsin , † January 24, 2020 in Harwood , Maryland ) was an American Democratic Party politician . He represented parts of the east coast of the San Francisco Bay from 1973 to 2013 in the United States House of Representatives . Stark was the first member of Congress to admit to atheism .

Family, education and work

Stark received his B.Sc. in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley in 1960 . A bank he founded in 1963 expanded considerably. Back then, he implemented visionary ideas when he allowed the employees' children to be insured freely in the company health insurance and offered bus transfers free of charge to the mostly African-American employees. Stark was married twice and had seven children. He lived in Fremont , California .

Political career

In the 1972 election, Stark ran for a seat in the US House of Representatives for the first time. He defeated the long-standing, influential MP George Paul Miller with a combative anti-Vietnam War position in the party primary . He won the main election in the 8th Congressional District of California in November 1972 with 52.9 percent against the Republican candidate, Lew M. Warden, Jr. Stark moved into the House of Representatives on January 3, 1973 and was a member of it continuously until 2013. He represented changing congressional electoral districts, since those of California were cut every ten years due to the strong population growth; Despite the different digits, his constituency always remained geographically on the east side of the Bay of San Francisco in the Bay Area . From 1975 he represented the 9th and from 1993 the 13th constituency. After the United States Census 2010 and the subsequent redesign of the constituencies, Stark competed in the 2012 election in the newly formed 15th Congressional electoral district of California, which in turn geographically covered most of its previous constituency. In the jungle primary , in which candidates from all parties competed against each other, he achieved the most votes with 42 percent, but was defeated in the main election by the second-placed candidate in the primary, his party colleague Eric Swalwell , with 47.9 to 52.1 percent of the votes. Stark left Congress on January 3, 2013.

Positions

Stark belonged to the left wing ( American "liberal" ) of his party. He was considered a vehement opponent of the Iraq war and a supporter of the Secular Coalition for America . His public commitment to atheism is unusual in the United States, as religion plays a more important role in public perception than in Europe, for example. He campaigned for the expansion of public health care, introduced a law on sick pay and participated in the Obamacare health reform .

Web links

Commons : Pete Stark  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Pete Stark in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Strong, Pete. In: Our Campaigns (English)
• Rachel Swan: Former California Congressman Pete Stark dies at 88. In: San Francisco Chronicle , January 25, 2020

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Rachel Swan: Former California Congressman Pete Stark dies at 88. In: San Francisco Chronicle , January 25, 2020.
2. ↑ For general election results see Stark, Pete. In: Our Campaigns.
3. ↑ See the maps of the 13th congressional electoral district up to 2013 and the 15th congressional electoral district from 2013 .
4. ↑ Rachel Swan: Former California Congressman Pete Stark dies at 88. In: San Francisco Chronicle , January 25, 2020.