Peter G. Fitzgerald

Peter Fitzgerald

Peter Gosselin Fitzgerald (* 20th October 1960 in Elgin , Illinois ) is an American politician of the Republican Party and former member of the US Senate for the state of Illinois. He won a Senate seat for the Republicans, who were weak in Illinois, and gained fame above all for the fact that he was in constant dispute with his party leadership. In terms of content, he became known for his commitment to government spending.

Life

Fitzgerald attended a private Catholic school in Rhode Island , studied at Dartmouth College and at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki . He received his doctorate in law from the University of Michigan in 1986 .

Between 1992 and 1998 he was a member of the Illinois Senate . There he was one of five members of the fab five , who were known to often seek quarrels with the Republican party leadership in the state. The other members were Steve Rauschenberger , Dave Syverson , Patrick O'Malley and Chris Lauzen . Among other things, he got a non-Illinois prosecutor to investigate corruption cases in the state's government. The investigation led to a large number of convictions, including former Republican Governor George Ryan . But this also meant that many prominent Republicans did not support him in the election campaign and announced that they would not do so in the future either.

politics

In 1998, Fitzgerald ran against incumbent Democratic Senator Carol Moseley Braun . In Illinois, the Republicans had not received a seat in the Senate for 20 years, but Braun was deeply involved in various corruption scandals . Despite these major problems for Braun, Fitzgerald won the election by just four percentage points.

Fitzgerald generally takes conservative positions on issues such as abortion or economical fiscal policy. However, he advocates environmental protection positions and opposed the oil drilling project in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge during his senate tenure .

Fitzgerald received national media attention when he first made a filibuster against a spending law in 2000 . He justified this with the fact that it included a position for the Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield and that the Republican-controlled state government would not have run an honest tender for the upcoming project. On the one hand, he gave his second well-known speech when the US government passed a law after the 9/11 attacks that would provide financial support to US airlines. He asked who financially supports the US taxpayer and said that the airlines would spend the money, but afterwards, because of their structural problems, would be financially as bad as before. The Senate nevertheless approved the law with 99: 1 votes.

Because of his problems with his own party, he decided not to run for re-election in 2004, as this would be hopeless against a strong democratic opponent. His successor in the Senate was Barack Obama , who was successful against Alan Keyes .

Web link

• Peter G. Fitzgerald in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)