Pierre S. du Pont IV.

Pierre S. du Pont

Pierre Samuel "Pete" du Pont IV (born January 22, 1935 in Wilmington , Delaware ) is an American politician ( Republican Party ). He was governor of the state of Delaware from 1977 to 1985 . He also represented his state in the US House of Representatives between 1971 and 1977 .

Early years

Du Pont attended the Phillips Exeter Academy until 1952 . He then studied at Princeton University until 1956 . He completed his training in 1963 with a law degree from Harvard Law School . In between he was in active military service in the US Navy from 1957 to 1960 . Since 1964 he practiced as a lawyer in Wilmington.

Political advancement in the US Congress

Both at the federal level and in Delaware, du Pont served on his party's finance committee. Between 1968 and 1971 he was a member of the Delaware House of Representatives . In 1970 he was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington . There he represented his state after several re-elections between January 3, 1971 and January 3, 1977. During the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon , he was one of the last MPs to support Nixon.

Delaware Governor

In 1976 du Pont declined to run for Congress again . Instead, he was nominated by his party as the top candidate for the upcoming gubernatorial elections. In the following elections he was able to beat the Democratic incumbent Sherman W. Tribbitt with 57% of the vote. Four years later he was re-elected against William J. Gordy, the candidate of the Democratic Party, with 71% of the vote. This allowed him to serve as governor between January 18, 1977 and January 15, 1985.

During his tenure, after initial difficulties, he succeeded in establishing a consensus between the parties and reducing the national debt. Income tax has been lowered and future tax increases have been made difficult after a constitutional amendment. At the same time, government spending was cut. Governor du Pont also campaigned for better education policies. It was also important to him to prevent the young people from drifting into unemployment. To this end, a youth advisory committee was formed in 1979, which many other US states and even foreign states served as a model. Governor du Pont also managed to pull the credit card business of many banks to Delaware. As a result, 30 new banks came to Delaware, creating 43,000 new jobs.

Another résumé

In 1988, du Pont ran in his party's primary election for their nomination as a presidential candidate. However, he soon gave up on this project after some poor pre-election results. In 1984 he was chairman of the National Education Commission of the States . Between 1985 and 1987 he was director of the Hudson Institute and from 1994 to 1997 he was director of the National Review Institute . Today he is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Center for Political Analysis and a board member of a law firm in Wilmington. Pierre du Pont is married to Elise Ravenel Wood, with whom he has four children.

Web links

• Pierre du Pont in the National Governors Association (English)
• The governors of Delaware (English)
• Pierre S. du Pont IV in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)