Tom Allen (politician)

Tom Allen

Thomas Hodge "Tom" Allen (born April 16, 1945 in Portland , Maine ) is an American politician . Between 1997 and 2009 he represented the state of Maine in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Tom Allen attended Deering High School until 1963 and then studied at Bowdoin College in Brunswick until 1967 . In 1970 he studied with the help of a scholarship at Oxford University in England . After a subsequent law degree from Harvard University and his admission to the bar, he began to work in Maine in his new profession. In 1968, Allen was on Governor Kenneth Curtis's staff . In 1970 and 1971 he worked for the US Senator Edmund S. Muskie .

All joined the Democratic Party . In 1989 he was elected to the Portland City Council; from 1991 to 1992 he was mayor of this city. In the 1996 congressional election, he was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC in the first constituency of Maine . There he came on January 3, 1997 to the successor of the Republican James B. Longley , whom he had defeated in the election. After five re-elections, he was able to exercise his mandate in Congress until January 3, 2009. He was temporarily a member of the Energy and Trade Committee, three of its sub-committees and the Budget Committee. He was also a member of the House Ocean Caucus and the House Affordable Medicines Task Force . In Congress he campaigned for health care reform, a change in campaign funding, and the concerns of smaller companies.

In 2008, Allen declined to run for the US House of Representatives. Instead, he applied for the US Senate without success . In these elections he clearly lost with 38.5% of the vote to Susan Collins , who came to 61.5% of the vote. Since May 1, 2009, Allen has succeeded Patricia Schroeder as Chairman of the Board of the Association of American Publishers . He is married and lives in Portland.

Web links

• Tom Allen (politicians) in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)