Jack Davis (industrialist)
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John R. "Jack" Davis (born 1933) is an industrialist and Democratic politician from western New York. He is also the founder of the Save Jobs Party.
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[edit] Biography
Davis was born in Amherst, New York and grew up in western New York. He graduated from the University of Buffalo with a B.S. in Engineering in 1955. A "fighting Dem," Davis writes in his biography that he joined the Marine Corps Reserve while in college. When he graduated, the Korean War was over. Davis said that the Marine Corps didn’t need his service, and, since he still owed the military three years of active duty service, he joined the Coast Guard.[1] He left with the rank of lieutenant.
Davis worked as a maintenance engineer for Chevrolet and as a sales engineer at Carborundum, before starting his own company in 1964. It began in his garage; it eventually made him a millionaire.[2] He still owns the company, I Squared R Element Company, which makes special heating elements for electric furnaces. It is the only remaining US company that manufactures silicon carbide heating elements. Davis is married, with six children and thirteen grandchildren.
[edit] Decision to leave the Republican Party
Davis was a self-described "Goldwater Republican" for 50 years. In late 2003, he purchased two tickets to a $1,000-a-plate Republican fundraiser in Buffalo, attended by Vice President Dick Cheney. Davis insisted on talking to the Vice President about U.S. free trade policies, which Cheney's staff refused to allow.[3]
Following a moderately heated dispute, Cheney staff members ordered Davis to be ejected from the fundraiser. Davis then quit the Republican party. The incident also caused some embarrassment for Cheney's staff after an audio recording of the conversation between Davis and one Cheney staffer was played on a local radio station.[citation needed]
[edit] 2004 Congressional campaign
In 2004, Davis officially entered politics, running as a Democrat for the U.S. Congress from the 26th District of New York. He ran against incumbent Representative Tom Reynolds, a Republican, who was considered unbeatable. Davis doubled his original commitment to the race, pouring a total of $1.2 million dollars of personal money into his campaign. Reynolds was forced to begin running campaign ads for the first time since his election in 1998.
On election day, Reynolds won, 56% to 44%; in contrast, he won the 2002 election 75% to 25% against the Democratic challenger. Many cite the amount spent by Davis as compared to Reynolds' prior challenger as the primary factor for the change.
After the election, Davis was fined for a violation of campaign finance reporting laws. Davis had used his non-profit "Save Jobs" organization to funnel money into his political efforts, failing to comply with political disclosure requirements of both the federal government and New York State. [citation needed]
[edit] Save Jobs Party
Following his defeat in 2004, Davis continued his political activism by forming his own political party, the Save Jobs Party. While Republicans accused him of using the party merely as a springboard for a 2006 rematch, Davis sponsored more than a dozen candidates for public office in races across Western New York. However, the Save Jobs party soon ran into trouble with state and federal officials.
In one incident, an Erie County Legislator sought an FBI investigation following last-minute phone calls impersonating the unpopular County Executive made from Davis's campaign headquarters. In another, Davis's Deputy Executive Director and Chair of his state PAC, took a plea deal in a petition fraud case involving Davis's party.[4] He has since been granted a conditional discharge. In early 2006, Davis's state PAC was sued in State Supreme Court for failing to file required disclosure documents. [citation needed] Later that year, Davis abandoned the fledgling party.
[edit] 2006 Congressional campaign
In 2006, Davis again ran for the 26th district Congressional seat, against Tom Reynolds. Since no other Democrat chose to run in the September 12, 2006 primary, Davis was the Democratic nominee.
Davis' 12-point platform included promises to cancel all free trade agreements, cut pork and deny amnesty for illegal aliens.
Some Republicans have questioned Davis's statement that he served as a "naval officer," which implies service in the United States Navy. Davis said he calls himself a "naval officer" because he worked on a ship, not because he was in the Navy. "I ran a navy ship," Davis said. "I was a deck officer. ... I’m proud of my military career."[5]
Davis was also the candidate of the Working Families Party. Davis secured the nomination of the Independence Party of New York after spending over 1 million dollars to defeat little-known attorney Robert Pusateri. Reynolds had received permission to compete for the minor party's endorsement, but declined to do so. Votes from all nominating parties counted towards Davis' total under New York's electoral fusion rule.[6]
November 7th saw Davis lose the election to incumbent Tom Reynolds by a margin of 51% to 49%. Reynolds had trailed Davis by as much as 15 points in a poll commissioned by the Buffalo News, after questions about Reynolds' handling of the Mark Foley scandal. Many attributed Reynolds's surge to his role in garnering a major disaster declaration for Western New York following a freak October storm.
