John Norquist

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Norquist
In office
April 15, 1988 – December 31, 2003
Preceded by Henry W. Maier
Succeeded by Marvin Pratt
Born October 22, 1949 (1949-10-22) (age 58)
Princeton, New Jersey
Political party Democratic

John Olof Norquist (born October 22, 1949 in Princeton, New Jersey) is an American politician and 37th mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He served as mayor from 1988 until he left office in 2004 to lead the Congress for the New Urbanism.

Contents

[edit] Personal background

Norquist was born in Princeton, New Jersey, where his father, Rev. Ernest O. Norquist was attending seminary. His mother is Jeanne Norquist.

He is married to Susan Mudd and has one son, Benjamin, and one daughter, Katherine. Susan is the great-granddaughter of Samuel Mudd, the doctor who treated President Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth.

[edit] Early political career

He was elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1975, where he served until seeking and winning a seat in the Wisconsin State Senate in 1983. In 1974 he ran against completing the Stadium South Freeway, which was to run from Milwaukee County Stadium south to I-894. Though the people of his assembly district narrowly voted for completion of the Stadium South in the November 1974 Milwaukee County freeway referenda, dissatisfaction with freeway-related destruction of neighborhoods was growing. Norquist joined forces with emerging generation of legislators including James Moody (later a U.S. Congressman) in opposing freeway expansion and was re-elected to the Assembly and advanced to the State Senate. While in the Senate, Norquist served on the powerful Joint Finance Committee and was recognized by Milwaukee Magazine as a leading legislator.

[edit] Mayor of Milwaukee

In 1988, Norquist campaigned and won the job of mayor of Milwaukee. His tenure as mayor of Milwaukee came on the heels of the 28-year reign by Henry Maier.

Norquist can perhaps best be described as a "fiscally conservative socialist."[1] Also going by the nickname "Dorky Norqi", he was strongly in favor of light rail as a solution for the city's transit problems, although his dream never came close to fruition. He was known throughout the country for his anti-freeway stance and for the removal of the Park East Freeway, the largest highway ever purposely destroyed. He consistently reduced the property tax rate every year since becoming mayor and kept city budgets from growing beyond the rate of inflation.

One of the first controversies of Norquist's tenure occurred in 1988, when he took a trip to Israel. The trip was paid for by local Milwaukee Jewish organizations, but as a result of the controversy, Norquist afterward paid much of the cost himself. On his return, the Milwaukee Sentinel printed a political cartoon showing him getting off a plane dressed as a Hasidic Jewish rabbi. The cartoon created an uproar, and the Sentinel published an apology for it.

In December 2000, Norquist's future as mayor was thrown into doubt as a staff assistant, Marilyn Figueroa, alleged that the mayor had sexually harassed her. Norquist admitted to a five-year consensual affair, but the case refused to go away. When he was presented in June 2003 with the opportunity to lead the Congress for the New Urbanism, Norquist said that he would resign at the end of the year rather than serving his full term, which expired in April 2004. The announcement was timed to prevent a special election. Instead, the head of the common council, Marvin Pratt, served as acting mayor.

His term was marked by public conflicts with other city leaders, including Bo Black, former head of Summerfest; Arthur Jones, his one-time bodyguard who became chief of police; and Bradley DeBraska, head of the police union.

[edit] Post mayoral career

At the beginning of 2004, Norquist began working full time as the head of the Congress for the New Urbanism, an urban development organization based in Chicago, Illinois.

[edit] Works

Norquist, John O. The Wealth of Cities (1998). ISBN 0-7382-0134-0

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Henry W. Maier		 Mayor of Milwaukee
1988–2004		 Succeeded by
Marvin Pratt (acting mayor)