| Tom Vilsack | |
|---|---|
| 30th United States Secretary of Agriculture | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office January 21, 2009 |
|
| President | Barack Obama |
| Deputy | Kathleen Merrigan |
| Preceded by | Ed Schafer |
| 40th Governor of Iowa | |
| In office January 15, 1999 – January 12, 2007 |
|
| Lieutenant | Sally Pederson |
| Preceded by | Terry Branstad |
| Succeeded by | Chet Culver |
| Personal details | |
| Born | December 12, 1950 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic Party |
| Spouse(s) | Christie Bell |
| Residence | Mount Pleasant, Iowa |
| Alma mater | Hamilton College Albany Law School |
| Profession | Attorney at law |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
| Signature | |
Thomas James "Tom" Vilsack (pronounced /ˈvɪlsæk/; born December 12, 1950) is an American politician, a member of the Democratic Party, and presently the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. He served as the 40th Governor of the state of Iowa. He was first elected in 1998 and re-elected to a second four-year term in 2002. On November 30, 2006, he formally launched his candidacy for the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States in the 2008 election, but ended his bid on February 23, 2007.[1]
Barack Obama announced Vilsack's selection to be the United States Secretary of Agriculture under his administration on December 17, 2008. Vilsack's nomination was confirmed by the United States Senate by unanimous consent on January 20, 2009.
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Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Tom Vilsack was abandoned at birth and placed in a Roman Catholic orphanage. He was adopted in 1951 by Bud and Dolly Vilsack, who raised him in the Roman Catholic faith. His adoptive father was a real-estate agent and insurance salesman, and his adoptive mother was a homemaker.
He attended high school at Shady Side Academy, a preparatory school in Pittsburgh. He received a Bachelor's degree in 1972 from Hamilton College in New York. While at Hamilton he joined the Delta Upsilon Fraternity. He received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) in 1975 from Albany Law School. Eventually, he settled in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, a small town in the southeastern portion of the state.
Vilsack was elected mayor of Mount Pleasant in 1987 following the murder of mayor Ed King by a disgruntled citizen. He was elected to the Iowa Senate in 1992 by a relatively slim margin. Following election, he worked on legislation requiring companies who received state tax incentives to provide better pay and benefits. He helped pass a law for workers to receive health coverage when changing jobs, and helped re-design Iowa's Workforce Development Department. He also wrote a bill to have the State of Iowa assume a 50% share of local county mental health costs.
In 1998, Terry Branstad chose not to seek re-election following sixteen consecutive years as governor. The Iowa Republican Party nominated Jim Ross Lightfoot, a recent former U.S. House Representative. Lightfoot became the odds-on favorite to succeed Branstad. Vilsack defeated former Iowa Supreme Court Justice Mark McCormick in the Democratic primary. Vilsack chose as his running mate Sally Pederson. Vilsack narrowly won the general election, largely due to aggressive campaigning on behalf by Senator Tom Harkin. He was the first Democrat to serve as governor of Iowa in 30 years, and only the fifth Democrat to hold the office in the 20th century.
In 2001 Vilsack served as a Chair of the Midwestern Governors Association. In 2002 he won his second term in office by defeating Republican challenger attorney Doug Gross by eight points. Also in 2002, Vilsack appointed Dr. Stephen Gleason as his Chief of Staff. Gleason resigned in 2005 to pursue a career in Medical Consulting at Health Policy Strategies in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was replaced by Cynthia Eisenhauer, former director of the Iowa Department of Management and Iowa Workforce Development.
The first year of his second term saw creation of the Grow Iowa Values Fund, a $503 million appropriation designed to boost the Iowa economy by offering grants to corporations and initiatives pledged to create higher-income jobs. Vilsack used a line-item veto, later ruled unconstitutional by the Iowa Supreme Court, to pass the fund, vetoing portions of the bill that would have cut income taxes and eased business regulations. After a special session of the Iowa General Assembly on September 7, 2004, $100 million in state money was set aside to honor previously made commitments. The Grow Iowa Values Fund was reinstated at the end of the 2005 session: under the current law, $50 million per year will be set aside over the next ten years.
Candidates seeking to replace Vilsack, most notably Ed Fallon, criticized this program.[2] Their complaints include the fact that companies lured into Iowa by the fund, unlike Iowa-based corporations, can be lured away by greater cash incentives elsewhere. Another criticism is that it does nothing to promote new business.[3] In July 2005, Vilsack signed an executive order allowing all felons who had served their sentences to vote again. Iowa law previously held that convicted felons are permanently disenfranchized unless voting rights were restored personally by the governor; Vilsack did away with this process.[4]
For most of Tom Vilsack's tenure as Governor, Republicans held effective majorities in the Iowa General Assembly. Following the November 2, 2004, elections, the 50-member Senate was evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. Republicans held a 51–49 majority in the House of Representatives.
During the 2005 legislative session, Vilsack signed into law greater restrictions that require products containing the active ingredient pseudoephedrine to be sold behind pharmacy counters, as opposed to open-access at open-shelf level. Those wishing to buy such products must show identification and sign a log book. The new law, designed to reduce methamphetamine use in Iowa, took effect on May 21, 2005.
Following Kelo v. City of New London, Vilsack vetoed but was overridden on Iowa House file 2351, a bill to restrict Iowa's use of eminent domain.
Vilsack is a former member of the National Governors Association Executive Committee. He was chair of the Democratic Governors Association in 2004. He was also chair of the Governors Biotechnology Partnership, the Governors Ethanol Coalition, and the Midwest Governors Conference, and has also been chair and vice chair of the National Governors Association's committee on Natural Resources, where he worked to develop the NGA's farm and energy policies.
Prior to Democratic Presidential candidate Senator John Kerry's selection of Senator John Edwards, Vilsack was thought to be high on the list of potential running mates for Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.
In 2005, Vilsack established Heartland PAC, a political action committee aimed at electing Democratic Governors. In the first report, he raised over half a million dollars.
Vilsack left office in 2007; he did not seek a third term. Succeeded by Chet Culver, he became the first Democratic governor since Clyde L. Herring seventy years earlier to be succeeded by another Democrat.
On November 30, 2006, Tom Vilsack became the second Democrat (after Mike Gravel) to officially announce intentions to run for the presidency in the 2008 election. In his announcement speech, he said "America's a great country, and now I have the opportunity to begin the process, the legal process of filing papers to run for President of the United States." Vilsack dropped out of the race on February 23, 2007 citing monetary constraints.[5]
Vilsack's campaign made significant use of social media by maintaining an active MySpace profile, a collection of viral video clips on YouTube, a Facebook profile, videoblog on blip.tv,[6] and a conference call with the podcast site TalkShoe.[7] On January 27, 2007, Vilsack called into the Regular Guys Show hosted by Kurt Hurner to conduct a fifteen minute interview on his running for the Democratic nomination for 2008. Since then, Vilsack appeared again, now The Kurt Hurner Show at Talk Shoe on August 12, 2008, this time as a supporter of Barack Obama for president taking questions from callers to the program for thirty minutes.
During the campaign, Vilsack joined fellow candidates Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in supporting the establishment of a U.S. Public Service Academy as a civilian counterpart to the military academies.[8]
Shortly after ending his 2008 bid for the White House, Vilsack endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and was named the national co-chair for Clinton's presidential campaign.[9]
Vilsack's stance on the war is critical of President Bush but hesitant to call for an immediate and complete pullout from Iraq: "I don't think we're losing in Iraq, It appears to be a draw. People are upset by the fact that their kids are over there and there doesn’t seem to be any end to this whole process. It’s not pacifism that makes people think this way. They’re questioning the credibility and competence of the Commander-in-Chief."[10]
On December 5, Vilsack announced that he favored withdrawing most of the U.S. forces from Iraq and leaving a small force in the Northern region for a limited period. While acknowledging that a withdrawal would lead to more violence, he felt that it would be the only way for the Iraqi government to take control of their country.[11]
The Vilsack Energy Security Agenda set out a strategy to dramatically reduce U.S. reliance on foreign energy and to cut the United States' carbon emissions. It also called for replacing the Department of Energy with a new Department of Energy Security, to oversee and redefine the federal government’s role in energy policy. The reorganized department would have acted as an institutional advocate for innovation in energy policy, and was intended to ensure accountability as the nation works towards achieving its energy security goals. Through this new department, America’s overriding objective in energy policy would have been to make America the unquestioned leader in clean energy, enhancing national security and economic strength.[12]
In a 2007 lecture to the Commonwealth Club of California, Vilsack stated,
| “ | Iowa is one of the nation's leading producers of corn-based ethanol, and many people in my state have an economic stake in the expanded use of corn-based ethanol. But the reality is that corn-based ethanol will never be enough to reach our goals. Some have suggested that we import more sugar-based ethanol from Brazil and we should indeed consider all sources of available ethanol … but if we are going to create energy security we can't simply replace one imported source of energy with another. That alone is not security … the only way we can produce enough domestically is if we greatly improve the technology used to produce cellulosic ethanol.[13] | ” |
On December 17, 2008, then-President-elect Barack Obama announced his choice of Vilsack as the nominee to be the 30th Secretary of Agriculture.[14] Vilsack has governed a largely agricultural state as did the previous two Secretaries of Agriculture, Mike Johanns (who is currently the junior United States Senator from Nebraska) (2005–2007) and Ed Schafer (2007–2009).
The Senate confirmed Vilsack's nomination for the position by unanimous consent on January 20, 2009.[15]
Reaction to Vilsack's nomination from agricultural groups was largely positive and included endorsements from the Corn Refiners Association, the National Grain and Feed Association, the National Farmers Union, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the Environmental Defense Fund.[16] Opposition to the nomination came from the Organic Consumers Association, which outlined in a November 2008 report several reasons why it believed Vilsack would be a poor choice for the position, particularly as energy and environmental reforms were a key point of the Obama campaign.[17] Among those reasons the report cites: Vilsack has repeatedly demonstrated a preference for large industrial farms and genetically modified crops;[18] as Iowa state governor, he originated the seed pre-emption bill in 2005, effectively blocking local communities from regulating where genetically engineered crops would be grown; additionally, Vilsack was the founder and former chair of the Governor's Biotechnology Partnership, and was named Governor of the Year by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, an industry lobbying group.[19]
Mr. Vilsack appointed Shirley Sherrod as the Georgia Director of Rural Development, saying that she would be an "important advocate on behalf of rural communities."[20] Months after the appointment, Vilsack forced her to resign based on accusations of considering race in the handling of her job responsibilities at a private advocacy firm in 1986. Subsequent reports claim that he overreacted to a video segment taken out of context, and the secretary expressed his "deep regret" to Ms. Sherrod in acting hastily.[21]
Mr. Vilsack approved a 15-cent per tree tax on Christmas tree sellers, as a result of over 3-years of lobbying from the Christmas tree industry. The Christmas tree tax is expected to raise approximately $4 million from holiday revelers. The purpose of the tax is fund an advertising program by the U.S. Department of Agriculture promoting the sale of real Christmas trees.
Vilsack met his future wife, Ann Christine "Christie" Bell, in a cafeteria while at college in New York in October 1968.[23] Vilsack approached Bell and asked, "Are you a Humphrey or a Nixon supporter?"[23] She replied "Humphrey" and they soon began dating.[23] The couple were married on August 18, 1973, in Bell's hometown of Mount Pleasant, Iowa.[23] Vilsack and his wife moved to Mount Pleasant in 1975,[23] where he joined his father-in-law in law practice.
Tom and Christie Vilsack have two sons, Jess and Doug. Jess graduated from Hamilton College in 2000 where he, like his father, was a member of the Delta Upsilon Fraternity. Jess received a J.D. from the University of Iowa in May 2003. Doug later graduated from Colorado College and is currently attending the University of Colorado School of Law. He is also a research associate at the School of Law's Energy and Environmental Security Initiative (EESI).
On May 1, 2006 it was announced that Vilsack joined the Board of Directors of Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Learning, a leading publisher of research-based math curricula for middle school, high school, and postsecondary students.[24]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Terry Branstad |
Governor of Iowa 1999–2007 |
Succeeded by Chet Culver |
| Preceded by Ed Schaefer |
United States Secretary of Agriculture Served under: Barack Obama 2009–present |
Incumbent |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by Evan Bayh |
Chairperson of the Democratic Leadership Council 2005–2007 |
Succeeded by Harold Ford |
| United States order of precedence | ||
| Preceded by Ken Salazar as Secretary of the Interior |
Order of Precedence of the United States Secretary of Agriculture |
Succeeded by John Bryson as Secretary of Commerce |
| United States presidential line of succession | ||
| Preceded by Ken Salazar as Secretary of the Interior |
9th in line Secretary of Agriculture |
Succeeded by John Bryson as Secretary of Commerce |
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