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Main table of contents:
Lewinsky Scandal
Introduction
Allegations of sexual contact
Denial and subsequent admission
Perjury charges
Impeachment
Aftermath
See also
References
Further reading
External links
Linked articles
Contents
Lewinsky Scandal
The Lewinsky scandal was an Americanpoliticalsex scandal that involved 49-year-old PresidentBill Clinton and a 22-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. The sexual relationship took place between 1995 and 1996 and came to light in 1998. Clinton ended a televised speech with the statement that he did not have sexual relations with Lewinsky. Further investigation led to charges of perjury and led to the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998 by the U.S. House of Representatives and his subsequent acquittal on all impeachment charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in a 21-day Senate trial.[1] Clinton was held in civil contempt of court by Judge Susan Webber Wright for giving misleading testimony in the Paula Jones case regarding Lewinsky[2] and was also fined $90,000 by Wright.[3] His license to practice law was suspended in Arkansas for five years; shortly thereafter, he was disbarred from presenting cases in front of the United States Supreme Court.[4]
During Clinton's first term in 1995, Lewinsky—a graduate of Lewis & Clark College—was hired to work as an intern at the White House and was later an employee of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs. While Lewinsky worked at the White House, Clinton began a personal relationship with her, the details of which she later confided to Linda Tripp, her Defense Department co-worker who secretly recorded their telephone conversations.[5]
In January 1998, Tripp discovered that Lewinsky had sworn an affidavit in the Paula Jones case, denying a relationship with Clinton. She delivered tapes to Kenneth Starr, the Independent Counsel who was investigating Clinton on other matters, including the Whitewater scandal, the White House FBI files controversy, and the White House travel office controversy. During the grand jury testimony, Clinton's responses were carefully worded, and he argued, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is,"[6] with regard to the truthfulness of his statement that "there is not a sexual relationship, an improper sexual relationship or any other kind of improper relationship."[7]
The wide reporting of the scandal led to criticism of the press for over-coverage.[8][9][10] The scandal is sometimes referred to as "Monicagate,"[11]Lewinskygate,"[12] "Tailgate,"[13] "Sexgate,"[14] and "Zippergate,"[14] following the "-gate" nickname construction that has been popular since the Watergate scandal.
The improper relationship between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky was confirmed, but Clinton's marriage with his wife, Hillary Clinton, survived the scandal.
Allegations of sexual contact
Lewinsky stated that she had sexual encounters with Bill Clinton on nine occasions from November 1995 to March 1997. According to her published schedule, First LadyHillary Clinton was at the White House for at least some portion of seven of those days.[15]
In April 1996, Lewinsky's superiors relocated her job to the Pentagon, because they felt that she was spending too much time around Clinton.[16] According to his autobiography, then-United Nations AmbassadorBill Richardson was asked by the White House in 1997 to interview Lewinsky for a job on his staff at the UN. Richardson did so, and offered her a position, which she declined.[17]The American Spectator alleged that Richardson knew more about the Lewinsky affair than he declared to the grand jury.[18]
Lewinsky confided in Linda Tripp about her relationship with Clinton. Tripp persuaded Lewinsky to save the gifts that Clinton had given her, and not to dry clean a semen-stained blue dress. Tripp reported their conversations to literary agent Lucianne Goldberg, who advised her to secretly record them,[19] which Tripp began doing in September 1997. Goldberg also urged Tripp to take the tapes to Independent CounselKenneth Starr and bring them to the attention of people working on the Paula Jonescase.[20] In the fall of 1997, Goldberg began speaking to reporters (notably Michael Isikoff of Newsweek) about the tapes.[21]
In the Paula Jones case, Lewinsky had submitted an affidavit that denied any physical relationship with Clinton. In January 1998, she attempted to persuade Tripp to commit perjury in the Jones case. Instead, Tripp gave the tapes to Starr, who was investigating the Whitewater controversy and other matters. Starr was now armed with evidence of Lewinsky's admission of a physical relationship with Clinton, and he broadened the investigation to include Lewinsky and her possible perjury in the Jones case.
Denial and subsequent admission
News of the scandal first broke on January 17, 1998, on the Drudge Report,[22] which reported that Newsweek editors were sitting on a story by investigative reporter Michael Isikoff exposing the affair. The story broke in the mainstream press on January 21 in The Washington Post.[23] The story swirled for several days and, despite swift denials from Clinton, the clamor for answers from the White House grew louder. On January 26, President Clinton, standing with his wife, spoke at a White House press conference, and issued a forceful denial in which he said:[24]
Now, I have to go back to work on my State of the Union speech. And I worked on it until pretty late last night. But I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time; never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people. Thank you.[25]
Pundits debated whether Clinton would address the allegations in his State of the Union Address. Ultimately, he chose not to mention them. Hillary Clinton remained supportive of her husband throughout the scandal. On January 27, in an appearance on NBC's Today she said, "The great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president."
For the next several months and through the summer, the media debated whether an affair had occurred and whether Clinton had lied or obstructed justice, but nothing could be definitively established beyond the taped recordings because Lewinsky was unwilling to discuss the affair or testify about it. On July 28, 1998, a substantial delay after the public break of the scandal, Lewinsky received transactional immunity in exchange for grand jury testimony concerning her relationship with Clinton.[26] She also turned over a semen-stained blue dress (that Linda Tripp had encouraged her to save without dry cleaning) to the Starr investigators, thereby providing unambiguous DNA evidence that could prove the relationship despite Clinton's official denials.[27]
Clinton admitted in taped grand jury testimony on August 17, 1998, that he had engaged in an "improper physical relationship" with Lewinsky. That evening he gave a nationally televised statement admitting that his relationship with Lewinsky was "not appropriate".[28]
Perjury charges
In his deposition for the Jones lawsuit, Clinton denied having sexual relations with Lewinsky. Based on the evidence—a blue dress with Clinton's semen that Tripp provided—Starr concluded that the president's sworn testimony was false and perjurious.
During the deposition, Clinton was asked "Have you ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, as that term is defined in Deposition Exhibit 1?" The judge ordered that Clinton be given an opportunity to review the agreed definition. Afterwards, based on the definition created by the Independent Counsel's Office, Clinton answered, "I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky." Clinton later stated, "I thought the definition included any activity by [me], where [I] was the actor and came in contact with those parts of the bodies" which had been explicitly listed (and "with an intent to gratify or arouse the sexual desire of any person"). In other words, Clinton denied that he had ever contacted Lewinsky's "genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks", and effectively claimed that the agreed-upon definition of "sexual relations" included giving oral sex but excluded receivingoral sex.[29]
Two months after the Senate failed to convict him, President Clinton was held in civil contempt of court by Judge Susan Webber Wright for giving misleading testimony regarding his sexual relationship with Lewinsky, and was also fined $90,000 by Wright.[2][3] Clinton declined to appeal the civil contempt of court ruling, citing financial problems,[2] but still maintained that his testimony complied with Wright's earlier definition of sexual relations.[2] In 2001, his license to practice law was suspended in Arkansas for five years and later by the United States Supreme Court.[4]
Impeachment
In December 1998, Clinton's Democratic political party was in the minority in both chambers of Congress. A few Democratic members of Congress, and most in the opposition Republican Party, claimed that Clinton's giving false testimony and allegedly influencing Lewinsky's testimony were crimes of obstruction of justice and perjury and thus impeachable offenses. The House of Representatives voted to issue Articles of Impeachment against him which was followed by a 21-day trial in the Senate.
All of the Democrats in the Senate voted for acquittal on both the perjury and the obstruction of justice charges. Ten Republicans voted for acquittal for perjury: John Chafee (Rhode Island), Susan Collins (Maine), Slade Gorton (Washington), Jim Jeffords (Vermont), Richard Shelby (Alabama), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania), Ted Stevens (Alaska), Fred Thompson (Tennessee), and John Warner (Virginia). Five Republicans voted for acquittal for obstruction of justice: Chafee, Collins, Jeffords, Snowe, and Specter.
President Clinton was thereby acquitted of all charges and remained in office. There were attempts to censure the president by the House of Representatives, but those attempts failed.
Aftermath
Effect on 2000 presidential election
The scandal arguably affected the 2000 U.S. presidential election in two contradictory ways. Democratic Party candidate and sitting vice president Al Gore said that Clinton's scandal had been "a drag" that deflated the enthusiasm of their party's base, and had the effect of reducing Democratic votes. Clinton said that the scandal had made Gore's campaign too cautious, and that if Clinton had been allowed to campaign for Gore in Arkansas and New Hampshire, either state would have delivered Gore's needed electoral votes regardless of the effects of the Florida recount controversy.[30]
Political analysts have supported both views. Before and after the 2000 election, John Cochran of ABC News connected the Lewinsky scandal with a voter phenomenon he called "Clinton fatigue".[31] Polling showed that the scandal continued to affect Clinton's low personal approval ratings through the election,[32] and analysts such as Vanderbilt University's John G. Geer later concluded "Clinton fatigue or a kind of moral retrospective voting had a significant impact on Gore's chances".[33] Other analysts sided with Clinton's argument, and argued that Gore's refusal to have Clinton campaign with him damaged his appeal.[34][35][36][37]
Collateral scandals
During the scandal, supporters of former President Clinton alleged that the matter was private and "about sex", and they claimed hypocrisy by at least some of those who advocated for his removal. For example, during the House investigation it was revealed that Henry Hyde, Republican chair of the House Judiciary Committee and lead House manager, also had an affair while in office as a state legislator. Hyde, aged 70 during the Lewinsky hearings, dismissed it as a "youthful indiscretion" when he was 41.[38]
A highly publicized investigation campaign actively sought information that might embarrass politicians who supported impeachment. According to the British newspaper The Guardian,
Larry Flynt...the publisher of Hustler magazine, offered a $1 million reward... Flynt was a sworn enemy of the Republican party [and] sought to dig up dirt on the Republican members of Congress who were leading the impeachment campaign against President Clinton.
[...Although] Flynt claimed at the time to have the goods on up to a dozen prominent Republicans, the ad campaign helped to bring down only one. Robert Livingston – a congressman from Louisiana...abruptly retired after learning that Mr. Flynt was about to reveal that he had also had an affair.[39]
Republican congressman Bob Livingston had been widely expected to become Speaker of the United States House of Representatives in the next Congressional session.[40] Then just weeks away after Flynt revealed the affair, Livingston resigned and challenged Clinton to do the same.
Following Livingston’s resignation, Dennis Hastert, Republican Representative from Illinois, gained the support of the Republican leadership to seek the speakership as Livingston's successor. He began serving as Speaker in January 1999, and held that role while the Senate conducted the impeachment trial.
On April 27, 2016, former Speaker Hastert was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison for structuring $1.7 million in payments to cover up allegations of sexual misconduct he had made, in which federal prosecutors have said he had molested at least four boys as young as 14 while he worked as a high school wrestling coach decades earlier.[41] At the sentencing hearing during the trial, Hastert admitted under pressure from the judge that he had sexually abused boys. The judge in the case referred to Hastert as a "serial child molester", and alongside imposing a sentence of fifteen months in prison, he also charged him with two years' supervised release, and a $250,000 fine.[42][43] Hastert is "one of the highest-ranking politicians in American history to be sentenced to prison."[42]
Flynt's investigation also claimed that Congressman Bob Barr, another Republican House manager, had an affair while married; Barr had been the first lawmaker in either chamber to call for Clinton's resignation due to the Lewinsky affair. Barr lost a primary challenge less than three years after the impeachment proceedings.[44]
Dan Burton, Republican Representative from Indiana, had stated "No one, regardless of what party they serve, no one, regardless of what branch of government they serve, should be allowed to get away with these alleged sexual improprieties...."[45] In 1998, Burton admitted that he himself had had an affair in 1983 that produced a child.[46]
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Representative from Georgia and leader of the Republican Revolution of 1994,[47] admitted in 1998 to having had an affair with a House intern while he was married to his second wife, at the same time as he was leading the impeachment of Bill Clinton for perjury regarding an affair with intern Monica Lewinsky.[48][49]
Republican Helen Chenoweth-Hage from Idaho aggressively called for the resignation of President Clinton and admitted to her own six-year affair with a married rancher during the 1980s.[50]
Personal acceptance
Historian Taylor Branch implied that Clinton had requested changes to Branch's 2009 Clinton biography, The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, regarding Clinton's revelation that the Lewinsky affair began because "I cracked; I just cracked." Branch writes that Clinton had felt "beleaguered, unappreciated, and open to a liaison with Lewinsky" following "the Democrats' loss of Congress in the November 1994 elections, the death of his mother the previous January, and the ongoing Whitewater investigation".[51] Publicly, Clinton had previously blamed the affair on "a terrible moral error" and on anger at Republicans, stating, "if people have unresolved anger, it makes them do non-rational, destructive things."[52]
See also
References
Further reading
External links
This page was last edited on 2 May 2017, at 20:38.
This text is based on the Wikipedia article Lewinsky Scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewinsky_scandal which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License available online at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode List of authors: https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools/wikihistory/wh.php?page_title=Lewinsky_scandalContents
Bill Clinton
President of the United States
PresidencyTimelineFirst term
1992 CampaignElection1st inaugurationNAFTAHealth Security Act1994 midterm electionsEconomic policyTravelgateWhitewaterAmeriCorpsDayton AgreementSecond term
1996 CampaignElection2nd inaugurationOperation Infinite ReachBombing of YugoslaviaBalanced BudgetMonica Lewinsky scandalImpeachmentOne America InitiativePardon controversyPost-Presidency
Presidential LibraryPublic imageMy LifeActivitiesClinton FoundationClinton Bush Haiti FundWilliam Jefferson Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Prior to the presidency he was the 40th Governor of Arkansas, from 1979 to 1981, and the state's 42nd governor, from 1983 to 1992. Before that, he served as Arkansas Attorney General, from 1977 to 1979. A member of the Democratic Party, Clinton was ideologically a New Democrat and many of his policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy.
Clinton was born and raised in Arkansas and is an alumnus of Georgetown University, where he was a member of Kappa Kappa Psi and the Phi Beta Kappa Society; he earned a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford. Clinton is married to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who served as United States Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013 and U.S. senator from New York, from 2001 to 2009, and was the Democratic nominee for president in 2016. Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham both earned degrees from Yale Law School, where they met and began dating. As governor of Arkansas, Clinton overhauled the state's education system and served as chairman of the National Governors Association.
Clinton was elected president in 1992, defeating incumbent Republican opponent George H. W. Bush. At age 46, he became the third-youngest president (behind Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy) and the first from the Baby Boomer generation. Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history and signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement. After failing to pass national health care reform, the Democratic House was ousted when the Republican Partywon control of the Congress in 1994, for the first time in 40 years. Two years later, in 1996, Clinton became the first Democrat since Franklin D. Roosevelt to be elected to a second term. Clinton passed welfare reform and the State Children's Health Insurance Program, as well as financial deregulation measures, including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.
In 1998, Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives for perjury before a grand jury and obstruction of justice during a lawsuit against him, both related to a scandal involving White House (and later Department of Defense) employee Monica Lewinsky. Clinton was acquitted by the U.S. Senate in 1999 and served his complete term of office.
The Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus between the years 1998 and 2000, the last three years of Clinton's presidency. In foreign policy, Clinton ordered U.S. military intervention in the Bosnian and Kosovo wars, signed the Iraq Liberation Act in opposition to Saddam Hussein, and participated in the 2000 Camp David Summit to advance the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.
Clinton left office with the highest end-of-office approval rating of any U.S. president since World War II. Since then, Clinton has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. He created the William J. Clinton Foundation to address international causes, such as the prevention of AIDS and global warming. In 2004, Clinton published his autobiography, My Life. He has remained active in politics by campaigning for Democratic candidates, including his wife's campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 and 2016, and Barack Obama's presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012.
In 2009, Clinton was named the United Nations special envoy to Haiti and after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Clinton teamed with George W. Bush to form the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. Since leaving office, Clinton has been rated highly in public opinion polls of U.S. presidents.
Early life and career
Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946 at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas.[1][2] He was the son of William Jefferson Blythe Jr. (1918–1946), a traveling salesman who had died in an automobile accident three months before his birth, and Virginia Dell Cassidy (later Virginia Kelley: 1923–1994).[3] His parents were married on September 4, 1943, but this union later proved to be bigamous, as Blythe was still married to a previous wife.[4] Soon after their son was born, his mother traveled to New Orleans to study nursing, leaving her son in Hope with her parents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and ran a small grocery store.[2] At a time when the Southern United States was racially segregated, Clinton's grandparents sold goods on credit to people of all races.[2] In 1950, Bill's mother returned from nursing school and married Roger Clinton Sr., who owned an automobile dealership in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with his brother and Earl T. Ricks.[2] The family moved to Hot Springs in 1950.
Although he immediately assumed use of his stepfather's surname, it was not until Clinton turned fifteen[5] that he formally adopted the surname Clinton as a gesture toward his stepfather.[2] Clinton says he remembers his stepfather as a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused his mother and half-brother, Roger Clinton Jr., to the point where he intervened multiple times with the threat of violence to protect them.[2][6]
In Hot Springs, Clinton attended St. John's Catholic Elementary School, Ramble Elementary School, and Hot Springs High School—where he was an active student leader, avid reader, and musician.[2] Clinton was in the chorus and played the tenor saxophone, winning first chair in the state band's saxophone section. He briefly considered dedicating his life to music, but as he noted in his autobiography My Life:
Clinton's interest in law also began in Hot Springs High, when in his Latin class he took up the challenge to argue the defense of the ancient Roman SenatorCatiline in a mock trial.[7] After a vigorous defense that made use of his "budding rhetorical and political skills", he told the Latin teacher Elizabeth Buck that it "made him realize that someday he would study law".[8]
Clinton has named two influential moments in his life that contributed to his decision to become a public figure, both occurring in 1963. One was his visit as a Boys Nation senator to the White House to meet President John F. Kennedy.[2][6] The other was watching Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1963 I Have a Dream speech on TV, which impressed him enough that he later memorized it.[9]
College and law school years
Georgetown University
With the aid of scholarships, Clinton attended the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., receiving a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service degree in 1968.
In 1964 and 1965, Clinton won elections for class president.[10] From 1964 to 1967, he was an intern and then a clerk in the office of Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright.[2] While in college, he became a brother of co-ed service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega[11] and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Clinton was also a member of the Order of DeMolay,[12] a youth group affiliated with Freemasonry, but he never became a Freemason. He is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi honorary band fraternity.[13]
Oxford
Upon graduation, Clinton won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford, where he initially read for a B.Phil. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics but transferred to a B.Litt. in Politics and, ultimately, a B.Phil. in Politics.[14] However, because Clinton did not expect a second year because of the draft, had switched programs and, as was common among other Rhodes Scholars from his cohort, had received an offer to study at Yale Law School, Yale University, he left early to return to the United States and did not receive a degree from Oxford.[6][15][16]
During his time at Oxford, Clinton befriended fellow American Rhodes Scholar Frank Aller, whose suicide in 1971 following a draft letter to the Vietnam War had an influential impact on Clinton.[14][17] British writer and feminist Sara Maitland notably said of Clinton, "I remember Bill and Frank Aller taking me to a pub in Walton Street in the summer term of 1969 and talking to me about the Vietnam war. I knew nothing about it, and when Frank began to describe the napalming of civilians I began to cry. Bill said that feeling bad wasn't good enough. That was the first time I encountered the idea that liberal sensitivities weren't enough and you had to do something about such things".[14] He also developed an interest in rugby union, which he played at Oxford.[18]
While president, in 1994, Clinton received an honorary degree and a fellowship by the University of Oxford, specifically, for being "a doughty and tireless champion of the cause of world peace", having "a powerful collaborator in his wife," and for winning "general applause for his achievement of resolving the gridlock which prevented an agreed budget".[15][19]
Vietnam War opposition and draft controversy
While at Oxford, Clinton also participated in Vietnam War protests and organized an October 1969 Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam event.[2]
Clinton received Vietnam War draft deferments while he was in England during 1968 and 1969.[20] He was planning to attend law school in the U.S. and was aware that he might lose his draft deferment. Clinton tried unsuccessfully to obtain positions in the National Guard or Air Force, and he then made arrangements to join the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program at the University of Arkansas.[21]
He subsequently decided not to join the ROTC, saying in a letter to the officer in charge of the program that he opposed the war, but did not think it was honorable to use ROTC, National Guard, or Reserve service to avoid serving in Vietnam. He further stated that because he opposed the war, he would not volunteer to serve in uniform, but would subject himself to the draft, and would serve if selected only as a way "to maintain my political viability within the system".[22] Clinton registered for the draft and received a high number (311), meaning that those whose birthdays had been drawn as numbers 1 to 310 would have to be drafted before him, making it unlikely that he would be drafted. (In fact, the highest number drafted was 195.)[23]
Colonel Eugene Holmes, the Army officer who had been involved with Clinton's ROTC application, suspected that Clinton attempted to manipulate the situation to avoid the draft and avoid serving in uniform. He issued a notarized statement during the 1992 presidential campaign:
During the 1992 campaign, it was revealed that Clinton's uncle had attempted to secure him a position in the Navy Reserve, which would have prevented him from being deployed to Vietnam. This effort was unsuccessful and Clinton said in 1992 that he had been unaware of it until then.[25] Although legal, Clinton's actions with respect to the draft and deciding whether to serve in the military were criticized during his first presidential campaign by conservatives and some Vietnam veterans, some of whom charged that he had used Fulbright's influence to avoid military service.[26][27] Clinton's 1992 campaign manager, James Carville, successfully argued that Clinton's letter in which he declined to join the ROTC should be made public, insisting that voters, many of whom had also opposed the Vietnam War, would understand and appreciate his position.[28]
Law school
After Oxford, Clinton attended Yale Law School and earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1973.[2][6] In the Yale Law Library, in 1971, he met fellow law student Hillary Rodham, who was a class year ahead of him.[2][29] They began dating and soon were inseparable. After only about a month, Clinton postponed his plans to be a coordinator for the George McGovern campaign for the 1972 United States presidential election in order to move in with her in California.[30] They married on October 11, 1975, and their only child, Chelsea, was born on February 27, 1980.[29]
Clinton eventually moved to Texas with Rodham in 1972 to take a job leading George McGovern's effort there. He spent considerable time in Dallas, at the campaign's local headquarters on Lemmon Avenue, where he had an office. Clinton worked with future two-term mayor of DallasRon Kirk,[31] future governor of TexasAnn Richards,[32] and then unknown television director (and future filmmaker) Steven Spielberg.[33]
Early political career
Governor of Arkansas (1979–1981, 1983–1992)
After graduating from Yale Law School, Clinton returned to Arkansas and became a law professor at the University of Arkansas. In 1974, he ran for the House of Representatives. Running in a conservative district against incumbent Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt, Clinton's campaign was bolstered by the anti-Republican and anti-incumbent mood resulting from the Watergate scandal. Hammerschmidt, who had received 77 percent of the vote in 1972, defeated Clinton by only a 52 percent to 48 percent margin. In 1976, Clinton ran for Arkansas Attorney General. With only minor opposition in the primary and no opposition at all in the general election,[34] Clinton was elected.[6]
Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas in 1978, having defeated the Republican candidate Lynn Lowe, a farmer from Texarkana. At age 32, he became the youngest governor in the country. Due to his youthful appearance, Clinton was often called the "Boy Governor".[35][36][37] He worked on educational reform and Arkansas's roads, with wife Hillary leading a successful committee on urban health care reform. However, his term included an unpopular motor vehicle tax and citizens' anger over the escape of Cuban refugees (from the Mariel boatlift) detained in Fort Chaffee in 1980. Monroe Schwarzlose of Kingsland in Cleveland County, polled 31 percent of the vote against Clinton in the Democratic gubernatorial primary of 1980. Some suggested Schwarzlose's unexpected voter turnout foreshadowed Clinton's defeat in the general election that year by Republican challenger Frank D. White. As Clinton once joked, he was the youngest ex-governor in the nation's history.[6]
Clinton joined friend Bruce Lindsey's Little Rock law firm of Wright, Lindsey and Jennings.[38] In 1982, he was again elected governor and kept the office for ten years; beginning with the 1986 election, Arkansas had changed its gubernatorial term of office from two to four years. During his term, he helped transform Arkansas's economy and improved the state's educational system.[39] For senior citizens, he removed the sales tax from medications and increased the home property-tax exemption.[40] He became a leading figure among the New Democrats, a group of Democrats who advocated welfare reform, smaller government, and other policies not supported by liberals. Formally organized as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the New Democrats argued that in light of President Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in 1984, the Democratic Party needed to adopt a more centrist political stance in order to succeed at the national level.[40][41] Clinton delivered the Democratic response to Reagan's 1985 State of the Union Address and served as chair of the National Governors Association from 1986 to 1987, bringing him to an audience beyond Arkansas.[6]
In the early 1980s, Clinton made reform of the Arkansas education system a top priority. Chaired by Clinton's wife Hillary Rodham Clinton, also an attorney and chair of the Legal Services Corporation, the Arkansas Education Standards Committee transformed Arkansas's education system. Proposed reforms included more spending for schools (supported by a sales-tax increase), better opportunities for gifted children, vocational education, higher teachers' salaries, more course variety, and compulsory teacher competency exams. The reforms passed in September 1983 after Clinton called a special legislative session—the longest in Arkansas history.[39] Many have considered this the greatest achievement of the Clinton governorship.[6][40] He defeated four Republican candidates for governor: Lowe (1978), White (1982 and 1986), Jonesboro businessmen Woody Freeman (1984), and Sheffield Nelson of Little Rock (1990).[34]
Also in the 1980s, The Clintons' personal and business affairs included transactions that became the basis of the Whitewater controversy investigation, which later dogged his presidential administration.[42] After extensive investigation over several years, no indictments were made against the Clintons related to the years in Arkansas.[6][43]
According to some sources, in his early years Clinton was a death penalty opponent who switched positions.[44][45] During Clinton's term, Arkansas performed its first executions since 1964 (the death penalty had been re-enacted on March 23, 1973).[46] As Governor, he oversaw four executions: one by electric chair and three by lethal injection. Later, as president, Clinton was the first president to pardon a death-row inmate since the federal death penalty was reintroduced in 1988.[47]
1988 Democratic presidential primaries
In 1987, there was media speculation Clinton would enter the race after then-New York GovernorMario Cuomo declined to run and Democratic front-runner Gary Hart withdrew owing to revelations of marital infidelity. Clinton decided to remain as Arkansas governor (following consideration for the potential candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton for governor, initially favored—but ultimately vetoed—by the First Lady).[48] For the nomination, Clinton endorsed Massachusetts GovernorMichael Dukakis. He gave the nationally televised opening night address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, but his speech, which was 33 minutes long and twice as long as it was expected to be, was criticized for being too long[49] and poorly delivered.[50] Clinton presented himself as both a moderate and a member of the New Democrat wing of the Democratic Party, and he headed the moderate Democratic Leadership Council in 1990 and 1991.[40][51]
Presidency (1993–2001)
During his presidency, Clinton advocated for a wide variety of legislation and programs, most of which were enacted into law or implemented by the executive branch. His policies, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement and welfare reform, have been attributed to a centristThird Way philosophy of governance.[52][53] His policy of fiscal conservatism helped to reduce deficits on budgetary matters.[54][55] Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history.[56][57][58] The Congressional Budget Office reported budget surpluses of $69 billion in 1998, $126 billion in 1999, and $236 billion in 2000,[59] during the last three years of Clinton's presidency.[60] Over the years of the recorded surplus, the gross national debt rose each year. At the end of the fiscal year (September 30) for each of the years a surplus was recorded, The U.S. treasury reported a gross debt of $5.413 trillion in 1997, $5.526 trillion in 1998, $5.656 trillion in 1999, and $5.674 trillion in 2000.[61][62] Over the same period, the Office of Management and Budget reported an end of year (December 31) gross debt of $5.369 trillion in 1997, $5.478 trillion in 1998, $5.606 in 1999, and $5.629 trillion in 2000.[63] At the end of his presidency, the Clintons moved to Chappaqua, New York in order to satisy a residency requirement for his wife to win election as a U.S. Senator from New York.
1992 presidential campaign
In the first primary contest, the Iowa Caucus, Clinton finished a distant third to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin. During the campaign for the New Hampshire primary, reports of an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers surfaced. As Clinton fell far behind former Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas in the New Hampshire polls,[6] following Super Bowl XXVI, Clinton and his wife Hillary went on 60 Minutes to rebuff the charges. Their television appearance was a calculated risk, but Clinton regained several delegates. He finished second to Tsongas in the New Hampshire primary, but after trailing badly in the polls and coming within single digits of winning, the media viewed it as a victory. News outlets labeled him "The Comeback Kid" for earning a firm second-place finish.[64]
Winning the big prizes of Florida and Texas and many of the Southern primaries on Super Tuesday gave Clinton a sizable delegate lead. However, former California Governor Jerry Brown was scoring victories and Clinton had yet to win a significant contest outside his native South.[6][51] With no major Southern state remaining, Clinton targeted New York, which had many delegates. He scored a resounding victory in New York City, shedding his image as a regional candidate.[51] Having been transformed into the consensus candidate, he secured the Democratic Party nomination, finishing with a victory in Jerry Brown's home state of California.[6]
During the campaign, questions of conflict of interest regarding state business and the politically powerful Rose Law Firm, at which Hillary Rodham Clinton was a partner, arose. Clinton argued the questions were moot because all transactions with the state had been deducted before determining Hillary's firm pay.[2][65] Further concern arose when Bill Clinton announced that, with Hillary, voters would be getting two presidents "for the price of one".[66]
While campaigning for U.S. president, the then-Governor Clinton returned to Arkansas to see that Ricky Ray Rector would be executed. After killing a police officer and a civilian, Rector shot himself in the head, leading to what his lawyers said was a state where he could still talk but did not understand the idea of death. According to Arkansas state and Federal law, a seriously mentally impaired inmate cannot be executed. The courts disagreed with the allegation of grave mental impairment and allowed the execution. Clinton's return to Arkansas for the execution was framed in a New York Times article as a possible political move to counter "soft on crime" accusations.[44][67]
Because Bush's approval ratings were around 80 percent during the Gulf War, he was described as unbeatable. However, when Bush compromised with Democrats to try to lower Federal deficits, he reneged on his promise not to raise taxes, hurting his approval rating. Clinton repeatedly condemned Bush for making a promise he failed to keep.[51] By election time, the economy was souring and Bush saw his approval rating plummet to just slightly over 40 percent.[51][68] Finally, conservatives were previously united by anti-communism, but with the end of the Cold War, the party lacked a uniting issue. When Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson addressed Christian themes at the Republican National Convention—with Bush criticizing Democrats for omitting God from their platform—many moderates were alienated.[69] Clinton then pointed to his moderate, "New Democrat" record as governor of Arkansas, though some on the more liberal side of the party remained suspicious.[70] Many Democrats who had supported Ronald Reagan and Bush in previous elections switched their support to Clinton.[71] Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore, toured the country during the final weeks of the campaign, shoring up support and pledging a "new beginning".[71]
Clinton won the 1992 presidential election (370 electoral votes) against Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush (168 electoral votes) and billionaire populistRoss Perot (0 electoral votes), who ran as an independent on a platform that focused on domestic issues. A significant part of Clinton's success was Bush's steep decline in public approval.[71] Clinton's election ended twelve years of Republican rule of the White House and twenty of the previous twenty-four years. The election gave Democrats full control of the United States Congress,[3] the first time one party controlled both the executive and legislative branches since Democrats held the 96th United States Congress during the presidency of Jimmy Carter.[72][73]
First term (1993–1997)
Clinton was inaugurated as the 42nd president of the United States on January 20, 1993. Shortly after taking office, he signed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 on February 5, which required large employers to allow employees to take unpaid leave for pregnancy or a serious medical condition. This action had bipartisan support,[75] and was popular with the public.[76]
Two days after taking office, on January 22, 1993—the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade—Clinton reversed restrictions on domestic and international family planning programs that had been imposed by Reagan and Bush.[77] Clinton said that abortion should be kept "safe, legal, and rare"—a slogan that had been suggested by University of California, San Diego political scientist Samuel L. Popkin and first used by Clinton in December 1991, while campaigning.[78] During the eight years of the Clinton administration, the U.S. abortion rate declined by about 18.4 percent.[79]
On February 15, 1993, Clinton made his first address to the nation, announcing his plan to raise taxes to cap the budget deficit.[80] Two days later, in a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress, Clinton unveiled his economic plan. The plan focused on reducing the deficit rather than on cutting taxes for the middle class, which had been high on his campaign agenda.[81] Clinton's advisers pressured him to raise taxes, based on the theory that a smaller federal budget deficit would reduce bond interest rates.[82]
On May 19, 1993, Clinton fired seven employees of the White House Travel Office, causing the White House travel office controversy even though the travel office staff served at the pleasure of the president and could be dismissed without cause. The White House responded to the controversy by claiming that the firings were done in response to financial improprieties that had been revealed by a brief FBI investigation.[83] Critics contended that the firings had been done to allow friends of the Clintons to take over the travel business and the involvement of the FBI was unwarranted.[84]
In August, Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which passed Congress without a Republican vote. It cut taxes for 15 million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90 percent of small businesses,[85] and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2 percent of taxpayers. Additionally, it mandated that the budget be balanced over a number of years through the implementation of spending restraints.[86]
On September 22, 1993, Clinton made a major speech to Congress regarding a health care reform plan; the program aimed at achieving universal coverage through a national health care plan. This was one of the most prominent items on Clinton's legislative agenda and resulted from a task force headed by Hillary Clinton. The plan was well received in political circles, but it was eventually doomed by well-organized lobby opposition from conservatives, the American Medical Association, and the health insurance industry. However, Clinton biographer John F. Harris stated that the program failed because of a lack of coordination within the White House.[43] Despite the Democratic majority in Congress, the effort to create a national health care system ultimately died when compromise legislation by George J. Mitchell failed to gain a majority of support in August 1994. The failure of the bill was the first major legislative defeat of the Clinton administration.[40][43]
In November 1993, David Hale—the source of criminal allegations against Bill Clinton in the Whitewater controversy—alleged that while he was governor of Arkansas, Clinton pressured him to provide an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, the Clintons' partner in the Whitewater land deal.[87] A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation resulted in convictions against the McDougals for their role in the Whitewater project, but the Clintons themselves were never charged, and Clinton maintains his and his wife's innocence in the affair.
Clinton signed the Brady Bill into law on November 30, 1993, which mandated federal background checks on firearm purchasers in the United States and imposed a five-day waiting period on purchases, until the NICS system was implemented in 1998. He also expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, a subsidy for low-income workers.[43]
In December that year, allegations by Arkansas state troopers Larry Patterson and Roger Perry were first reported by David Brock in The American Spectator. In the affair later known as "Troopergate", the officers alleged that they arranged sexual liaisons for Clinton back when he was governor of Arkansas. The story mentioned a woman named Paula, a reference to Paula Jones. Brock later apologized to Clinton, saying the article was politically motivated "bad journalism", and that "the troopers were greedy and had slimy motives".[88]
That month, Clinton implemented a Department of Defense directive known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", which allowed gay men and women to serve in the armed services provided they kept their sexuality a secret, and forbade the military from inquiring about an individual's sexual orientation.[89]
