About Dennis
Kucinich first came to national prominence in 1977 when he was elected
mayor of Cleveland at age 31; the youngest person ever elected to lead a
major American city. In 1978, Cleveland's banks demanded that he sell
the city's 70 year-old municipally-owned electric system to its private
competitor (in which the banks had a financial interest) as a
precondition of extending credit to city government. Kucinich refused to
sell Muny Light. In an incident unprecedented in modern American
politics, the Cleveland banks plunged the city into default for a mere
$15 million. Kucinich lost his re-election bid in 1979. Fifteen years
later, Kucinich made his first step toward a political comeback, winning
election to the Ohio Senate on the strength of the expansion of the
city's light system which provides low-cost power to almost half the
residents of Cleveland. In 1998 the Cleveland City Council honored him
for, "having the courage and foresight to refuse to sell the city's
municipal electric system."
Kucinich was born in Cleveland, Ohio on October 8, 1946. He is the
eldest of 7 children of Frank and Virginia Kucinich. He and his family
lived in twenty-one places, including a couple of cars, by the time
Kucinich was 17 years old. "I live each day with a grateful heart and a
desire to be of service to humanity," he says.
As chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (which is the
largest congressional caucus). Kucinich has promoted a national health
care system, preservation of Social Security, increased Unemployment
Insurance benefits, and the establishment of wholesales cost-based rates
for electricity, natural gas and home heating oil. When the Supreme
Court ruled that mandatory arbitration could be a condition of
employment, Kucinich introduced a bill to reverse the Court's decision.
In his Cleveland, Ohio district, Kucinich has been recognized by the
Greater Cleveland AFL-CIO as a tireless advocate for the social and
economic interests of his community. He is currently leading a civic
crusade to save Cleveland's 90 year-old steel industry and the thousands
of jobs and retiree benefits it provides. While hundreds of community
hospitals have been closed throughout the country, Kucinich led a
powerful citizens' movement which reopened two Cleveland neighborhood
hospitals. He was prepared to block a railroad merger at the Surface
Transportation Board until he gained an agreement from the nation's
largest railroads which improved rail safety while diverting a heavy
volume of train traffic away from heavily populated residential areas.
His promotion of rail safety improvements gained him the top award from
the Ohio PTA in 2000. His efforts on behalf of Cleveland's poor gained
the recognition of the National Association of Social Workers. He
continues to be a local and national advocate for the homeless.
Congressman Kucinich acts upon his belief that protection of the global
environment is fundamental to preserving the life of all species. He has
been honored by Public Citizen, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth
and the League of Conservation Voters as a champion of clean air, clean
water and an unspoiled earth. He was an early critic of nuclear power as
being risky economically, and environmentally, raising questions about
nuclear waste byproducts. As a state senator he raised so many questions
about a planned siting of a nuclear waste dump in Ohio that the idea was
eventually scrapped. Early in his first term in Congress he thwarted an
effort to repeal a provision of the Clean Air Act. As a congressional
representative to the global climate treaty talks, Congressman Kucinich
encouraged America to lead the way toward a sustainable, shared
stewardship of the planet through carbon reduction, and investment in
alternative energy technologies.
He not only believes in sustainability, he practices it. Congressman
Kucinich is one of the few vegans in Congress, a dietary decision he
credits not only with improving his health, but in deepening his belief
in the sacredness of all species. In the 106th Congress, his call for
labeling and safety testing of all genetically engineered foods provoked
a $50 million advertising campaign by the biotech industry. Kucinich
hosted an international parliamentary session, attended by officials of
18 countries, on the social, economic, political and health impact of
genetic food technologies. More recently he was one of the principal
speakers at an international conference on water rights, where he called
for governments to reserve public ownership of water resources.
US Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, a Democrat of Ohio, is a dynamic,
visionary leader of the Progressive Caucus of the congressional
Democrats who combines a powerful activism with a spiritual sense of the
essential interconnectedness of all living things. His holistic
worldview carries with it a passionate commitment to public service,
peace, human rights, workers rights, and the environment. His advocacy
of a Department of Peace seeks not only to make nonviolence an
organizing principle in our society, but to make war archaic. His is a
powerful, ethical voice for nuclear disarmament, preservation of the ABM
treaty, banning weapons in outer space, and a halt to the development of
a 'Star Wars' - type missile defense technology.
He has been recognized for his advocacy of human rights in Burma,
Nigeria and East Timor. Together with the late Rep. Joe Moakley
(D-Mass), he has led a concerted effort to close the School of the
Americas, which has been an incubator of human rights violations in
Central America. On the eve of the World Trade Organization's Seattle
conference, Rep. Kucinich organized 114 Democrats to help convince
President Clinton to seek human rights, workers rights and environmental
quality principles as preconditions in all US trade agreements. Kucinich
marched with workers through the streets of Seattle protesting the WTO's
policies and with students through the streets of Washington, DC,
challenging the structural readjustment policies of the IMF.