Bruce Babbitt
Encyclopedia
Bruce Edward Babbitt a Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

, served as United States Secretary of the Interior
United States Secretary of the Interior
The United States Secretary of the Interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior.The US Department of the Interior should not be confused with the concept of Ministries of the Interior as used in other countries...

 and as the 16th governor of Arizona, from 1978 to 1987.

Biography

Born in Flagstaff, Arizona
Flagstaff, Arizona
Flagstaff is a city located in northern Arizona, in the southwestern United States. In 2010, the city's population was 65,870. The population of the Metropolitan Statistical Area was at 134,421 in 2010. It is the county seat of Coconino County...

, Babbitt graduated from the University of Notre Dame
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...

, and attended Durham University
Durham University
The University of Durham, commonly known as Durham University, is a university in Durham, England. It was founded by Act of Parliament in 1832 and granted a Royal Charter in 1837...

 in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 on a Marshall Scholarship
Marshall Scholarship
The Marshall Scholarship, a postgraduate scholarships available to Americans, was created by the Parliament of the United Kingdom when the Marshall Aid Commemoration Act was passed in 1953. The scholarships serve as a living gift to the United States of America in recognition of the post-World War...

, and then received his law degree at Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

.

He married attorney Harriet Coons (known as Hattie) in 1968. Mr. and Mrs. Babbitt have two sons, Christopher and T.J.

Babbitt's brother, Paul Babbitt, was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

 in 2004.

Arizona

Babbitt was elected Attorney General of Arizona
Attorney General of Arizona
The Arizona Attorney General is the chief legal officer of the state of Arizona, in the United States. It is an independent, constitutionally mandated office, elected by the people of the state to a four-year term....

, but succeeded Wesley Bolin
Wesley Bolin
Wesley Bolin was a Democratic Party politician who served as the 15th governor of the U.S. state of Arizona between 1977 and 1978. His five months in office mark the shortest term in office for any Arizona governor....

 as governor when Bolin died in office on March 4, 1978. Arizona does not have a lieutenant governor, designating the Arizona Secretary of State as first in line in case the governor vacates his or her post. However, the secretary of state at that time, Rose Mofford, had been appointed rather than elected to her post and thus was not eligible to become governor according to the Arizona state constitution. Babbitt, as attorney general, was next in the line of succession. Babbitt was elected for a full four-year term in 1978, and again in 1982
United States gubernatorial elections, 1982
The United States gubernatorial elections of 1982 were held on November 2, 1982 in thirty-six states. The Democratic party had a net gain of seven seats during the mid-term election of Ronald Reagan's first term. This election coincided with the Senate and the House elections.-Election results:A...

. In all, Babbitt served as governor of Arizona from 1978 to 1987, but did not seek reelection to a third term. With the retirement of Republican Barry Goldwater from the U.S. Senate in 1986, many in Arizona expected Babbitt to oppose Representative John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....

 for the seat. In a surprise press conference in 1985, Babbitt instead announced he would forgo the Senate race to concentrate on a White House bid in 1988.

Babbitt is the only Arizona governor to have completed two four-year terms with nine years of service.

National work

In 1979, Babbitt was appointed by President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

 to serve as a Commissioner on the President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, a six-month investigation of the March 1979 accident at a commercial nuclear power plant at Middletown, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

. Babbitt spoke at the 1980 Democratic National Convention
1980 Democratic National Convention
The 1980 National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party nominated President Jimmy Carter for President and Vice President Walter Mondale for Vice President...

, which nominated incumbent Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

 as the Democratic candidate for President.

A founding member of the Democratic Leadership Council
Democratic Leadership Council
The Democratic Leadership Council was a non-profit 501 corporation that, upon its formation, argued the United States Democratic Party should shift away from the leftward turn it took in the late 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s...

 and the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association
Democratic Governors Association
The Democratic Governors Association is a Washington, D.C. based 527 organization founded in 1983, consisting of U.S. state and territorial governors affiliated with the Democratic Party. The mission of the organization is to provide party support to the election and re-election of Democratic...

 in 1985, Babbitt sought the Democratic Party's 1988 nomination for President of the United States. Among his proposals was a national sales tax to remedy the then-record budget deficits piled up during the several past administrations. He enjoyed positive press attention (called a "boomlet" in USA Today), but after finishing out of the top tier of candidates in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary
New Hampshire primary
The New Hampshire primary is the first in a series of nationwide political party primary elections held in the United States every four years , as part of the process of choosing the Democratic and Republican nominees for the presidential elections to be held the subsequent November.Although only a...

, he dropped out of the race. In an intentional reference to Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

 (who said after losing the California governorship that the press "won't have [me] to kick around anymore"), Babbitt joked in his last campaign press conference that the media "won't have Bruce Babbitt to puff up anymore." The Washington Post reported that Babbitt dropped this line from the prepared text of his withdrawal speech.

Clinton Administration

After leading the League of Conservation Voters
League of Conservation Voters
The League of Conservation Voters is a political advocacy organization founded in 1969 by American environmentalist David Brower in the early years of the environmental movement. LCV's mission is to "advocate for sound environmental policies and to elect pro-environmental candidates who will adopt...

, Babbitt served for eight years, 1993–2001, as the United States Secretary of the Interior
United States Secretary of the Interior
The United States Secretary of the Interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior.The US Department of the Interior should not be confused with the concept of Ministries of the Interior as used in other countries...

 during Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

's administration.

As Secretary of the Interior, Babbitt actively worked to protect scenic and historic areas of America's federal public lands. In 2000, Babbitt created the National Landscape Conservation System
National Landscape Conservation System
The National Landscape Conservation System is a collection of the lands considered to be the crown jewels of the American west. NLCS is also known as National Conservation Lands. These lands represent 10% of the managed by the Bureau of Land Management...

, a collection of 15 U.S. National Monument
U.S. National Monument
A National Monument in the United States is a protected area that is similar to a National Park except that the President of the United States can quickly declare an area of the United States to be a National Monument without the approval of Congress. National monuments receive less funding and...

s and 14 National Conservation Area
National Conservation Area
National Conservation Area is a designation for certain protected areas in the United States. National Conservation Areas are managed by the United States Bureau of Land Management under the National Landscape Conservation System...

s to be managed by the Bureau of Land Management
Bureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior which administers America's public lands, totaling approximately , or one-eighth of the landmass of the country. The BLM also manages of subsurface mineral estate underlying federal, state and private...

 in such a way as to keep them "healthy, open, and wild." Wilderness.org

In 1993, Babbitt was very seriously considered by President Clinton to replace retiring United States Supreme Court Justice Byron White
Byron White
Byron Raymond "Whizzer" White won fame both as a football halfback and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Appointed to the court by President John F. Kennedy in 1962, he served until his retirement in 1993...

. However, due to his lead in environmental issues, Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton and took the oath of office on August 10, 1993. She is the second female justice and the first Jewish female justice.She is generally viewed as belonging to...

 instead. Clinton again considered Babbitt for the high court in 1994 when Harry Blackmun
Harry Blackmun
Harold Andrew Blackmun was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 until 1994. He is best known as the author of Roe v. Wade.- Early years and professional career :...

 announced his retirement. Babbitt was passed over again, this time in favor of Stephen Breyer
Stephen Breyer
Stephen Gerald Breyer is an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, and known for his pragmatic approach to constitutional law, Breyer is generally associated with the more liberal side of the Court....

, due to Breyer's immense support in the U.S. Senate, primarily because he was close to Sen. Ted Kennedy
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...

.

In 1998 he was the subject of a federal grand jury investigation into whether he had lied to Congress about having denied an Indian casino license in Wisconsin in return for political donations. The controversy has been called Wampumgate
Wampumgate
Wampumgate is the name for the controversy around the July 14, 1995 rejection of an Indian gambling project by three impoverished Chippewa Indian tribes who hoped to establish a casino in Hudson, Wisconsin, located just outside the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul...

. The following year, Babbitt was cleared of wrongdoing in the special prosecutor's final report on the investigation.

Post-political life

After leaving the Department of Interior, Babbitt took a job as chief counsel of the environmental litigation department of Latham & Watkins
Latham & Watkins
Latham & Watkins LLP is a global law firm, one of the largest in the world. Latham currently employs approximately 2,000 attorneys in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The firm was started in Los Angeles in 1934 and has extensive Californian roots, but its largest office is now...

, an international law firm
Law firm
A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to represent clients in civil or criminal cases, business transactions, and other...

.

Babbitt wrote a book in 2005 entitled Cities in the Wilderness: A New Vision of Land Use in America, where he proposes, among other things, to amend the Endangered Species Act
Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 28, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and...

 so that it is used to identify, conserve and protect landscapes, watersheds and ecosystems whether or not an endangered species happens to be there. Making a parallel with preventive medicine, he thinks it should promote the protection of open space and ecosystems before the downward spiral to extinction begins.

Babbitt has attracted the ire of some environmentalists and Native American groups for, among other things, his representation of the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort and its effort to expand the resort and use wastewater to make artificial snow.

He currently serves as trustee
Trustee
Trustee is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, can refer to any person who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility for the benefit of another...

 of the World Wildlife Fund Secretariat Trustees in the U.S., and is listed as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

External links

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