Chris Coleman (born 1961,
Saint PaulSaint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the north bank of the Mississippi River, downstream of the river's confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...
) is a
MinnesotaMinnesota is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. The twelfth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.2 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the...
politician and the mayor of the state's capital city of St. Paul. In the 2005 mayoral race, he defeated incumbent St. Paul mayor
Randy KellyRandy Cameron Kelly is an American politician and the former mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota. He is a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party ....
. Chris Coleman took office on January 3, 2006.
Coleman spent eight years working in
Hennepin CountyHennepin County is a county located in the U.S. state of Minnesota, named in honor of the 17th-century French explorer Father Louis Hennepin. As of 2000 the population was 1,116,200; in 2008 the U.S. Census Bureau estimated its population to be 1,140,988. Its county seat is Minneapolis...
as a
public defenderA public defender is a lawyer employed by the government to represent those who are charged with a crime and cannot afford an attorney. In some states, public defenders also represent people being involuntarily committed to a mental health facility due to an alleged mental illness. Public...
and
prosecutorThe prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...
. Proposals to build a metal shredder along the
Mississippi RiverThe Mississippi River is the second longest river in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico....
in Saint Paul inspired his first run for the Saint Paul City Council. Coleman represented Saint Paul's Ward 2 from 1997 to 2003. Currently, he is also an investment management consultant working with non-profit organizations and is also president of United Family Practice Clinic (serving people without insurance and/or with low income). Ann Mulholland serves as Chief of Staff of his mayoral administration.
Coleman ran as a
Democratic-Farmer-LaborThe Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party is a major political party in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It was created on April 15, 1944 when the Minnesota Democratic Party and the Farmer-Labor Party merged. Hubert Humphrey was instrumental in this merger. The party is affiliated with the national...
(DFL) candidate against fellow DFL member Kelly, and won by a 69% to 31% margin. This was larger than margins in pre-election polling, such as in October 2005, when Coleman was ahead of Kelly among likely St. Paul voters by a margin of 35%. Kelly's loss was largely attributed to his endorsement of George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, despite being an incumbent DFLer in a DFL stronghold and despite a poll showing that his constituents felt generally that the city was doing well and was heading in the right direction.
Shortly after taking office, Coleman signed a city ordinance
banningSmoking bans are public policies, including criminal laws and occupational safety and health regulations, which prohibit tobacco smoking in workplaces and/or other public spaces...
tobaccoTobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as an organic pesticide, and in the form of nicotine tartrate it is used in some medicines. In consumption it most commonly appears in the forms of smoking, chewing, snuffing, or...
smoking in all bars and restaurants within city limits. The ban had long been opposed by former mayor Kelly.
John KerryJohn Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, and is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee....
visited St. Paul to campaign for Coleman in October 2005 although it meant campaigning against an incumbent of his own party.
Wesley ClarkWesley Kanne Clark, Sr., KBE is a retired general of the United States Army. Clark was valedictorian of his class at West Point, was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford where he obtained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and later graduated from the Command and...
and Bill Richardson have also personally campaigned for him in St. Paul, while Hillary Clinton and
John EdwardsJohnny Reid "John" Edwards is an American politician who served one term as U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.He defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth...
have both actively supported him.
Mayor Coleman is a member of the
Mayors Against Illegal Guns CoalitionThe Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition is a coalition of mayors and former mayors, with the stated goal of urging the federal Congress to pass laws to control the trade in illegal firearms and to pass laws to make it easier for law enforcement to identify the origin of guns used in crime.The...
, an organization formed in 2006 and co-chaired by
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
mayor
Michael BloombergMichael Rubens Bloomberg is the current Mayor of New York City. He was listed as the eighth-richest American, with a net worth of US $16 billion, in the Forbes 400 on September 17, 2008, making him the richest resident of New York City, ahead of David H. Koch...
and
BostonBoston is the capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is considered the economic and cultural center of the region and is sometimes regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England"...
mayor
Thomas MeninoThomas Michael Menino is the mayor of Boston, Massachusetts, United States and the city's first Italian-American mayor.-Biography:...
.
Chris Coleman is son of
Nicholas Coleman, Sr.This article is about the Minnesota Politician. For the former Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist, see: Nick ColemanNicholas David "Nick" Coleman was a Minnesota politician and a former member and majority leader of the Minnesota Senate. A Democrat, he was first elected in 1962, and was re-elected...
, a Minnesota state senator from 1963 to 1981, who also served as state senate majority leader, and the brother of
Nick ColemanDisambiguation: for the Minnesota politician, see Nicholas D. Coleman.Nicholas J. Coleman, is a veteran Minnesota journalist and former columnist for the Star Tribune, the daily newspaper published in Minneapolis, Minnesota...
, a former
columnistA columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating copy that can sometimes be strongly opinionated. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs on the Internet....
for the Minneapolis
Star TribuneThe Star Tribune is the largest newspaper in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is published seven days each week in an edition for the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area. A statewide version is also available across Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota...
.
He has no relation to former
U.S. SenatorThe United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral United States Congress, the lower house being the House of Representatives. The composition and powers of the Senate and the House are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution . Each U.S state is represented by two senators,...
Norm ColemanNorman Bertram "Norm" Coleman, Jr. , is an American attorney and politician. He was a United States senator from Minnesota from 2003 to 2009. Coleman was elected in 2002 and served in the 108th, 109th, and 110th Congresses. Before becoming a senator, he was mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota, from 1994...
, Randy Kelly's predecessor as mayor of Saint Paul.
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