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Babbitt for President
1988 Democratic Presidential Primary
Babbitt for President
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Governor Bruce Babbitt
Candidate Biography
Bruce Babbitt is former Governor of Arizona (1978-1987), a third generation member of a pioneer Arizona family, and a candidate for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination.
EARLY CAREER
Babbitt's family settled much of what is now Northern Arizona during the late 1800s and built a prosperous family business in ranching and trading. Young Bruce Babbitt, whose parents returned to Flagstaff after he was born on the west coast, left home in 1956 for Notre Dame where he earned a degree in geology in 1960.
In 1962, while doing field work in Bolivia towards a graduate degree in geophysics, Babbitt decided to forsake science for public service. Returning to the United States, he entered Harvard Law School where he earned his room and board working as a freshman dorm master in Harvard College. As a law student, he returned to Latin America for two summers, working in the barrios of Caracas as an Acción volunteer in 1963 and directing an international student workcamp in Ayacucho, Peru in 1964.
In March 1965, Babbitt went to Selma, Alabama to join the civil rights demonstrations that followed Bloody Sunday. That experience led him to join the federal antipoverty effort after graduation from law school and he spent two years working in community action projects that included migrant worker programs in the Rio Grande Valley, school desegregation programs, and the creation of legal service programs for Native Americans.
While working in Austin, Texas, Babbitt met his wife to be, Hattie. They were married after Babbitt returned to Arizona to practice law. Hattie, a practicing trial attorney, and Governor Babbitt have two sons, Christopher and T.J., both born in Arizona.
ENTERING POLITICS
After practicing law in Phoenix and successfully representing among others the Navajo Nation in a landmark voting rights case, Babbitt was elected Attorney General of Arizona in 1974. He quickly gained recognition for his prosecution of land fraud and public corruption cases and for the creation of a statewide grand jury system. As a result of his prosecution efforts, Babbitt was targeted for a contract-murder in the same conspiracy that resulted in the car bombing death of investigative reporter Don Bolles.
Babbitt became Governor suddenly through constitutional succession in March 1978 upon the death of former Governor Wesley Bolin. He was elected to his first full term later that year and re-elected in 1982 with 63 percent of the vote.
As Governor, Babbitt received state and national acclaim for his creative approach to problem solving. Working with a heavily Republican and frequently adversarial legislature, Babbitt established himself as a strong executive; vetoing 114 bills during his tenure, using the initiative process to break legislative gridlock, and stimulating a creative dynamic in the state capitol that produced a steady stream of innovative legislation.
LEADERSHIP FOR ARIZONA
Arizona's population and economy, during Governor Babbitt's term, grew at rates that were among the nation's fastest. Inc. magazine in an October 1986 survey ranked the state first in new job creation, growth and climate far entrepreneurship.
Governor Babbitt's advocacy of water resource management resulted in passage of a nationally acclaimed water management code in 1980, and in 1986 of a water quality act described by the Los Angeles Times as perhaps "the nation's toughest law to protect underground water."
In 1978 Arizona was the only state without a Medicaid program. Governor Babbitt fulfilled a campaign promise to respond by creating a unique, prepaid health care system that has become a national model far Medicaid reform. In the words of a Reagan Administration subcabinet official, "We want to use this model as a way of convincing other states across the country that there are benefits from this approach."
Governor Babbitt took a leading role in the reform of public education, he launched a series of initiatives for children that strengthened Arizona families, and he revamped and revitalized archaic state bureaucracies that were lagging behind the needs of people in the nation's fastest growing State.
FRAMING THE NATIONAL DEBATE
Governor Babbitt's success as a Democratic governor in a state with a Republican legislature and a conservative tradition has also given him an opportunity to address matters of national concern. He has specialized in drawing together experts from all walks of life and from various viewpoints to work out solutions to seemingly intractable problems.
In the words of the columnist Neal Peirce, he has become "the leading national exponent of federalist reform" arguing in favor of sorting out responsibilities and priorities between state and federal governments. He has also been a thoughtful voice in the controversy surrounding nuclear energy, having served as a member of the Three Mile Island Commission and as chairman of the Federal Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee. A Roosevelt Center Task Force on the Federal Deficit, co-chaired by Governor Babbitt produced a highly acclaimed plan for balancing the federal budget. He also chaired a Council on Foreign Relations study group on US-Mexico relations and he has addressed numerous organizations on the need for a new national effort aimed at protecting children.
Among other subjects Governor Babbitt and his colleagues have addressed are the federal budget deficit, national environmental policies, intergovernmental relations, and groundwater policy. With Dr. Arthur Flemming and other experts, Governor Babbitt recently completed a study of national family policy, Ladders Out of Poverty, that is being used as a blueprint for welfare reform.
AN ADVOCATE INSIDE AND OUT
Described by The Almanac of American Politics as one of the nation's "brainiest and most original" governors, Babbitt is a frequent contributor to the editorial pages of the nation's major newspapers and magazines, writing on topics as varied as his native West, the management and preservation of public land, health care policy, and American policies in Mexico and Central America.
His unorthodox and provocative views have won him respect from both right and left George Will recently described him as "the miner's canary of the Democratic Party"; Robert Healy of the Boston Globe said that he "cannot be counted out or underestimated."
The essential Babbitt, however, was perhaps captured best in an April 1985 Sports Illustrated article written by Kenny Moore. Following a rugged mid-winter traverse of the Grand Canyon with the Governor, Moore likened Babbitt to the 19th century explorers who charted and mapped the ridges, strata, and stone of the canyon.
They are part of an unbroken line, Moore wrote, "the men who lived on all these layers, who looked and thought and studied and wrote and just loved it so much that they gave it to the rest of us."
2095 E. Camelback Rd. • Phoenix, Arizona 85016 • (602) 956-6611
[union bug]
Candidate Biography
Bruce Babbitt is former Governor of Arizona (1978-1987), a third generation member of a pioneer Arizona family, and a candidate for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination.
EARLY CAREER
Babbitt's family settled much of what is now Northern Arizona during the late 1800s and built a prosperous family business in ranching and trading. Young Bruce Babbitt, whose parents returned to Flagstaff after he was born on the west coast, left home in 1956 for Notre Dame where he earned a degree in geology in 1960.
In 1962, while doing field work in Bolivia towards a graduate degree in geophysics, Babbitt decided to forsake science for public service. Returning to the United States, he entered Harvard Law School where he earned his room and board working as a freshman dorm master in Harvard College. As a law student, he returned to Latin America for two summers, working in the barrios of Caracas as an Acción volunteer in 1963 and directing an international student workcamp in Ayacucho, Peru in 1964.
In March 1965, Babbitt went to Selma, Alabama to join the civil rights demonstrations that followed Bloody Sunday. That experience led him to join the federal antipoverty effort after graduation from law school and he spent two years working in community action projects that included migrant worker programs in the Rio Grande Valley, school desegregation programs, and the creation of legal service programs for Native Americans.
While working in Austin, Texas, Babbitt met his wife to be, Hattie. They were married after Babbitt returned to Arizona to practice law. Hattie, a practicing trial attorney, and Governor Babbitt have two sons, Christopher and T.J., both born in Arizona.
ENTERING POLITICS
After practicing law in Phoenix and successfully representing among others the Navajo Nation in a landmark voting rights case, Babbitt was elected Attorney General of Arizona in 1974. He quickly gained recognition for his prosecution of land fraud and public corruption cases and for the creation of a statewide grand jury system. As a result of his prosecution efforts, Babbitt was targeted for a contract-murder in the same conspiracy that resulted in the car bombing death of investigative reporter Don Bolles.
Babbitt became Governor suddenly through constitutional succession in March 1978 upon the death of former Governor Wesley Bolin. He was elected to his first full term later that year and re-elected in 1982 with 63 percent of the vote.
As Governor, Babbitt received state and national acclaim for his creative approach to problem solving. Working with a heavily Republican and frequently adversarial legislature, Babbitt established himself as a strong executive; vetoing 114 bills during his tenure, using the initiative process to break legislative gridlock, and stimulating a creative dynamic in the state capitol that produced a steady stream of innovative legislation.
LEADERSHIP FOR ARIZONA
Arizona's population and economy, during Governor Babbitt's term, grew at rates that were among the nation's fastest. Inc. magazine in an October 1986 survey ranked the state first in new job creation, growth and climate far entrepreneurship.
Governor Babbitt's advocacy of water resource management resulted in passage of a nationally acclaimed water management code in 1980, and in 1986 of a water quality act described by the Los Angeles Times as perhaps "the nation's toughest law to protect underground water."
In 1978 Arizona was the only state without a Medicaid program. Governor Babbitt fulfilled a campaign promise to respond by creating a unique, prepaid health care system that has become a national model far Medicaid reform. In the words of a Reagan Administration subcabinet official, "We want to use this model as a way of convincing other states across the country that there are benefits from this approach."
Governor Babbitt took a leading role in the reform of public education, he launched a series of initiatives for children that strengthened Arizona families, and he revamped and revitalized archaic state bureaucracies that were lagging behind the needs of people in the nation's fastest growing State.
FRAMING THE NATIONAL DEBATE
Governor Babbitt's success as a Democratic governor in a state with a Republican legislature and a conservative tradition has also given him an opportunity to address matters of national concern. He has specialized in drawing together experts from all walks of life and from various viewpoints to work out solutions to seemingly intractable problems.
In the words of the columnist Neal Peirce, he has become "the leading national exponent of federalist reform" arguing in favor of sorting out responsibilities and priorities between state and federal governments. He has also been a thoughtful voice in the controversy surrounding nuclear energy, having served as a member of the Three Mile Island Commission and as chairman of the Federal Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee. A Roosevelt Center Task Force on the Federal Deficit, co-chaired by Governor Babbitt produced a highly acclaimed plan for balancing the federal budget. He also chaired a Council on Foreign Relations study group on US-Mexico relations and he has addressed numerous organizations on the need for a new national effort aimed at protecting children.
Among other subjects Governor Babbitt and his colleagues have addressed are the federal budget deficit, national environmental policies, intergovernmental relations, and groundwater policy. With Dr. Arthur Flemming and other experts, Governor Babbitt recently completed a study of national family policy, Ladders Out of Poverty, that is being used as a blueprint for welfare reform.
AN ADVOCATE INSIDE AND OUT
Described by The Almanac of American Politics as one of the nation's "brainiest and most original" governors, Babbitt is a frequent contributor to the editorial pages of the nation's major newspapers and magazines, writing on topics as varied as his native West, the management and preservation of public land, health care policy, and American policies in Mexico and Central America.
His unorthodox and provocative views have won him respect from both right and left George Will recently described him as "the miner's canary of the Democratic Party"; Robert Healy of the Boston Globe said that he "cannot be counted out or underestimated."
The essential Babbitt, however, was perhaps captured best in an April 1985 Sports Illustrated article written by Kenny Moore. Following a rugged mid-winter traverse of the Grand Canyon with the Governor, Moore likened Babbitt to the 19th century explorers who charted and mapped the ridges, strata, and stone of the canyon.
They are part of an unbroken line, Moore wrote, "the men who lived on all these layers, who looked and thought and studied and wrote and just loved it so much that they gave it to the rest of us."
2095 E. Camelback Rd. • Phoenix, Arizona 85016 • (602) 956-6611
[union bug]
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