Lamar Alexander
Andrew Lamar Alexander Jr. is an American politician, academic administrator, and attorney who served as a U.S. senator from Tennessee from 2003 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, he was previously the 45th governor of Tennessee from 1979 to 1987 and the 5th United States Secretary of Education under President George H. W. Bush, serving from 1991 to 1993. During his tenure at the Department of Education, he supported the implementation of the "America 2000" education reform initiative.
Born in Maryville, Tennessee, Alexander graduated from Vanderbilt University and the New York University School of Law. After establishing a legal career in Nashville, Tennessee, Alexander ran for Governor of Tennessee in 1974, but was defeated by Democrat Ray Blanton. Alexander ran for governor again in 1978, and this time defeated his Democratic opponent, Jake Butcher. He won re-election in 1982 and served as chairman of the National Governors Association from 1985 to 1986.
Alexander served as the president of the University of Tennessee from 1988 until 1991, when he accepted an appointment as Secretary of Education under President George H. W. Bush. Alexander sought the presidential nomination in the 1996 Republican primaries, but withdrew before the Super Tuesday primaries. He sought the nomination again in the 2000 Republican primaries, but dropped out after a poor showing in the Iowa Straw Poll.
In 2002, Alexander was elected to succeed retiring U.S. Senator Fred Thompson. Alexander defeated Congressman Ed Bryant in the Republican primary and Democratic Congressman Bob Clement in the general election. He served as Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference from 2007 to 2012 and as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee from 2015 to 2021. He introduced the Every Student Succeeds Act, which supplanted the No Child Left Behind Act in 2015. On December 17, 2018, Alexander announced that he would not run for a fourth term in the Senate in 2020.
Early life and education
Alexander was born and raised in Maryville, Tennessee, the son of Genevra Floreine, a preschool teacher, and Andrew Lamar Alexander, a high school principal. His family is of Scotch-Irish descent. He attended Maryville High School, where he was class president, and was elected governor of Tennessee Boys State.In 1962, Alexander graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vanderbilt University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin American studies. He was a member of Sigma Chi. Alexander was the editor of The Vanderbilt Hustler, the primary student newspaper on campus, and he advocated for the open admission of African Americans. At Vanderbilt, he was a member of the track and field team. In 1965, he obtained his Juris Doctor from the New York University School of Law.
Career
Early political career
After graduating from law school, Alexander clerked for United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Judge John Minor Wisdom in New Orleans, Louisiana, from 1965 to 1966.In 1967, Alexander worked as a legislative assistant for Senator Howard Baker. While a staffer, he was briefly roommates with future U.S. Senator Trent Lott, and met his future wife at a staffer softball game. In 1969, he worked for Bryce Harlow, President Richard Nixon's executive assistant. In 1970, he moved back to Tennessee, serving as campaign manager for Memphis dentist Winfield Dunn's successful gubernatorial bid. Dunn was the first Republican in 50 years to win the governorship. After this campaign, Alexander co-founded and worked as a partner in the Nashville law firm of Dearborn and Ewing. Meanwhile, Alexander rented a garage apartment to Thomas W. Beasley, a student at the Vanderbilt Law School who later co-founded Corrections Corporation of America.
The Tennessee State Constitution at the time prevented governors from serving consecutive terms, so with Dunn unable to run, Alexander sought the party's nomination for governor in 1974. He defeated his two chief opponents, Commissioner of Mental Health Nat T. Winston, Jr., and Southwestern Company president Dortch Oldham, 120,773 votes to 90,980 and 35,683, respectively. He faced the Democratic nominee, Ray Blanton, a former congressman and unsuccessful 1972 Senate candidate, in the general election. Blanton attacked Alexander for his service under Nixon, who had resigned in disgrace several months earlier as a result of the Watergate scandal, and defeated Alexander on election day, 576,833 votes to 455,467.
After the 1974 campaign, Alexander returned to the practice of law. In 1974, TIME Magazine named Alexander one of the 200 Faces of the Future. In 1977, Alexander once again worked in Baker's Washington office following Baker's election as Senate Minority Leader.
Governor of Tennessee
Although the Tennessee State Constitution had been amended in early 1978 to allow a governor to succeed himself, Blanton chose not to seek re-election, due to a number of scandals. Alexander once again ran for governor, and made a name for himself by walking from Mountain City in the far northeast of the state to Memphis in the far southwest, a distance of, wearing a red and black flannel shirt that would become something of a trademark for him.File:Reagan Contact Sheet C33472.jpg|thumb|right|Alexander with President Ronald Reagan in 1986
Investigative news reports, disclosed late during the 1978 Tennessee gubernatorial campaign, revealed that Alexander once transferred the non-profit charter of a Christian church to his Ruby Tuesday restaurant chain that he served as a director in order to sell liquor-by-the-drink in the once "dry town" of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. During the campaign, Alexander, then a Nashville attorney, vowed to place his $62,676 interest in the Ruby Tuesday restaurant chain into an untouchable trust.
After winning the Republican nomination with nearly 86% of the vote, he defeated Knoxville banker Jake Butcher in the November 1978 election, 665,847 votes to 523,013.
In early 1979, a furor ensued over pardons made by Governor Blanton, whose administration was already under investigation in a cash-for-clemency scandal. Since the state constitution is somewhat vague on when a governor must be sworn in, several political leaders from both parties, including Lieutenant Governor John S. Wilder and State House Speaker Ned McWherter, arranged for Alexander to be sworn in on January 17, 1979, three days earlier than the traditional inauguration day, to prevent Blanton from signing more pardons. Wilder later called the move "impeachment Tennessee-style."
In February 1979, shortly after his inauguration, Alexander created an Office of Ombudsman, which was charged with cutting government red tape. He also gave state employees a 7% raise, and replaced state prisoners working at the Governor's Mansion with a paid staff. One of Alexander's biggest accomplishments as governor was the relationship he cultivated with the Japanese corporate community, which resulted in the construction of a $660 million Nissan assembly plant in Smyrna in 1980, the largest single investment in the state's history up to the time. Alexander was also instrumental in the location of General Motors' Saturn Manufacturing Facility in Spring Hill, which began operations in 1990.
In 1982 Alexander took advantage of the 1978 constitutional amendment allowing governors to serve a second consecutive four-year term. He ran again and defeated Knoxville mayor Randy Tyree, 737,963 votes to 500,937. During his second term, he served as chairman of the National Governors Association from 1985 to 1986, and was chair of the President's Commission on American Outdoors, 1985 to 1986. He also oversaw the "Tennessee Homecoming" in 1986, in which local communities launched numerous projects that focused on state and local heritage.
In 1983, Alexander implemented his "Better Schools" program, which standardized basic skills for all students, and increased math, science and computer education. A portion of this plan, known as "Master Teachers," or "Career Ladder," called for income supplements for the state's top teachers. Due to staunch opposition from the Tennessee Education Association, which derided the plan's method of teacher evaluations, the bill initially died in the state legislature. Later that year, Alexander convinced House Speaker Ned McWherter to support an amended version of the bill, which passed. In 1984, the Tennessee Chairs of Excellence Trust Fund was authorized to allow private donor contributions to be matched by the state, creating endowed chairs that would raise the level of higher education and attract faculty.
In 1986, Alexander proposed the "Better Roads Program" to fund a backlog of needed highway projects. The project increased the state's gasoline tax by three cents, and funded fifteen priority projects and six interstate-type projects including Interstate 840, the outer southern beltway around Nashville, and the eastern extension of the Pellissippi Parkway near Knoxville, now signed as Interstate 140. A similar initiative based on the Better Roads Program, the "IMPROVE Act", was signed by Governor Bill Haslam in 2017.
After opting out of the 1984 US Senate contest for the open seat of retiring Majority Leader Howard Baker, Alexander was constitutionally ineligible for a third term and stepped down from the governorship on January 17, 1987. He was succeeded by Ned McWherter.
President of the University of Tennessee
Alexander along with his family moved to Australia for a short time in the late 1980s. While there he wrote a book titled Six Months Off. Upon returning to Tennessee, he served as president of the University of Tennessee from 1988 to 1991.United States Secretary of Education
Alexander served as the United States Secretary of Education from 1991 to 1993. As Education Secretary, he sparked controversy after he approved Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools to accredit schools despite an advisory panel that repeatedly recommended against it in 1991 and 1987.In 1993, Steve Levicoff published a book-length critical discussion of TRACS and Alexander's decision in When The TRACS Stop Short.
Former Department of Education employee and writer Lisa Schiffren has stated that, "His fortune is founded on sweetheart deals not available to the general public, and a series of cozy sinecures provided by local businessmen. Such deals are not illegal..." Schiffren further notes that, in 1987, Alexander helped found Corporate Child Care Management, Inc., a company thatvia a mergeris now the nation's largest provider of worksite day care. While businessman Jack C. Massey spent $2 million on this enterprise, Alexander co-founded the company with only $5,000 of stock which increased in value to $800,000, a 15,900 percent return within four years. Also in 1987, he wrote a never-cashed investment check for $10,000 to Christopher Whittle for shares in Whittle Communications that increased in value to $330,000. In 1991, Alexander's house, which he had recently purchased for $570,000, was sold to Whittle for $977,500. Alexander's wife obtained an $133,000 profit from her $8,900 investment in a company created to privatize prisons. Alexander frequently shifted assets to his wife's name, yet such transfers are not legal under federal ethics and security laws. In his 2005 U.S. Senate financial disclosure report, he listed personal ownership of BFAM stock valued between $1 million and $5 million. He taught about the American character as a faculty member at Harvard Kennedy School.