Tommy Thompson


Tommy George Thompson is an American politician who served as the 19th United States secretary of Health and Human Services from 2001 to 2005 in the cabinet of President George W. Bush. A member of the Republican Party, he was the 42nd governor of Wisconsin from 1987 to 2001 and Republican floor leader in the Wisconsin State Assembly from 1981 to 1987. Thompson is the longest-serving governor in Wisconsin history and is the only person to be elected to the office four times.
During his tenure as governor he was also chair of Amtrak, the nation's passenger rail service. He was chairman of the Republican Governors Association in 1991 and 1992, and the National Governors Association in 1995 and 1996. After his time in the Bush Administration, Thompson became a partner in the law-firm Akin Gump and Independent Chairman of Deloitte's Center for Health Solutions. He has served on the boards of 22 other organizations. Thompson most recently served as interim president of the University of Wisconsin System from 2020 to 2022.
Thompson was a candidate for President of the United States, running in the 2008 Republican Party presidential primaries, but withdrew from the race before voting began. He was the Republican nominee for United States Senate in Wisconsin in the 2012 election, vying to replace retiring senator Herb Kohl, but was defeated by Democrat Tammy Baldwin in what was his only statewide election loss.

Early life, education, and military service

Childhood and family

Thompson was born in Elroy, Wisconsin. His mother, Julie, was a teacher, and his father, Allan Thompson, owned and ran a gas station and country grocery store. His brother, the late Ed Thompson, was a mayor of Tomah, Wisconsin, and was the Libertarian Party nominee for governor of Wisconsin in 2002.
He has a daughter, Kelli Thompson, who was Wisconsin's state public defender until she stepped down in 2023.

Education

Thompson earned his bachelor and Juris Doctor degrees from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1963 and 1966, respectively. While in law school, Thompson was elected chairman of the Madison Young Republicans.

Military service

Thompson held a student deferment from military service during the Vietnam War until he completed law school in June 1966. The following year, 1966, Thompson enlisted in the National Guard.
After completing six years in the National Guard, Thompson served in the Army Reserves for another four years. His final rank was captain.

Early political career (1966–1987)

Wisconsin Assembly

Immediately after completing law school in 1966, Thompson ran for the Wisconsin State Assembly. In the Republican primary, he defeated incumbent Assemblyman Louis Romell by 635 votes, after Romell had underestimated the challenge Thompson represented.
In 1973, Thompson became the Assembly's assistant minority leader and its minority leader in 1981. Thompson aggressively used parliamentary procedure to block bills favored by the Democratic majority and stop legislative progress, earning him the nickname "Dr. No" by the frustrated majority.

American Legislative Exchange Council

As a state legislator, Thompson was involved in the early years of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative legislative organization. Speaking at a 2002 ALEC meeting, Thompson stated: "I always loved going to meetings because I always found new ideas. Then I'd take them back to Wisconsin, disguise them a little bit, and declare, 'That's mine.'" ALEC awarded Thompson its "Thomas Jefferson Award" in 1991.

1979 congressional campaign

While Thompson was Assistant Minority Leader in the Assembly, incumbent Republican U.S. Congressman William Steiger of Wisconsin's 6th congressional district died at the age of 40 from a heart attack. Thompson was one of seven Republican candidates who ran to replace Steiger in the special election in 1979. State Senator Tom Petri won the primary and general elections and represented the 6th district until his retirement in January 2015.

Governor of Wisconsin (1987–2001)

Thompson served as the 42nd Governor of Wisconsin, having been elected to an unprecedented four terms. As of April 2013, Thompson has the tenth longest gubernatorial tenure in post-Constitutional U.S. history at days.

Elections

;1986
Thompson decided to run for Governor of Wisconsin in 1986 against incumbent Democrat Anthony Earl. He ran and won the Republican primary with 52% of the vote in a five candidate field. He defeated Earl 53%–46%.
;1990
Thompson won election to a second term defeating Democrat Thomas Loftus, the Speaker of the Wisconsin State Assembly, 58%–42%.
;1994
Thompson won election to a third term defeating Democratic state senator Chuck Chvala 67%–31%. He won every county in the state except Menominee County.
;1998
Thompson won election to a fourth term defeating Democrat Ed Garvey, a Wisconsin Deputy Attorney General, 60%–39%.

Tenure

Thompson is best known nationally for changes in Wisconsin's welfare system, which was radically downsized, before similar ideas were adopted nationally. Under his leadership, Wisconsin reduced its welfare rolls by almost 90%, cutting welfare spending but increasing investments in child care and health care, especially for low-income working families.
Thompson was called a "pioneer" for two key initiatives of his governorship, the Wisconsin Works welfare reform and school vouchers. In 1990 Thompson pushed for the creation of the country's first parental school-choice program, which provided Milwaukee families with a voucher to send children to the private or public school of their choice. He created the BadgerCare program, designed to provide health coverage to those families whose employers don't provide health insurance but make too much money to qualify for Medicaid. Through the federal waiver program, Thompson helped replicate this program in several states when he became Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Thompson was well known for his extensive use of the veto, particularly his sweeping line-item veto powers. At the time, Wisconsin governors had the power to strike out words, numbers, and even entire sentences from appropriations bills. In his first two terms alone, he used the line-item veto 1,500 times to cancel a total of $150 million in spending; none of these vetoes were overridden.
Thompson's welfare reform policies were criticized. Wendell Primus of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities wrote that "many families have actually lost ground even though they are no longer on welfare". Many of Wisconsin's poor remained well below the federal poverty line. In addition, slightly more of the state's poorest children reportedly lacked health insurance than before Thompson's welfare overhaul.
The growth of the state budget during Thompson's 14-year tenure became a subject of attacks on his record as governor later by conservative opponents in the 2012 U.S. Senate primary.

Transportation focus

Thompson is a rail enthusiast, and was a supporter of mass transit, which earned him distrust on the issue from other Republicans. Prior to being selected as HHS Secretary, Thompson made clear that his first choice in the Bush Administration would be secretary of transportation.
While governor, Thompson was appointed to the Amtrak Board of Directors by President Bill Clinton, served as chairman, and had an Amtrak locomotive named for him from 2001 through 2006, when his name was removed from the side of the locomotive as part of a routine overhaul.
Beginning in the 1990s, Thompson proposed modernizing passenger rail in the state. In 1999, Thompson proposed a modernization and extension of the Hiawatha rail service, extending to beyond Milwaukee to also serve Madison, Wisconsin and Minnesota's Twin Cities. Thompson was promoting the "Midwest Rail Initiative" in his capacity as Amtrak's chairman, which included a proposal for a line connecting these cities. In early 2000, he gave further details, proposing first to establish new service between Milwaukee and Madison with $50 million in state funding and $100 million in federal funding, hoping to inaugurate a high-speed service by 2003, which would include a station at Dane County Regional Airport. As part of his plans, Thompson initiated preliminary studies that resulted in the construction of the Milwaukee Airport Rail Station.

Taxes

In 1996, Thompson bragged that he never raised taxes in Wisconsin. Thompson claimed to cut taxes 91 times—including eliminating the estate tax in 1987, cutting income tax rates three times and a $1.2 billion property tax cut in 1995.
When Thompson made the same claim, in 2012, that he "never raised taxes", he earned a rating of "False" from PolitiFact-Wisconsin. PolitiFact found numerous examples of taxes that had increased during Thompson's terms. Politifact said in its rating, "Thompson has a long list of taxes he cut and, on balance, he can claim to have reduced taxes. But he also raised some specific taxes along the way." Politifact rated Mostly True Thompson's claim that Wisconsin's overall tax burden went down while he served as governor from 1987 to 2001.
Two of the tax increases that Thompson did fight, using the Wisconsin governor's partial-veto power, were taxes on the state's wealthiest residents. In a budget bill in 1987, Thompson vetoed two tax increases on capital gains and the alternative minimum tax, that would have largely affected the wealthy, at the same time that he pushed forward a 6% cut in welfare benefits.

Executive power consolidation

As governor, Thompson took major steps to transfer decision-making power from elected constitutional officers and independent agencies to his political appointees. Among the changes:
Thompson also had two other acts overturned by the courts as unconstitutional. His plan to include church schools in his school voucher plan was found unconstitutional. Thompson also insisted on keeping Good Friday as a half-holiday for state workers, "despite a clear ruling" from the Seventh Circuit, earning a rebuke from the court.