Kathleen Sebelius Biography
Kathleen Sebelius (born May 15, 1948) is an American politician currently serving as the 21st Secretary of Health and Human Services. She was the second female Governor of Kansas from 2003 to 2009, the Democratic respondent to the 2008 State of the Union address, and chair-emerita of the Democratic Governors Association.
Early life and family
Sebelius was born Kathleen Gilligan and reared in Roman Catholic family in Cincinnati, Ohio. She attended the Summit Country Day School in Cincinnati and graduated from Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C. with a B.A. in political science. She later earned a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Kansas. She moved to Kansas in 1974, where she served for eight years as a representative in the Kansas Legislature and eight years as Insurance Commissioner before being elected governor.
Sebelius is the daughter of former Democratic Ohio Governor John J. Gilligan, and thus they became the first father/daughter governor pair in the United States after her election. Following passage of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, she pointed out another father-daughter connection: her father had been in the House of Representatives when Medicare was originally passed in 1965.
Her husband, K. Gary Sebelius, is a federal magistrate judge and the son of former U.S. Representative Keith Sebelius, a Republican. They have two sons. She also visits her childhood and current vacation home, located in Leland, Michigan, north of Traverse City, Michigan. An avid fan of jazz music, Sebelius as of 2009 has a 30-year unbroken streak of annually attending Jazz Fest in New Orleans.
Early political career
Sebelius served as executive director and chief lobbyist for the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association (now Kansas Association for Justice) from 1977–1986.
She was first elected to the Kansas House of Representatives in 1986. In 1994 she left the House to run for state Insurance Commissioner and stunned political forecasters by winning the first time a Democrat had won in more than 10 years. She refused to take campaign contributions from the insurance industry and blocked the proposed merger of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas, the state's largest health insurer, with an Indiana-based company. Sebelius's decision marked the first time the corporation had been rebuffed in its acquisition attempts.
Governorship
Sebelius was first elected governor of Kansas in 2002. She was re-elected in 2006.
2002 election and first term
Sebelius defeated Republican Tim Shallenburger in the 2002 election by a vote of 53 percent-45 percent. Since winning the election, Sebelius has successfully built upon her popularity and, as of January 2006, was tied for the 20th most popular governor in the country.
Second term
2006 re-election
On May 26, 2006, Sebelius formally announced her candidacy for re-election. Four days later, Mark Parkinson, former chair of the Kansas Republican Party, switched his party affiliation to Democrat; the following day Sebelius announced that Parkinson would be her running mate for Lieutenant Governor. Parkinson had previously served in the state House during 1991–1992 and the Senate during 1993–1997. Parkinson was viewed as a pro-business moderate who strongly supported public education. This was somewhat reminiscent of the fact that John Moore had also been a Republican, before switching just days prior to joining Sebelius as her running mate.
She was challenged by Republican Kansas State Senator Jim Barnett. A September 1 Rasmussen poll showed Sebelius with an 11% lead over Barnett. Other polls gave Sebelius as much as a 20% lead. , 50% of Kansas voters were registered Republicans, compared to 27% as registered Democrats. Sebelius, nevertheless, won a landslide re-election with 57.8% of the vote to Barnett's 40.5%. Because of Kansas's term-limit law, her second term as Governor was her last.
Tax revenue crisis
In February 2008, during Sebelius's second term in office, there was a report in the
Wichita Eagle that the State of Kansas was suspending tax refunds and that because of a lack of tax revenue, may not have been able to meet payroll for state employees.
Sebelius called for issuing certificates of indebtedness, moving funds from various state agency accounts into the general fund to alleviate the crisis. However, Republican leaders in the legislature did not agree with her certificate of indebtedness plan, saying the state would be unable to repay the certificates unless Sebelius issued allotments or signed a budget rescission bill that had been passed by the legislature but had not yet been delivered to her desk. The standoff ended when the budget arrived, and Sebelius agreed to sign it, although she line-item vetoed several cuts she felt were too large. The rescission bill reduced the budget by about $300 million. $7 million of the cuts came in the form of reduced educational funding.
Recognition
In 2001 Sebelius was named as one of
Governing Magazine's Public Officials of the Year while she was serving as Kansas Insurance Commissioner.
In November 2005,
Time named Sebelius as one of the five best governors in America, praising her for eliminating a $1.1 billion debt she inherited, ferreting out waste in state government, and strongly supporting public education all without raising taxes, although she proposed raising sales, property, and income taxes. The article also praised her bipartisan approach to governing, a useful trait in a state where Republicans have usually controlled the Legislature.
In February 2006, the White House Project named Sebelius one of its "8 in '08," a group of eight female politicians who could possibly run and/or be elected president in 2008.
In October 2006, the Cato Institute gave Sebelius the grade of "D" on their biennial fiscal policy report card, which measures the fiscal performance of US governors based on spending and taxes. Her grade was influenced by the combination of proposed tax increases and expanded spending growth beyond population plus inflation.
In 2009, Forbes named Sebelius the 57th most powerful woman in the world.
In 2010, Forbes named Sebelius the 23rd most powerful woman in the world.
Speculation on political future
