Carol Moseley Braun
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Carol Moseley Braun (born August 16, 1947) is an American politician and lawyer, who was the first (and to date only) black woman elected to the United States Senate (representing Illinois). She was also an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2004 U.S. presidential election.
Early history
She was born Carol Moseley in Chicago, Illinois and educated in the Chicago public school system. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1969 and earned a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Chicago in 1972.Public service career
As an attorney, Moseley Braun was a prosecutor in the United States Attorney's office in Chicago from 1973 to 1977.Moseley Braun was first elected to public office in 1978, as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives. There, she rose to the post of assistant majority leader before leaving the state legislature in 1988. That same year, she was elected as Cook County, Illinois Recorder of Deeds, a post she held for four years.
In 1991, angered by incumbent Democratic senator Alan Dixon's vote to confirm Clarence Thomas, Moseley Braun challenged him in the primary election. Candidate Albert Hofeld's campaign ran many anti-Dixon ads, and the split among voters helped Braun win the primary. In 1992, she became the first African American woman to be elected to the United States Senate.
Controversy
Her term in the Senate was marked with controversy even before she arrived in Washington. Before her swearing in, it was discovered that she had rewarded several campaign workers with jobs at the Cook County Recorder of Deeds. Further controversy came when several of her campaign staffers accused her campaign manager and fiance, Kgosie Matthews, of sexual harassment; Moseley Braun supported Matthews against the allegations, continuing to pay him a salary of $15,000 per month. To celebrate their '92 victory, Matthews and Moseley Braun flew to Matthews' native South Africa on a 27-day vacation, using the Concorde for one leg of their trip. Meanwhile, several aides complained that they had not been paid.The most damaging allegation of illegal activity came when the Federal Election Commission began investigating $249,000 in unaccounted campaign expenditures in 1993. Charges had been made that Moseley Braun and Matthews had squandered the donations on trips and other personal expenditures. The campaign claimed careless bookkeeping and went on to file nearly 10,000 pages of amended reports, according to the Chicago Tribune. Numerous allegations of misappropriation were stated in various media reports, such as a $4,000 bill at the Four Seasons Hotel in Maui.
Following the nearly five-year investigation of the media allegations of misappropriation of campaign funds, the Federal Election Commission found those allegations to be without merit. No fines or sanctions were ever levied against her or her campaign. On page 7, paragraph 2 of the Final Audit Report of the Federal Election Commission (AK007596, AR 93-32approved 5/6/96) it states:.."Unless specifically discussed below, no material non-compliance was detected." Additionally, nowhere in the records of campaign expenditures was there a charge for a trip to Maui.["Report of the Audit Division on Carol Moseley Braun for U.S. Senate, Approved May 6, 1996."] Further, the Justice Department later rejected two requests from the Internal Revenue Service to investigate Moseley Braun for criminal misappropriation of campaign funds.
The controversy intensified when, in 1996, she traveled to Nigeria and praised its dictator, Sani Abacha, months after the execution of activist and playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa. It was later revealed that she was accompanied on the trip by Matthews, who was also a registered agent of the Nigerian government.
In 1998, after George Will wrote a column reviewing the allegations of corruption against her, she attacked Will, saying that "I think because he couldn't say nigger, he said corrupt."Associated Press, ["Moseley-Braun Lashes Out At Columnist, Apologizes"], CNN, 9 September 1998. She also compared Will to a Ku Klux Klansman, saying "I mean this very sincerely from the bottom of my heart: He can take his hood and put it back on again, as far as I'm concerned."["Moseley-Braun loses to Republican Fitzgerald"], CNN, 3 November 1998. Later, Braun apologized for her remarks.
In the end, both the Nigerian scandal and the allegations of misappropriation of campaign funds largely contributed to her narrow re-election defeat in 1998. In 1999, she was appointed the American Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, a position she held until 2001. For this appointment, Braun was given a security clearance and was officially absolved of all of the insinuations of wrongdoing by all investigations previously undertaken.
Presidential campaign
She announced her intention to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in February of 2003. By early 2004, however, she was polling at only about one percent in the critical states of Iowa and New Hampshire, and her campaign was thousands of dollars in debt. On January 15, 2004, four days before the Iowa caucuses, Moseley Braun dropped out of the race and endorsed Howard Dean.Life after politics
She currently runs a private law firm, Moseley Braun LLC in Chicago. Additionally, Moseley Braun has launched a line of organic food products called Ambassador Organics.AP (2006). [Carol Moseley Braun Launches Organic Food Line]. Retrieved May 21, 2006Moseley Braun is divorced and resides in Hyde Park, Chicago. She has one child, an adult son.
Electoral history
- 1998 Race for U.S. Senate
- *Peter Fitzgerald (R), 51%
- *Carol Moseley-Braun (D) (inc.), 47%
- 1992 Race for U.S. Senate
- *Carol Moseley-Braun (D), 53%
- *Richard Williamson (R), 43%
- 1992 Democratic Primary for U.S. Senate
- *Carol Moseley-Braun, 38%
- *Alan Dixon (inc.), 35%
- *Albert Hofeld, 18%
References
External links
- [Official website]
- [Ambassador Organics]
- [Catching Up With Carol Moseley Braun]
- [NPR Interview with Former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun]
- [NOW/PAC Endorses Carol Moseley Braun for President]
- [Article on her 1992 primary win]
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