St. Vladimir the Great

William the Conqueror

King John I of Portugal

Leonardo da Vinci

Queen Elizabeth I of England

Alexander Hamilton

Jack London

Colonel T.E. Lawrence

Sir Alec Guinness

Eva Perón

Larry Ellison, Oracle Corp.

Paul Nurse

Steve Jobs, Apple Inc.

In common law, legitimacy is the status of a child born to parents who are legally married to each other; and of a child who is born shortly after the parents' divorce. In canon and in civil law, the offspring of putative marriages have been considered legitimate children. Analogously, illegitimacy is the status of a child born to unmarried parents; contemporary usage of the term illegitimate child is infrequent, even in legal usage, example euphemisms are extramarital child and love child. The concept of legitimacy was formerly of great consequence, in that only a legitimate child could inherit the estate of the father. In the United States, in the early 1970s, a series of Supreme Court decisions abolished most common-law disabilities imposed upon bastardy (illegitimate-child status), as violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.^[2]

In April 2009, the National Center for Health Statistics announced that nearly 40 percent of American infants born in 2007 were borne by an unwed mother; that of 4.3 million children, 1.7 million were born to unmarried parents, a 25 percent increase from 2002.^[3] In Europe, there is a like increment in the number of extramarital children; in Bulgaria, France, Scotland, Wales, Slovenia, and Sweden, more than 50 percent of the children born in 2007 were extramarital. In parts of England, the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria and the Czech Republic more than 50 percent of first-born children were born extramaritally.^[4]

History[link]

In many societies, law has denied persons of illegitimate birth the same rights of inheritance as those of legitimate birth, and in some societies, even the same civil rights.^[which?] In the United Kingdom and the United States, as late as the 1960s and in certain social strata even up to today, illegitimacy has carried social stigma.^{[by whom?]} In previous centuries unwed mothers were forced by social pressure to give their children up for adoption. In other cases illegitimate children have been reared by grandparents or married relatives as the "sisters", "brothers" or "cousins" of the unwed mothers.^[5]

In social and sometimes legal terms, the child so born was called a "bastard". In polite society, terms such as "natural child" were preferred. In most national jurisdictions, the status of a child as a legitimate or illegitimate heir could be changed - in either direction - under the civil law: A legislative act could deprive a child of legitimacy (as in the cases of the sons of Edward IV of England); conversely, a marriage between the previously unmarried parents, usually within a specified time, such as a year, could retroactively legitimate a child's birth.

Annulment of a marriage does not impose the status of illegitimacy upon children born to a couple during their putative marriage, i.e., between their marriage ceremony and the legal annulment of their marriage. For example, canon 1137 of the Roman Catholic Church's Code of Canon Law specifically affirms the legitimacy of a child born to a marriage that is declared null following the child's birth.

Fathers of illegitimate children often did not incur comparable censure or legal responsibility, due to social attitudes about sex, the nature of sexual reproduction, and the difficulty of determining paternity with certainty. In the ancient Latin phrase, "Mater semper certa est" ("The mother is always certain"), while the father is not.

Illegitimacy has affected not only the illegitimate individuals themselves. The stress that such circumstances of birth once regularly visited upon families, is illustrated in the case of Albert Einstein and his wife-to-be, Mileva Marić, who—when she became pregnant with the first of their three children, Lieserl—felt compelled to maintain separate domiciles in different cities.

Some persons of illegitimate birth have been driven to excel in their endeavors, for good or ill, by a desire to overcome the social stigma and disadvantage that attached to illegitimacy. Nora Titone, in her book My Thoughts Be Bloody, recounts how the shame and ambition of actor Junius Brutus Booth's two illegitimate actor sons, Edwin and John Wilkes Booth, spurred them to strive, as rivals, for achievement and acclaim—Edwin, a Unionist, and John Wilkes, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln.^[6]

Similarly, T. E. Lawrence's biographer Flora Armitage writes about his illegitimacy: "The effect on [T.E.] Lawrence of this discovery was profound; it added to the romantic urge for heroic conduct—the dream of the Sangreal—the seed of ambition, the desire for honor and distinction: the redemption of the blood from its taint."^[7] Another biographer, John E. Mack, writes in a similar vein: "[H]is mother required of him that he redeem her fallen state by his own special achievements, by being a person of unusual value who accomplishes great deeds, preferably religious and ideally on an heroic scale. Lawrence did his best to fulfill heroic deeds. But he was plagued, especially after the events of the war activated his inner conflicts, by a deep sense of failure. Having been deceived as a child he was later to feel that he himself was a deceiver—that he had deceived the Arabs..."^[8] "Mrs. Lawrence's original hope that her sons would provide her personal redemption by becoming Christian missionaries was fulfilled only by [Lawrence's brother] Robert."^[9] Mack elaborates further: "Part of his creativity and originality lies in his 'irregularity,' in his capacity to remain outside conventional ways of thinking, a tendency which... derives, at least in part, from his illegitimacy. Lawrence's capacity for invention and his ability to see unusual or humorous relationships in familiar situations come also... from his illegitimacy. He was not limited to established or 'legitimate' solutions or ways of doing things, and thus his mind was open to a wider range of possibilities and opportunities. [At the same time] Lawrence's illegitimacy had important social consequences and placed limitations upon him, which rankled him deeply... At times he felt socially isolated when erstwhile friends shunned him upon learning of his background. Lawrence's delight in making fun of regular officers and other segments of 'regular' society... derived... at least in part from his inner view of his own irregular situation. His fickleness about names for himself [he changed his name twice to distance himself from his "Lawrence of Arabia" persona] is directly related... to his view of his parents and to his identification with them [his father had changed his name after running off with T.E. Lawrence's future mother]."^[10]

By the final third of the 20th century, in the United States, all the states had adopted uniform laws that codified the responsibility of both parents to provide support and care for a child, regardless of the parents' marital status, and gave illegitimate as well as adopted persons the same rights to inherit their parents' property as anyone else. In the early 1970s, a series of Supreme Court decisions abolished most, if not all, of the common-law disabilities of bastardy, as being violations of the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.^[11] Generally speaking, in the United States, "illegitimacy" has been supplanted by the phrase "born out of wedlock."

A contribution to the decline of the concept of illegitimacy had been made by increased ease of obtaining divorce. Prior to this, the mother and father of many children had been unable to marry each other because one or the other was already legally bound, by civil or canon law, in a non-viable earlier marriage that did not admit of divorce. Their only recourse, often, had been to wait for the death of the earlier spouse(s). Thus Polish political and military leader Józef Piłsudski (1867–1935) was unable to marry his second wife, Aleksandra, until his first wife, Maria, died in 1921; by which time Piłsudski and Aleksandra had two out-of-wedlock daughters.^{[citation needed]}

Illegitimacy has for centuries provided a motif and plot element to works of fiction by prominent authors, including William Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Fielding, Voltaire, Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas, père, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Anthony Trollope, Alexandre Dumas, fils, George Eliot, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Thomas Hardy, C.S. Forester, Marcel Pagnol, Grace Metalious,John Irving and George R. R. Martin.^{[citation needed]}

Famous people[link]

Famous persons of extramarital birth have included:

• Confucius (ca. 551–479 BCE) – Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period.^[12]
• St. Vladimir the Great – Grand Prince of Kiev (980–1015) who converted Kievan Rus' (predecessor state of modern Russia, Ukraine and Belarus) to Christianity in 988. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate the feast day of St. Vladimir on 15 July.^[13]
• William the Conqueror (1028–87)
• King Joao I of Portugal (1358–1433)
• Leone Battista Alberti (1404–72)
• Antoine, bastard of Burgundy (1421–1504)
• Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) – Italian painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, writer.
• Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536) – Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, theologian.
• Ferdinand Columbus (1488–1539)
• Queen Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) – declared illegitimate by the Second Succession Act, considered as such by both the Church of England and Roman Catholic Church
• Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1717–83)
• Alexander Hamilton (1755–1804) – a founding father of the American republic, military officer, political philosopher, and economist. The first Secretary of the Treasury for the United States and creator of its financial system.
• James Smithson (1764 – 27 June 1829) – British mineralogist and chemist whose bequest helped found the U.S. national museum, the Smithsonian Institution.
• Ivan Pnin – in an 1802 petition to Tsar Alexander I, famously deplored the status of illegitimate children in the Russian Empire.^[14]
• Vasily Zhukovsky
• Howard Staunton
• Alexander Herzen
• Jenny Lind
• Alexandre Dumas, fils (1824 – 95), author of The Lady of the Camellias and The Illegitimate Son
• Edwin Booth
• Helena Modjeska
• Sir Henry Morton Stanley
• Sarah Bernhardt
• Ramsay MacDonald
• Edward Gordon Craig
• Jack London
• Sergio Osmeña
• Guillaume Apollinaire
• Colonel T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") – British author and co-organizer of the Arab revolt against the Turks in World War I.
• Stefan Banach
• Willy Brandt
• Sir Alec Guinness
• Eva Perón
• Charles Manson – American criminal who led Manson Family
• Larry Ellison – American business magnate, co-founder and chief executive officer of Oracle Corporation, a major enterprise software company. He was born to an unwed 19-year-old mother. In 2011 he was the world's fifth-richest person,^[15] with a personal wealth of $39.5 billion.^[16]
• Paul Nurse – Nobel laureate
• Steve Jobs – co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple Inc., born to an unmarried graduate student who placed him for adoption with Paul and Clara Jobs. His first daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs was also an illegitimate child, born to Jobs and his former girlfriend.

Current trends[link]

Despite the decreasing legal relevance of illegitimacy, an important exception may be found in the nationality laws of many countries, which discriminate against illegitimate children in the application of jus sanguinis, particularly in cases where the child's connection to the country lies only through the father. This is true of the United States,^[17] and its constitutionality was upheld by the Supreme Court in Nguyen v. INS.^[18]

Legitimacy also continues to be relevant to hereditary titles: only legitimate children are admitted to the line of succession. However, some monarchs such as Elizabeth I of England succeeded to the throne despite the controversial status of their legitimacy, due to special provisions.

In USA, most births to teenagers (86% in 2007) are nonmarital, 60% of births to women 20–24 and nearly one-third of births to women 25–29 were nonmarital in 2007.^[1] Teenagers accounted for just 23% of nonmarital births in 2007, down steeply from 50% in 1970.^[1]

The proportion of children born outside marriage is rising in all EU countries, the USA, and Australia.^[19] In Europe, besides the low levels of fertility rates and the delay of motherhood, another factor that now characterizes fertility is the growing percentage of live births outside marriage. In the EU, this phenomenon has been on the rise in recent years in almost every country and in seven countries, mostly in northern Europe, it already accounts for the majority of live births.^[20]

In Europe, the average has risen from one out of four in 1997 to one out of three children born outside wedlock. Nowadays, national figures in Europe range from 5% in Greece and 9% in Cyprus to 58% in Estonia and 64% in Iceland. In Britain the rate increased to 44% (2006) and further to 46 % (2009);^[21] in Ireland the percentage increased to 33.2% (2006).^[22] In the USA, the percentage born extramaritally increased 21% during 2002–2007, reaching an historic peak in 2007, at 1,714,643 (or nearly 4 in 10 U.S. births).^[1] The percentage of first-born children born outside wedlock is considerably higher (by roughly 10% for the EU), as it often occurs that a marriage takes place after the first baby has arrived.

In Latin America, out-of-wedlock births are also common: in 2007 the rate in Mexico was 38%; in the Dominican Republic, 63%; in Paraguay, 70%; in El Salvador, 73%.^[23]

In 2009, 41% of children born in the USA were born to unmarried mothers (up from 5% a half-century ago). That includes 73% of non-Hispanic black children, 53% of Hispanic children and 29% of non-Hispanic white children.^[24][25]

See also[link]

• Bastard (Law of England and Wales)
• Defect of Birth
• Edna Gladney
• Illegitimacy in fiction
• Legitimacy law in England and Wales
• Marks of distinction
• Non-paternity event
• Unintended pregnancy

Notes[link]

1. ^ ^{a b c d} "Changing Patterns of Nonmarital Childbearing in the United States". CDC/National Center for Health Statistics. May 13, 2009. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db18.htm. Retrieved September 24, 2011. 
2. ^ "US Supreme Court Cases from Justia & Oyez". http://supreme.justia.com/constitution/amendment-14/90-illegitimacy.html. Retrieved 19 July 2011. 
3. ^ Ravitz, Jessica (April 8, 2009). "Out-of-wedlock births hit record high". CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/04/08/out.of.wedlock.births/index.html?iref=t2test_livingwed. Retrieved Oct. 19, 2009. 
4. ^ "Population changes - 1st quarter of 2010" (Press release). Czech Statistical Office. 14 June 2010. http://www.czso.cz/eng/csu.nsf/informace/aoby061410.doc. Retrieved 2010-07-02.  "From the first order children, more than a half of children were born outside marriage."
5. ^ On the 4 March 2011 Charlie Rose TV interview program, British Nobel laureate Paul Nurse told such a story of "shame": he was reared by his grandparents as the supposed younger brother of his now-deceased biological mother, and has never learned who his biological father was.
6. ^ Nora Titone. My Thoughts Be Bloody: The Bitter Rivalry Between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth That Led to an American Tragedy. New York: Simon and Schuster; 2010 [cited September 24, 2011]. ISBN 978-1-4165-8605-0.
7. ^ Flora Armitage, The Desert and the Stars: A Biography of Lawrence of Arabia, p. 42.
8. ^ John E. Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T.E. Lawrence, 1976, p. 28.
9. ^ John E. Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T.E. Lawrence, 1976, p. 32.
10. ^ John E. Mack, A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T.E. Lawrence, 1976, pp. 28–29.
11. ^ "Illigitimacy". Justia.com. http://supreme.justia.com/constitution/amendment-14/90-illegitimacy.html. Retrieved 2009-10-19. 
12. ^ Confucius: His Life and Thought, By Shigeki Kaizuka. http://books.google.com/books?id=wcbuFDI5cX8C&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
13. ^ "St. Vladimir the Great". Catholic Encyclopedia. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15497a.htm. 
14. ^ Links.jstor.org, Samuel C. Ramer, "The Traditional and the Modern in the Writings of Ivan Pnin," Slavic Review, vol. 34, no. 3 (Sept. 1975), pp. 539-59.
15. ^ "Forbes top 10 richest people in the world". Reuters.com. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/09/us-billionaires-top-idUSTRE7287C720110309?pageNumber=2. Retrieved 2012-05-14. 
16. ^ "Larry Ellison". Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/profile/larry-ellison. 
17. ^ "Instructions for N-600, Application for Certificate of Citizenship". U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/n-600instr.pdf. Retrieved 1 October 2010. 
18. ^ Tuan Anh Nguyen et al. v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 533 U.S. 53 (2001).
19. ^ "Share of births outside marriage and teenage births". OECD Directorate for Employment, Labour, and Social Affairs. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/38/6/40278615.pdf. Retrieved Oct. 19, 2009. 
20. ^ "Fertility Statistics". European Commission Eurostat: Your key to European Statistics. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Fertility_statistics. Retrieved Jan. 20, 2010. 
21. ^ Population Trends, UK Office for National Statistics, No. 138: Winter, 2009, http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_population/Pop-trends-winter09.pdf, retrieved 23 February 2010  (provisional figures for first half of 2009)
22. ^ "Live births outside marriage - Share of all live births (%)". European Commission Eurostat: Your key to European Statistics. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tps00018&plugin=1. Retrieved Oct 19., 2009. 
23. ^ "Illegitimate Nation: An Examination of Out-of-Wedlock Births Among Immigrants and Natives". http://www.cis.org/illegitimate_nation.html. 
24. ^ "National Vital Statistics Reports, Volume 59, Number 3, December 21, 2010". http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_03.pdf?loc=interstitialskip. 
25. ^ "Our view on kids: When unwed births hit 41%, it's just not right". USA Today. 25 January 2011. http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2011-01-25-editorial25_ST_N.htm. 

References[link]

• Flora Armitage, The Desert and the Stars: a Biography of Lawrence of Arabia, illustrated with photographs, New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1955.
• Shirley Foster Hartley, Illegitimacy, University of California Press, 1975.
• Alysa Levene, Thomas Nutt & Samantha Williams, eds. Illegitimacy in Britain, 1700–1920. Palgrave Macmillan; 2005 [cited 24 September 2011]. ISBN 978-1-4039-9065-5.
• John E. Mack. A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T. E. Lawrence. Harvard University Press; 1998 [cited September 24, 2011]. ISBN 978-0-674-70494-7.
• Jenny Teichman. Illegitimacy: an examination of bastardy. Cornell University Press; 1982 [cited September 24, 2011]. ISBN 978-0-8014-1491-6.
• Nora Titone. My thoughts be bloody: the bitter rivalry between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth that led to an American tragedy. New York: Simon and Schuster; 2010 [cited September 24, 2011]. ISBN 978-1-4165-8605-0.

External links[link]

• Bastard – article on the wiki-version of the Encyclopædia Britannica eleventh edition on the history of the legal situation of “bastard” children.

Norman Lowell (born July 29, 1946) is a Maltese ultranationalist writer and head of the Imperium Europa, a political party.

Politics[link]

Imperium Europa advocates an all-White Europe, i.e. the forced expulsion of non-whites from the continent. The parlance of the party is to unite "all European natives" (code for white Europeans-only) under one flag, hence the name "Imperium Europa" (European Empire), leading to "a Europid bond forged through Spirituality closely followed by Race, nurtured through High culture, protected by High Politics, enforced by the Elite." This is an adaption of Cosmotheism, an idea of the white supremacist writer and former leader of the American Nazi party William Pierce.

Norman Lowell contested the first European Parliament elections that were held in Malta on June 12, 2004, obtaining 1,603 first-count votes from a total of 250,691 votes cast (0.64%).^[1] Lowell again contested the European Parliamentary elections in Malta on June 6, 2009. He received 3,559 votes,^[2] out of 322,411 cast,^[3] for just over one percent of the vote.

Campaigning heavily against illegal immigrants, Lowell was the party's candidate in the 11th and 12th Districts in the March 2008 parliamentary election. He obtained 84 votes on first count from both districts, obtaining 0.03% of the overall votes.

Norman Lowell is a staunch supporter and admirer of Carmelo Borg Pisani, who was executed in 1942 for treason.

Political descriptions[link]

The Maltese media has described Lowell as a racist, because of comments denigrating African migrants to the country as well as his use of anti-semtitic rhetoric and conspiracy theories about Jews. ^{[4] [5] [6]} Lowell uses the parlance of white nationalists elsewhere and states that he is a racialist.^[7][8] Lowell qualifies his racist beliefs, commenting that he is "neither a Nazi nor a Fascist nor a Neo-Nazi" and that he would be "booted out of a Nazi party within five minutes" because he's "a strong libertarian."^[9] He has described Mein Kampf as "The Book", meaning he accepts the premises of the racist tome, Adolf Hitler as "The Hero," conveying that admires the Nazi leader, ^[10] and called the Nazi Holocaust a "holy hoax," using the derogratory expression of a small, discredited group of writers who suggest that the Nazi genocide did not happen. He has also praised Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, because the Iranian leader has advanced the same debunked notion.^[11][12]

Legal Controversies[link]

On March 27, 2008, Norman Lowell, was sentenced to a two-year jail term, suspended for four years, due to his conviction on three charges of racial hatred, and one charge of insulting the President of Malta. He was also ordered to pay a fine of 500 Euros.

Speaking outside the courthouse, Norman Lowell told reporters, and a small crowd, "this is a sad day, a very sad day for the Maltese. The lights of freedom have been extinguished. We are going back to the medieval ages. The media will be the first victims of the establishment since they have to be extra careful on how they report items."^[13]

On January 10, 2006, Norman Lowell filed a civil libel suit against Malta Today editor Saviour Balzan. Lowell contends that two of the publication's articles, one entitled Norman Lowell organises BBQ, and another entitled Lowell’s neo-Nazis hit out at press after arson attack, as well as an editorial entitled Get the bastards now, before it is too late, constitute a "coordinated, strategic, and orchestrated" effort to undermine his public reputation.^[14]

Books[link]

Norman Lowell is the author of two published books, Credo: A Book for the Very Few,^[15] and Imperium Europa - A Book that Changed the World.

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Norman Lowell

• Imperium Europa — Official Website of Imperium Europa.
• Viva Malta — Website and forum affiliated to Norman Lowell.

References[link]

Tom Feeney
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 24th district
In office January 3, 2003 – January 3, 2009
Preceded by	District created after the 2000 Census
Succeeded by	Suzanne Kosmas
Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives
In office 2000–2002
Preceded by	John E. Thrasher
Succeeded by	Johnnie Byrd
Personal details
Born	(1958-05-21) May 21, 1958 (age 54) Abington, Pennsylvania
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Ellen Stewart Feeney
Residence	Oviedo, Florida
Alma mater	Penn State University, University of Pittsburgh
Occupation	attorney
Religion	Presbyterian[citation needed]

Thomas Charles Feeney, III, known as Tom Feeney (born May 21, 1958), is an American politician from the state of Florida. He represented Florida's 24th congressional district. He was defeated in the 2008 election by Democrat Suzanne Kosmas.

Early life[link]

He was born in Abington, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. He graduated from Penn State University in 1980, obtaining a law degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1983. Soon afterwards, he moved to Oviedo, Florida, a suburb of Orlando where he still lives, and opened a private practice.

Florida legislature[link]

In 1990, Feeney was elected to the Florida House of Representatives as a Republican from Seminole County. He served two terms there before running for lieutenant governor of Florida as Jeb Bush's running mate in 1994. After the pair narrowly lost, Feeney joined the James Madison Institute, a conservative think tank, as a director. He returned to the Florida House in 1996 and was elected as Speaker of that body in 2000.^{[citation needed]}

Feeney first came to national prominence in 2000, shortly after his election as Speaker, when he led efforts to certify the state's Republican presidential electors even though it was still unclear whether George W. Bush or Al Gore had won the state's electoral votes. Feeney and his colleagues claimed that Florida's electoral votes were in imminent danger of being removed from consideration if the results of the popular vote in the state could not be determined with legal certainty. While Article 2 of the United States Constitution places this power in the legislature, many Democrats insisted that recounts needed to be completed, and that by doing so, a clear legal victor would emerge.

Feeney and then State Senate president John McKay argued the state Supreme Court's verdict in favor of the Democrats' position on recounts essentially "tainted" the entire process, so that there was (as Feeney stated) "a great risk" Florida's electoral votes would be disregarded altogether in the selection of the next President.^[1] The U.S. Supreme Court's verdict in Bush v. Gore rejected the argument from uncertainty by a margin of 6-3, and halted the recount process on other grounds. Bush won Florida and the election.

In 2001, Feeney was one of the lawmakers who opposed a demand by Bud Selig that the state finance a new baseball stadium for the Florida Marlins. At that time, Selig had threatened that the Marlins might leave South Florida if they did not receive a tax break.^[2]

U.S. House of Representatives[link]

Florida gained two congressional districts after the 2000 census. One of them was the 24th District in the Orlando area. Some have argued that Feeney drew this district for himself,^[3] since it included virtually all of his state House district and term limits prohibited him from running for the state House again. (The other new district, the 25th, was drawn for fellow state representative Mario Diaz-Balart). He was handily elected in 2002, re-elected unopposed in 2004, and took 58% of the vote in 2006.

Political positions[link]

Feeney was one of the most conservative members of the House. He drafted a "Principles Card" soon after becoming state house speaker which allowed his fellow Republicans to check if legislation was consistent with conservative principles. He modified this card when he came to Congress, calling it the Conservative Check Card.^{[citation needed]}

Feeney is a staunch advocate of a federal prohibition of online poker. In 2006, he cosponsored H.R. 4777, the Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act,^[4] and voted for H.R. 4411, the Goodlatte-Leach Internet Gambling Prohibition Act.^[5] In 2008, he opposed H.R. 5767, the Payment Systems Protection Act (a bill that sought to place a moratorium on enforcement of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act while the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve defined "unlawful Internet gambling"). Despite his ties to the Bush family, Feeney broke with the White House and opposed the Medicare reform package of 2003 since he felt its centerpiece, a prescription drug benefit for senior citizens, was too expensive. He was a founding member of Washington Waste Watchers, a government spending watchdog group.^{[citation needed]}

Feeney cosponsored a non-binding resolution against the use of foreign law in federal courts. When Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said (of the resolution) that "[i]t's none of your business", Feeney said that Scalia's comments were "like being told your favorite baseball player disagrees with your approach to hitting."^[6]

Committee assignments[link]

• Financial Services Committee
  • Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises
  • Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit
• Judiciary Committee
  • Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property
  • Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law
  • Antitrust Task Force and Competition Policy
• Committee on Science and Technology
  • Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee (Ranking Member)
• Assistant Whip

Awards[link]

In 2006, Feeney was named a "Taxpayer Superhero" by the Citizens Against Government Waste.^[7]

He received a perfect score from Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform (ATR). He was named "Guardian of Small Business" by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). The National Taxpayers Union presented Feeney with the "Taxpayers' Friend Award" in 2004^[8] and in 2006.

Controversies[link]

In September 2006, Feeney was named one of the "20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress" in a report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington;^[9] he was also listed in the first report by the organization in January 2006, when he was one of 13 named members. The organization said "His ethics issues arise from trips he has taken in apparent violation of House travel and gift rules and from his failure to disclosure his ownership of rental property."^[10] Feeney was subsequently listed in CREW's 2007 and 2008 reports as well.^{[citation needed]}

Trips[link]

Scotland[link]

In August 2003, Feeney took a golfing trip to Scotland. The trip was paid for by former lobbyist (now convicted criminal) Jack Abramoff, who went with Feeney to Scotland. In March 2003, Feeney was one of 10 Republican lawmakers who wrote to the Energy Department opposing changes to the Energy Star, changes also being fought by an Abramoff client.^[11]

In January 2007, Feeney agreed to pay $5,643 to the U.S. Treasury to cover the trip's cost, after the House ethics committee concluded that the trip did not comply with House rules.^[12] In April 2007, Federal agents asked the St. Petersburg Times for an email sent to the newspaper by Feeney's office describing the trip.^[13]

Feeney was named as "Representative #3" in the Justice Department's April 23, 2007 criminal information against Mark Zachares, a former congressional aide of Representative Don Young.^[14] Zachares plead guilty to accepting tens of thousands of dollars in gifts from Abramoff.^[15] In September 2008, Feeney's campaign ran a television ad in which apologized for his "bad judgment" in taking the trip.^[16]

Rental property[link]

In May 2006, Feeney reported on his personal financial disclosure form that he was the joint owner of a condominium at the Royal Mansions resort in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Feeney listed the purchase date as January 2005, but online records of the Brevard County Appraiser's office show that the sale actually took place in late 2003. The only listed purchaser is James A. "Skip" Fowler, Feeney's former law partner. Fowler said that he and Feeney purchased the condo as an investment, paying a total of $175,000.^{[citation needed]}

Two identically sized units at the resort sold earlier in 2006 for $420,000 and $450,000. According to a note in the Harper's Magazine weblog "Washington Babylon," while not necessarily illegal, Feeney's failure to include the purchase as part of his 2003 financial reporting is a violation of House rules.^[17]

Election fraud[link]

Feeney's 2006 congressional opponent, Clint Curtis, has previously provided a sworn affidavit alleging that in October 2000, Feeney asked Curtis, then a computer programmer at Yang Enterprises, to design a computer program to falsify touch-screen voting results in Palm Beach County.^[18][19] Curtis subsequently passed a polygraph test commissioned by a Washington, D.C. private investigator.^[18] A Wired News story noted that Curtis had no direct knowledge of the vote counting software having been used in a public election.^[20]

Feeney claimed that he has no recollection of even meeting Curtis; that he could not have engaged in such a scheme because Palm Beach County did not even consider obtaining touch screen machines until after the 2000 election; and that although Curtis wrote a book in the summer of 2004 accusing Feeney of a wide variety of misconduct, Curtis did not mention the alleged scheme to commit election fraud in the edition published prior to the 2004 election.^[18]

Sealed testimony[link]

A three-judge panel of United States circuit judges for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously refused to allow federal prosecutors to subpoena Feeney's sealed testimony which he had provided to the House Ethics Committee. In July 2009, Brett Kavanaugh, one of the judges on the panel, called for an en banc review of the circuit's prior precedent by all of the judges in the D.C. Circuit.^[21]

2006 re-election campaign[link]

In 2006, Feeney faced Democrat Clint Curtis in the November general election. In September, Feeney's campaign launched a website that depicts Curtis in a mental institution wearing a tinfoil hat. Curtis claimed that the attention was actually helping him.^[22] The website in question was created by a political consultant, Ralph Gonzales.^{[citation needed]}

Feeney refused to debate Curtis. He said it would be a disservice to voters to do so. He also said that to hold the debate would acknowledge there were two credible candidates in the race. Curtis countered that Feeney was ducking him.^[23]

In early October, Feeney's campaign sent out flyers to 110,000 voters that showed Curtis' head superimposed on the body of Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner. The flyer also mentioned Larry Flynt and Hustler magazine. Feeney said he was using such tactics to inform the voters that Flynt had endorsed Curtis. Curtis responded that he has never met Flynt or anyone at Hustler.^[18] Feeney was re-elected with 58 percent of the vote in 2006.^[24]

2008 re-election campaign[link]

In June 2007, Feeney's district was one of five in Florida that Democrats hoped to win from the Republicans in 2008.^[25] Despite the perception that Feeney drew it for himself, it has a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+3, making it a fairly marginal district on paper. The district gave George W. Bush 52% of the vote in 2000, and 56% in 2004.^[26] It includes most of Democratic-leaning Volusia County.

Feeney faced former state representative Suzanne Kosmas in the November election. Kosmas and Feeney served together in the State House from 1996 to 2003, representing neighboring districts. In a poll released on September 18, 2008, Kosmas had 42% of the vote, compared to 43% for Feeney, with the remaining voters undecided.^[27] Filings with the Federal Election Commission showed that Feeney had raised $1.5 million as of August 6, compared to $1.2 million by Kosmas, and that Feeney had $804,000 on hand as of that date, compared to $836,000 for Kosmas.^[16]

Kosmas attacked Feeney's ties to Abramoff, which quickly gained her traction in this district. The Orlando Sentinel endorsed Kosmas, suggesting Feeney was too conservative for the district.^[28] An internal poll for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee showed Kosmas leading Feeney by 23 points, 58% to 35%. Congressional Quarterly had rated the contest as "No Clear Favorite" for most of the campaign, but changed it to "Leans Democratic" in its closing weeks. In the November election, Feeney was defeated, taking 41% of the vote to Kosmas' 57% — the largest margin of defeat for a Republican incumbent in the 2008 cycle.

Electoral history[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Tom Feeney for Congress official campaign site

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
• Financial information at OpenSecrets.org
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Profile at SourceWatch Congresspedia
• Altamonte Springs Community Blog

Laurie Blakeman
MLA for Edmonton Centre
Incumbent
Assumed office March 11, 1997
Preceded by	Michael Henry
Personal details
Born	(1958-05-23) May 23, 1958 (age 54)[1] Edmonton, Alberta
Political party	Liberal
Spouse(s)	Ben Henderson
Residence	Edmonton, Alberta
Occupation	Non-profit manager
Website	http://www.laurieblakeman.ca

Laurie Blakeman (born May 23, 1958) is a Canadian politician, who currently represents the electoral district of Edmonton Centre in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. She is a member of the Alberta Liberal Party, and was first elected in the 1997 election.

Early life[link]

She graduated with a bachelor's degree in fine arts in acting and a certificate in public administration from the University of Alberta.^[2] Before entering politics, she worked for the Alberta Advisory Council on Women's Issues, the Phoenix Theatre and Theatre Network, the Medical Council of Canada, and the Alberta Snowmobile Association.^[2]

Political career[link]

Electoral record[link]

Blakeman first sought political office in the 1997 provincial election, when she ran as a Liberal candidate in Edmonton Centre to replace retiring Liberal MLA Michael Henry.^[3] She was elected, finishing more than a thousand votes ahead of the second place finisher, Progressive Conservative Don Weideman.^[3] This gap narrowed when Weideman challenged her re-election bid in the 2001 election,^[3] but grew to more than three thousand votes in 2004.^[4] The 2008 election would bring a new Progressive Conservative Opponent, in Bill Donahue, but a similar result, as Blakeman handily retained her seat in an election in which half of incumbent Liberal MLAs lost theirs.^[5]

Legislative initiatives[link]

In 1997, Blakeman sponsored the Domestic Abuse Act, a private member's bill that never reached second reading.^[6] In 1998, she brought forward the Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Amendment Act, another private member's bill, which would have expanded the province's anti-discrimination legislation to include sexual orientation as a basis on which discrimination was prohibited^[7] (later the same year, the Supreme Court of Canada, in Vriend v. Alberta, ruled Alberta's failure to include this to be in contravention of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms);^[8] it too failed to advance to second reading.^[9]

In 1999, Blakeman sponsored the Consumers Insurance Company Act, a private bill designed to create a new insurance company, in compliance with the law that new insurance companies could only be created by acts of the legislature.^[10] However, the bill faced some opposition from Blakeman's Liberal colleagues, including Linda Sloan, Hugh MacDonald, and Gary Dickson, who expressed concern that the bill might be a step towards privatized medicine.^[10][11] The bill passed.^[12]

In 2007, Blakeman sponsored the Healthy Futures Act, which would have required major policy and funding decisions to undergo "health impact assessments", which would look at their impacts on Albertans' health through social and environmental impacts.^[13] Blakeman's Liberal colleagues supported the bill, as did the New Democrats (although NDP MLA Ray Martin expressed concern that the bill only required assessment, rather than action, on potential adverse health impacts)^[13] and several Progressive Conservatives.^[14] Even so, it was defeated through majority opposition of the Progressive Conservatives, many of whom expressed the view that the bill would add nothing meaningful that did not already exist under the existing regulatory framework, while, in the words of PC MLA Dave Rodney, "effectively bring[ing] the decision- making apparatus of the government and this Assembly to a grinding halt."^[13][14]

Leadership aspirations[link]

After Kevin Taft announced his intention to resign the leadership of the Alberta Liberal Party following its defeat in the 2008 election, Blakeman was one of four MLAs to express interest in running in the ensuing election to replace him.^[15] However, in August she announced that she would not do so, citing the cost of a candidacy.^[16]

Critic Portfolios[link]

• Official Opposition House Leader
• Critic for Environment
• Critic for Sustainable Resource Development
• Critic for Culture and Community Spirit

Personal life[link]

Blakeman is married to Edmonton city councillor Ben Henderson.^[17]

Election results[link]

References[link]