Kathleen Sebelius ( née Gilligan , 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 a Roman Catholic family in Cincinnati, Ohio. She attended the Summit Country Day School in Cincinnati, followed by Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C., and 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. 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. She was called one of America's five best governors in a 2005 article in Time magazine. Since winning the election, Sebelius has successfully built upon her popularity and, as of January 2006, was tied for the 12th most popular governor in the country.
Second term
Main article: Kansas gubernatorial election, 20062006 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. As of 2004, 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.
The Cato Institute gave Sebelius the grade of "D," citing the combination of rapid spending growth and proposed tax increases.
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.
Speculation on political future
During the 2004 election, Sebelius was named as a potential running mate for John Kerry. In the aftermath of Kerry's defeat, some pundits named Sebelius as a potential candidate for the Democratic nomination for President in 2008. After Barack Obama's clinching of the nomination in June 2008, speculation that she would be a contender for the vice-presidential slot on the Democratic ticket continued. The Washington Post listed her as the top prospect for the 2008 nomination. James Carville and Bob Novak also mentioned Sebelius's name, and Wesley Clark, also considered a potential running mate, publicly endorsed Sebelius, referring to her as "the next vice-president of the United States." Speculation that the Vice Presidential nomination lay in her future was heightened by the fact that she was chosen by the Democratic Party's congressional leaders to give their party's official response to Republican President George W. Bush's 2008 State of the Union Address. The next day, she endorsed Obama's campaign, one week before the Kansas caucus on Super Tuesday. Obama won the caucus easily, with 74% support.
Speculation on her Vice Presidential selection intensified when a report from political ad agency insider, Tribble Ad Agency, reported on its website that the Obama Campaign owned the domain name "ObamaSebelius.com" through the GoDaddy.com registration service. However, just after midnight on August 23, it was reported by the Associated Press that Obama ultimately selected Joe Biden, the senior senator from Delaware, as his running mate.
Sebelius was considered to be on the short list for nomination to a position in Obama's Cabinet, but she officially withdrew her name from consideration on December 6, 2008. Following Bill Richardson's withdrawal as Obama's nomination for Secretary of Commerce, there was media speculation that Sebelius would be chosen as the new nominee. Through a spokesperson, Sebelius reiterated her earlier statement that she would not consider accepting a nomination to the Cabinet position. Sebelius's name was again floated as a replacement for Tom Daschle, who withdrew as Obama's Secretary of Health and Human Services-designate over tax issues. The governor at first did not publicly comment on whether or not she would be interested in accepting the position. On February 28, 2009, the British wire agency Reuters reported that Sebelius had accepted the president's offer to become Secretary of Health and Human Services and that she would be nominated on March 2.
Following Senator Sam Brownback's announcement that he will not seek re-election to the Senate, and will instead run for Governor of Kansas in the 2010 elections, Sebelius was one of several people that media outlets speculated would run for the open United States Senate seat in 2010. However, her post in the Obama administration could prevent her from running for election to the Senate seat.
Sebelius is a former chair of the Democratic Governors Association, a popular launchpad for those with national political ambitions.
Health and Human Services nomination
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