Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, in Hope, Arkansas, three months after the death of his father, William Jefferson Blythe.⁠[1]

His father was a traveling salesman.⁠[2]

He spent his first six years in Hope. His mother, Virginia Cassidy Blythe, was a nursing student in New Orleans, so he was raised largely by his grandmother, Edith Cassidy, who taught him to read at an early age.⁠[3]

In 1950 his mother married Roger Clinton, a car dealer, and the family moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas. As a teenager he excelled in school, played saxophone in a high school band and was active in his Baptist church.⁠[3]

In high school he took his stepfather’s surname, Clinton.⁠[1]

Hot Springs High School, then an all-white school, had strong teachers led by Principal Johnnie Mae Mackey, who mentored Clinton. In 1963 he attended Boys Nation in Washington, D.C., where at 17 he shook hands with President John F. KennedyJohn F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy (1917–1963) was an American politician who represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 to 1963. The youngest person elected president and the first Roman Catholic to hold the office, he was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963.Open the full entry in the White House Rose Garden. He graduated from high school in 1964.⁠[3]

In 1964 Clinton entered Georgetown University to study international affairs, paying his way with scholarships and part-time jobs; he won the freshman and sophomore class presidencies but lost a race for student council president as a junior.⁠[3]

During his junior and senior years he interned for Senator J. William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He graduated in 1968 with a degree in international affairs.⁠[2]

Before graduating from Georgetown Clinton won a Rhodes Scholarship, and he studied at the University of OxfordUniversity of OxfordThe University of Oxford is a university in Oxford, England, where teaching existed in some form by 1096; it describes itself as the oldest university in the English-speaking world and is organised as a federal system of the university and dozens of self-governing colleges.Open the full entry from 1968 to 1970, though he never earned an Oxford degree.⁠[4][3]

Clinton entered Yale Law School in 1970 and graduated in 1973; there he met Hillary Rodham. He worked on Joe Duffy’s 1970 U.S. Senate campaign in ConnecticutConnecticutConnecticut is a U.S. state in the New England region. Its capital is Hartford and its largest city is Bridgeport (2010 census). It entered the Union on January 9, 1788, as the 5th state, and had a population of 3,605,944 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry and managed George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign in TexasTexasTexas is a U.S. state in the south-central United States, with its capital at Austin and its largest city Houston. It was admitted to the Union on December 29, 1845, as the 28th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 29,145,505 residents.Open the full entry.⁠[3]

Clinton then taught law at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville until 1976.⁠[3][2]

In 1974 he lost a race for the U.S. House to the incumbent, John Paul Hammerschmidt, the closest contest of Hammerschmidt’s 26 years in Congress.⁠[3]

Clinton was elected attorney general of Arkansas in 1976.⁠[1]

In 1978, at the age of 32, Clinton was elected governor of Arkansas, the youngest in the state’s history.⁠[5]

His first term met setbacks, including riots by Cuban refugees at Fort Chaffee, a higher auto license fee and a clash with timber interests over clear-cutting, and voters chose the Republican Frank White, making Clinton the youngest former governor in U.S. history.⁠[3]

He lost his reelection bid in 1980.⁠[1]

After his defeat Clinton returned to a Little Rock law firm, won the governorship back in 1982, was reelected in 1984 and was elected again in 1986 and 1990 to two four-year terms.⁠[3]

As governor he backed centrist policies and pushed education reform, with Hillary Rodham Clinton leading a committee that set higher standards and competency tests for teachers; Arkansas saw lower dropout rates and higher college entrance test scores. He supported capital punishment, welfare-to-work reforms and affirmative action, appointing more African Americans to state posts than all his predecessors combined.⁠[3]

He served as governor until 1993.⁠[1]

Clinton chaired the National Governors Association in 1986 and 1987 and helped guide the Democratic Leadership Council, a group of moderate Democrats and business leaders, leading its effort in 1990 and 1991 to win back white male voters while keeping Black and female voters. He called his program the “New Covenant” and described himself as a “New Democrat.”⁠[3]

In 1988 he gave a long nominating speech for Michael Dukakis at the Democratic National Convention; a later appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, in which he joked about the speech, helped repair his image.⁠[3]

Clinton won the Democratic nomination over a large field and, with his running mate Al Gore, defeated the incumbent president, George H. W. BushGeorge H. W. BushGeorge H. W. Bush (1924–2018) was an American politician who served as a Navy pilot in World War II and worked in the oil business before holding posts including U.S. representative, ambassador to the United Nations and director of the Central Intelligence Agency; he was vice president from 1981 to 1989 and the 41st president of the United States from 1989 to 1993.Open the full entry, and the independent Ross Perot.⁠[5][2]

He received 43 percent of the popular vote to Bush’s 37 percent and Perot’s 19 percent, and 370 electoral votes to 168. He was the first member of the baby boom generation to occupy the White House.⁠[2]

Clinton named Janet Reno attorney general, and Donna Shalala, Hazel O’Leary and Madeleine Albright became secretary of health and human services, secretary of energy and secretary of state. In 1993 he named Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court of the United States to replace Byron White.⁠[6]

His policy on gay people in the military ended, after a six-month delay, in the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” compromise; conservatives later wrote a more restrictive policy into law in a defense authorization bill.⁠[6]

The 1993 economic package raised taxes, mainly on upper-income Americans, and cut spending; it passed without a single Republican vote in either chamber. The deficit fell from $290 billion in 1992 to $203 billion in 1994. That year the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) also cleared Congress with Republican support.⁠[6]

Clinton sought universal coverage for the roughly 60 million Americans without adequate insurance. A task force led by Hillary Rodham Clinton, with Ira Magaziner as director, produced a plan of nearly 1,350 pages; he presented it in a national address in September 1993, and congressional leaders dropped it in August 1994.⁠[6]

In the 1994 midterm elections Republicans won both houses of Congress for the first time since 1955, with Newt Gingrich leading the Republicans in Congress.⁠[5][7]

Clinton vetoed a budget passed by the Republican Congress, and the impasse forced two partial government shutdowns, one of which lasted 22 days, the longest until a 34-day shutdown in 2018–19; Congress eventually backed down.⁠[7][5]

Welfare reform passed in the summer of 1996, replacing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with block grants to the states and barring legal immigrants from welfare during their first five years of residency. The minimum wage was raised to $5.15 an hour.⁠[6]

On November 5, 1996, Clinton and Gore defeated the Republican nominee, former KansasKansasKansas is a state of the United States bordered by Nebraska to the north, Missouri to the east, Oklahoma to the south, and Colorado to the west; its capital is Topeka and its largest city is Wichita. It was admitted to the Union on January 29, 1861, as the 34th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 2,937,880.Open the full entry senator Bob Dole, and his running mate, Jack Kemp, as well as Perot of the Reform Party. Clinton won 49 percent of the popular vote (47,402,357 votes), Dole 41 percent (39,198,755) and Perot 8 percent (8,085,402); the electoral vote was 379 to 159. Only five states changed hands from 1992, and Clinton became the first Democrat to carry ArizonaArizonaArizona is a state in the southwestern United States; its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona was admitted to the Union on February 14, 1912, as the 48th state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 7,151,502.Open the full entry since 1948 and FloridaFloridaFlorida is a U.S. state occupying mainly the Florida peninsula, with its capital at Tallahassee; its most populous city is Jacksonville. It entered the Union on March 3, 1845, as the 27th state, and had a population of 21,538,187 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry since 1976.⁠[7]

He was the first Democrat since Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) was an American politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 to 1945, the only president elected four times; he led the country through the Great Depression and World War II and greatly expanded the federal government’s role through the New Deal.Open the full entry to win a second term.⁠[1]

On December 19, 1998, the House of Representatives adopted two articles of impeachment (H. Res. 611), charging Clinton with perjury and obstruction of justice, after the House Judiciary Committee had voted along strictly partisan lines to open an impeachment inquiry. The charges grew out of independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s investigation, which began with Clinton’s Whitewater financial dealings in Arkansas; the independent counsel did not link Clinton or the First Lady to criminal activity in Whitewater.⁠[8][6][5]

He was the second U.S. president to be impeached. In the midterm elections of November 1998 Republicans lost five House seats and gained none in the Senate.⁠[2][6]

The articles were exhibited to the Senate on January 7, 1999, and the House managers presented their case on January 14, 15 and 16.⁠[8]

On February 12, 1999, the Senate voted on the two articles: Article I (perjury) failed, 45 guilty to 55 not guilty, and Article II (obstruction of justice) failed 50 to 50, and the Senate acquitted Clinton on both articles.⁠[8]

The 55 votes to acquit on the first article came from 45 Democrats and 10 Republicans, and the 50 votes to acquit on the second from 45 Democrats and 5 Republicans.⁠[6]

In 1999 the federal budget showed a $124 billion surplus, with surpluses of $1.5 trillion projected for the first decade of the 21st century. In 2000 Clinton signed several proclamations creating national monuments.⁠[6]

In his final hours in office Clinton issued 140 presidential pardons, including one for the fugitive Marc Rich.⁠[6]

Clinton founded the William J. Clinton Foundation, a philanthropic organization, in 2001, and in 2002 the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative and the Clinton Economic Opportunity Initiative were established. The William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum opened in Little Rock in 2004, the year his autobiography, My Life, was published.⁠[9]

The foundation runs community service programs, drug procurement for HIV/AIDS treatment and efforts against childhood obesity.⁠[1]

The Clinton Global Initiative was launched in 2005, and that year United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Clinton special envoy for relief after the Indian Ocean tsunami, a post he held until 2007. The Clinton Climate Initiative was established in 2006.⁠[9]

He worked with George H. W. Bush and George W. BushGeorge W. BushGeorge W. Bush (born 1946) is an American politician and Republican who worked in the energy business and was a part owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team before becoming the 46th governor of Texas in 1995 and serving as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009.Open the full entry on relief for the South Asia tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Haiti earthquake.⁠[1]

In 2009 Clinton succeeded George H. W. Bush as chairman of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia and was named UN special envoy to Haiti; after the devastating earthquake in Haiti in January 2010, his role expanded to overseeing aid and reconstruction.⁠[9]

Clinton received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.⁠[9]

In 2017 Clinton and the four other living former presidents launched the One America Appeal, first for victims of Hurricane Harvey and later for those affected by other hurricanes.⁠[9]

Clinton expanded international trade, intervened to end “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia, launched peace and trade initiatives in Africa and the Middle East and promoted a framework for peace in Northern Ireland.⁠[1]

He helped broker peace talks in Northern Ireland, helped end military rule in Haiti after an initial failed attempt, and ordered NATO bombings in Bosnia and Kosovo that ended Serbian attacks on civilians there. The Miller Center’s essay notes that he did not mobilize support to stop the genocide in Rwanda and that the Israeli-PLO talks he facilitated were followed by renewed, deadlier violence.⁠[5]

Clinton married Hillary Rodham on October 11, 1975. Their daughter, Chelsea Victoria, was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on February 27, 1980.⁠[4][1]

Hillary Rodham Clinton was a key figure in his administration; in 2000 she was elected U.S. senator from New York, the first wife of a U.S. president to win elected office, and she later served as secretary of state from 2009.⁠[5][9][1]

Clinton’s books include his autobiography, My Life (2004), Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World (2007) and Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy (2011), as well as the thrillers The President Is Missing (2018) and The President’s Daughter (2021), written with James Patterson.⁠[9]

BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry notes that Clinton oversaw the country’s longest peacetime economic expansion.⁠[2]

The Clinton Library biography credits him with welfare reform, restrictions on gun sales, strengthened environmental regulations and turning the federal budget deficit into a surplus.⁠[1]

The Miller Center’s essay expects future histories to cite his impeachment and survival, his influence on the policies and economy of the 1990s and his impact on the Democratic Party, while noting that the lasting effect of that influence remains unclear.⁠[5]

William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum: Official website: https://www.clintonlibrary.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[10]