| Hillary Clinton | |
| |
| 45th President of the United States | |
| In office January 20, 2017 - January 20, 2021 | |
| Vice President | Luis Gutiérrez |
| Preceded by | Barack Obama |
| Succeeded by | Ivanka Trump |
| 67th United States Secretary of State | |
| In office January 21, 2009 - February 1, 2013 | |
| President | Barack Obama |
| Deputy | Jim Steinberg Bill Burns |
| Preceded by | Condoleezza Rice |
| Succeeded by | John Kerry |
| United States Senator from Virginia | |
| In office January 3, 2001 - January 21, 2009 | |
| Preceded by | Oliver Laurence North |
| Succeeded by | John W. Marshall |
| First Lady of the United States | |
| In office January 20, 1993 – January 20, 2001 | |
| President | Bill Clinton |
| Preceded by | Barbara Bush |
| Succeeded by | Laura Bush |
| First Lady of Arkansas | |
| In office January 11, 1983 – December 12, 1992 | |
| Preceded by | Gay Daniels White |
| Succeeded by | Betty Tucker |
| In office January 9, 1979 – January 19, 1981 | |
| Preceded by | Barbara Pryor |
| Succeeded by | Gay Daniels White |
| Biography | |
| Born | October 26, 1947 (age 73) Chicago, Illinois |
| Nationality | American |
| Political party | Democratic Party |
| Spouse | Bill Clinton |
| Children | Chelsea Clinton |
| Alma mater | Wellesley College Yale Law School |
| Occupation | Lawyer Politician |
| Religion | United Methodist Church |
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (/ˈhɪləri daɪˈæn ˈrɒdəm ˈklɪntən/; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician who served as the 45th President of the United States. Elected in the 2016, she previously served as the 67th United States Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, United States Senator representing Virginia from 2001 to 2009, First Lady of the United States during the Presidency of her husband Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001, and First Lady of Arkansas during his governorship from 1979 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 1992.
Her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, served as a United States Representative from Arkansas' 2nd district from 2011 to 2019.
Clinton announced her re-election campaign in January 2019. She was defeated in her bid for a second term by businesswoman Ivanka Trump in the 2020 general election. Following her loss, she wrote her third memoir, What Happened, and launched Onward Together, a political action organization dedicated to fundraising for progressive political groups.
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First Lady of the United States
U.S. Senator from Virginia 45th President of the United States
Presidential campaigns Family
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Education and Early Career[]
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Clinton attended Maine East High School until being redistricted during her senior year to Maine South High School. She went on to earn a degree from Wellesley College before attaining a J.D. from Yale Law School. She met future husband Bill Clinton at Yale.
As a high schooler, Clinton was an active Republican, even campaigning for Barry Goldwater in 1964. After her first year at Wellesley however, she changed her views and became a Democrat. She stayed politically active throughout her college years, volunteering and working for Walter Mondale and George McGovern's presidential campaigns.
After law school, Clinton went to work for the Children’s Defense Fund, going door-to-door in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Testimonials gathered by the CDF contributed to the passage of legislation that required the state to provide quality education for students with disabilities.
After serving as a lawyer for the congressional committee investigating President Nixon, she moved to Arkansas where she taught law and ran legal clinics representing disenfranchised people. She co-founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, one of the state’s first child advocacy groups.
First Lady of Arkansas[]
Following Bill Clinton's 1978 election as Governor of Arkansas, Hillary Rodham became the state's First Lady in January the following year. Clinton appointed his wife to be the chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee the same year, where she secured federal funds to expand medical facilities in Arkansas's poorest areas without affecting doctors' fees.
After his electoral defeat in 1980, Bill Clinton returned to the governor's office two years later after winning the election of 1982. During her husband's campaign, Rodham began to use the name "Hillary Clinton", or sometimes "Mrs. Bill Clinton", to assuage the concerns of Arkansas voters; she also took a leave of absence from her law firm employer - Rose Law - to campaign for him full-time.
As First Lady of Arkansas, she introduced the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program, which helps parents teach their children at home before they begin kindergarten.
First Lady of the United States[]
Upon her husband's election to the Presidency in 1992, Hillary became the first inaugural First Lady to have earned a postgraduate degree and to have her own professional career up to the time of entering the White House. She was also the first to have an office in the West Wing of the White House in addition to the usual first lady offices in the East Wing
Healthcare[]
Reforming the healthcare system was a major first-term initiative for President Bill Clinton. Shortly after taking office, Clinton said that he would send a bill guaranteeing healthcare for every American to Congress in 90 days. In order to meet this deadline, Clinton appointed First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton to lead the Task Force on National Health Reform on January 25, 1993, five days after he was inaugurated. The task force consisted of more that 500 people "who dealt with health-care policy, health-care experts from federal agencies and experts from across the country with both public- and private-sector backgrounds."
Although initially popular, the Clinton healthcare plan - derisively dubbed "Hillarycare" - ultimately failed with heavy opposition from conservatives, libertarians, and the health insurance industry. In addition, rather than uniting around the proposal, many fellow Democrats offered competing healthcare plans of their own.
After the healthcare initiative failed, the First Lady worked with Republicans and Democrats to help create the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which now provides health coverage to more than eight million children.
United States Senator from Virginia[]
Elections[]
Hillary Rodham Clinton elected Senator from Virginia, Nov. 7, 2000.
Clinton and her husband, President Bill Clinton, purchased a house in Culpeper, Virginia, in September 1999; she thereby became eligible for the election, although she faced characterizations of carpetbagging since she had never resided in the state before. The lead in statewide polls swung from Clinton to North and back to Clinton as the campaigns featured both successful strategies and mistakes.
On the November 7th 2000, election, incumbent Senator Oliver North proved unpopular among key constituencies across the state. Clinton defeated both him and independent candidate Jacob G. Hornberger, even as incumbent Vice President Al Gore lost the state's 13 electoral votes and the Presidency to Texas Governor George W. Bush.
In 2006, Clinton won a second term representing Virginia in the Senate, running against the Republican nominee, Representative Jo Ann Davis.
9/11 and War on Terror[]
During the September 11th, 2001 attacks, American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked by five men affiliated with al-Qaeda. They deliberately crashed the plane into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., killing all 64 people on board, including the five hijackers and six crew, as well as 125 people in the building.
Clinton would later visit Ground Zero in Virginia, which she described as "the gates of Hell."
Clinton voted in support of HJ Res 114 - Use of Military Force Against Iraq. The resolution passed on October 11, 2002, by a vote of 77-23. The resolution authorized the use of the United States military against Iraq. The Democratic Party split on the vote. In describing her vote, Clinton stated:
"This is a very difficult vote. This is probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make -- any vote that may lead to war should be hard -- but I cast it with conviction.
[...]
"My vote is not, however, a vote for any new doctrine of pre-emption, or for uni-lateralism, or for the arrogance of American power or purpose -- all of which carry grave dangers for our nation, for the rule of international law and for the peace and security of people throughout the world."
[]
Early in Clinton's first term in the Senate, she often worked with Rear Admiral Richard B. Porterfield, Director of the Office of Naval Intelligence.
Since 9/11, national strategic priorities have shifted considerably, requiring the Navy to support small-scale contingency operations, such as peacekeeping and stability operations, in addition to traditional warfighting requirements. Clinton was a key player in the development and funding of FORCEnet concept, designed to integrate all combat and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities throughout the battlespace.
Heroes at Home Act[]
In 2006, Clinton co-sponsored the Heroes at Home Act with Senator Rudy Giuliani (R-NY) to aid veterans with post-traumatic stress or traumatic brain injuries. Among its provisions, it directed the Department of Defense to Traumatic Brain Injury Family Caregiver Panel to develop curricula for training family members in the provision of care for returning service members.
Global Financial Crisis[]
In March of 2007, Clinton highlighted problems with the housing market and subprime mortgages, calling for an expanded role of the Federal Housing Administration, increasing regulations of lenders, and establishing national standards and registration for loan brokers.
Clinton voted for both the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 and the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
2008 Presidential Campaign[]
Following her announcement of an exploratory committee and candidacy filing on January 20, 2007 with the FEC, she began fundraising and campaigning activities. For several months Clinton led opinion polls among Democratic candidates by substantial margins until Senator Barack Obama pulled close to or even with her. Clinton then regained her polling lead, winning many polls by double digits; by autumn 2007 she was leading all other Democratic candidates by wide margins in national polls.
Clinton ultimately lost the delegate count, and thus the nomination, to Barack Obama. However, she ultimately earned more popular votes than Obama, due in part because Obama was not on the ballot for the Michigan primary.
In her concession speech - widely lauded as one of the best of her career, Clinton stated:
"Although we were not able to shatter that highest and hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you it has 18 million cracks in it, and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time, and we are going to keep working to make it so, today keep with me and stand for me, we still have so much to do together, we made history, and let's make some more."
Secretary of State[]
Middle East[]
Iran, Israel, and Palestine[]
As Secretary of State, Clinton led international efforts to pass UN Security Council Resolution 1929, imposing the harshest sanctions on Iran in history - these sanctions ultimately led Iran to the bargaining table for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (P5+1). In 2012, she led negotiations to establish a ceasefire in Gaza and end rocket attacks from Hamas.
Libya[]
When the Libyan Civil War began in 2011, the rebel National Transitional Council had a string of military successes against Muamar Ghaddafi. By summer, however, Gaddafi's counterattacks pushed them back towards their headquarters in Benghazi, threatening to go "house to house" to wipe them out.
Clinton was initially reluctant to back the rebels or impose a no-fly zone, though as the prospect of a massacre in Benghazi increased, she joined calls by with U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and National Security Council member Samantha Power, to intervene, ultimately convincing President Obama to support the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 and implement Operation Oddessy Dawn.
Sub-Saharan Africa[]
Zimbabwe[]
Main Article: Zimbabwean Political Crises, 2008-Present (The More Things Changed)
President Robert Mugabe (1987-2011)
In a 2007 memo by Eric Bost, then the United States Ambassador to South Africa, business magnate Sir Richard Branson allegedly bankrolled a meeting of the "Elders" - a group of older statesmen convened to tackle global crises - in Johannesburg to discuss a plan for Robert Mugabe to peacefully resign from office. At the time, the plan did not come to fruition and Mugabe clung to power past the 2008 general election. The memo was revealed to the public in 2011 by Julian Assange of WikiLeaks; Bost subsequently denied that removing Mugabe from power was a goal of his diplomatic mission.
In 2011, before the public release of the memo, Branson and the Elders - including former Presidents Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, and Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya, as well as former UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan - again approached Mugabe with an offer to peacefully transition power in Zimbabwe to a chosen successor.
Secretary Clinton joined the conference in Johannesburg to champion the plan, calling it "the best way forward" for Zimbabwe. With the rewrite of the Zimbabwean Constitution, Mugabe accepted the offer and the transition to his successor - First Vice President Joice Mujuru - began.
However, by 2013, Mujuru had become an outcast in the ruling ZANU-PF party, and was replaced as party leader and eventually as President by former First Lady Grace Mugabe. Since then, the political, economic, and social upheaval in Zimbabwe escalated, eventually culminating in civil war. Clinton has faced criticism from pundits across the political spectrum for her role in failing to produce lasting change in the country during her tenure at the State Department.
Europe[]
Russia[]
As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton attempted to "reset" the relationship between Russia and the United States. She presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a red button with the English word "reset" and the Roman alphabet transliteration of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet word перегрузка ("peregruzka".) It was intended that this would be the Russian word for "reset" but actually was the word for "overload."
Relations with Russia deteriorated in 2011, following mass protests against allegations of widespread fraud and corruption in the Russian legislative election results, which saw thousands injured or arrested. Putin, serving as Prime Minister at the time, said that the Secretary of State "set the tone for some opposition activists to act in accordance with a well-known scenario and in their own mercenary political interests."
Email Controversy[]
In March 2015, it became publicly known that as Secretary of State, Clinton had used her private email server in Cupleper, Virginia, for official communications, rather than official State Department email accounts maintained on federal secure servers. Those official communications included over 100 emails which contained classified information at the time they were sent, as well as nearly 2,100 emails which were not marked classified but would retroactively be ranked as classified by the State Department.
2016 Presidential Campaign[]
Primary Campaign[]
Main Article: Democratic Party Presidential Primaries, 2016 (The More Things Changed)
During the 2016 Democratic Party primaries, Clinton's main rivals for nomination were New York Representative Bernie Sanders, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee, and former Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe.
With 47.86% of the vote, she received nearly 14.9 million votes and 2,680 of the 4,051 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. On July 26th, 2016, the Convention officially nominated Clinton for President and Illinois Representative Luis Gutiérrez for Vice President.
General Election Campaign[]
Main Article: United States Presidential Election, 2016 (The More Things Changed)
Secretary Clinton and Representative Gutiérrez won the general election with 65.6 million votes; this was third most votes for a cast in American history, behind only Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 totals.
Presidency[]
Main Article: Presidency of Hillary Clinton (The More Things Changed)
The presidency of Hillary Clinton began at noon EST on January 20th, 2017, the day that she became the 45th President of the United States, succeeding Barack Obama; Luis Gutiérrez took office as the 48th Vice President of the United States on the same day.
President Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton
Clinton became the first woman and the first former First Lady to serve as President. She announced announced her re-election campaign on January 22nd, 2019. She lost her bid for re-election four years later and was succeeded by businesswoman Ivanka Trump, who took office on January 20th, 2021.
During her time in office, Clinton signed several consequential executive orders and bills, including the Effective Capital Investment Act, the Offshore Finances Repatriation and Reinvestment Act and the Healthcare Modernization Act of 2017. She has additionally appointed task forces to address raising the minimum wage, combating the opioid epidemic, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Notable international agreements under her administration include re-negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Amman Declaration and Aqaba Accords, and the Arctic Status Agreement.
Foreign Policy[]
Russia and Eastern Europe[]
Despite several advancements in international agreements - including a renegotiation of the New Start treaty and the Arctic Status Agreement - the personal relationship between American and Russian leaders continued to deteriorate during Clinton's term.
In May 2018, Clinton created the Strategic Diplomacy Council to more effectively organize the United States' policy toward Russia; this largely built off the administration's success in organizing the international community and private actors against the 2017 decriminalization of domestic violence in Russia.
Throughout the war in Belarus, Clinton supported the legitimacy of the Belorussian Democratic Assembly against the government of Viktor Lukashenko. The United States was a key player in the ultimately unsuccessful peace negotiations in The Hague and Baku.
Middle East and North Africa[]
United States relations with Turkey largely deteriorated under the Clinton administration. In July 2017, leaked emails provided to The New York Times showed that Secretary of Education Randi Weingarten had developed a policy against charter schools after meeting with Turkish officials, raising questions about whether those officials had influenced the policy; Weingarten would resign later that year. In April 2019, Clinton announced that the United States would be closing Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, to be replaced by a base in Greece.
In March 2017, the United States, Turkey, and other regional actors established a a no-fly zone in northern Syria. In March 2018, key delegations met in Amman, Jordan, to lay out the prerequisites for a peace process and the postwar Syrian state. Further talks were held in Aqaba, Jordan, where a new constitution was drafted. The Federal Republic of Syria was established on December 8th, 2018.
Zimbabwe and Sub-Saharan Africa[]
In November 2017, Zimbabwean President Grace Mugabe began a purge of members of her government she deemed insufficiently loyal. Widespread protests and retaliatory violence launched the country into open civil war. Clinton was the key organizer of the International Force for Zimbabwe (IFZ) in February 2018, which brought the conflict to an end and oversaw the free elections in Zimbabwe.
China and East Asia[]
The bridge connecting China and North Korea is shown on the left side, viewed from Dandong, China. The Yalu River Broken Bridge is to its right.
In 2017, President Clinton stated that she viewed China as "the key partner" in reining in North Korea. However, the administration directly challenged China across a wide array of policy areas, including China’s efforts to be internationally recognized as a market economy. In August 2019, the United States and China signed a memorandum of understanding in August 2019 against further naval construction in the South China Sea. In military affairs, the United States partnered with the People's Liberation Army as part of the International Force for Zimbabwe during the country's civil war.
From March through October 2019, protests stormed Hong Kong in response to an extradition bill that would subject Hong Kong residents and visitors to the mainland Chinese jurisdiction, undermining the region's autonomy and its civil liberties. In October 2019, it was first publicly revealed that U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom Angela Ahrendts had reached out to her former employer, CEO Tim Cook of Apple Inc., to persuade him to threaten divestment from China as part of an multi-agency effort to curtail human rights abuses in Hong Kong and elsewhere. This effort precipitated Prime Minister Johnson's own moves in support of Hong Kong, and the eventual Chater Garden Agreement to resolve the conflict and guarantee greater civil liberties for the people of Hong Kong.
The Clinton administration advocated for a "freeze for freeze" approach with North Korea; in May 2019, Secretary of State Gary Locke announced that the United States was considering an "interests section" or "representative office" in Pyongyang, contingent on halting missile tests.
In November 2017, the State Department established the Dandong Section of the U.S. Consulate in Shenyang, in Northeast China, to serve as an unofficial American embassy to North Korea; in return, North Korean missile testing was temporarily suspended by the Kim regime. The section formally opened the following year. In May 2019, the State Department announced that the United States was considering expanding an interests section or "representative office" in Pyongyang, contingent on further progress in negotiations. Plans for the office were stalled with the fallout from the extensive leaks of diplomatic cables earlier that year; dialogue resumed in August.
Venezuela and the Americas[]
See Also: Venezuelan Crisis, 2017-Present (The More Things Changed)
The Clinton administration's approach towards Venezuela - focused on the country rejoining the Organization of American States and international monitoring of elections in addition to humanitarian relief - was an interagency effort, spearheaded by Locke and Vice President Gutiérrez.
On October 30th, 2017, multilateral talks in Ottawa resulted in the first agreement toward a resolution of the Venezuelan crises, which was followed by a fully ratified plan agreed to April 2018 in Port of Spain. Provisions of the agreement were deemed intolerable by General-in-Chief Vladimir Padrino López, who launched a military coup and forcing the Maduro administration to flee to Cuba.
On the night of May 7th, 2018, approximately four million protesters descended on Caracas and forced an end of the coup, after which Locke called for "swift, fair, and open elections" to establish an "undisputed legitimacy" for the government of the Venezuelan people. A general election was held on August 20th, 2018; Vice President Gutiérrez and Secretary Locke met newly-elected President Leopoldo López in the first United States delegation to the new administration. President Clinton invited López to the White House in November that year.
Domestic Policy[]
Economy and Finance[]
On February 13th, 2017, President Clinton signed the Effective Capital Investment Act (ECIA) into law, which raised capital gains taxes shorter-duration gains and encouraged longer-term investments. Among the provisions of the ECIA, the Activist Shareholder Oversight Council was created to fully review shareholder regulations, to publish their findings and report them to the White House and Congress, as well as reviewing and investigating excessive buybacks.
On March 27th, 2017, Clinton signed the Offshore Finances and Repatriation Act (OFRRA), which raised critical revenue for infrastructure investment while repatriating funds held by American companies in offshore accounts.
With Executive Order 13769, signed on January 27th, 2017, Clinton established the White House Task Force on the Minimum Wage; the task force's recommendations became the basis of the Sustainable Wage Act.
Education[]
As President, Clinton championed the COLLEGE Act, which was introduced in the House of Representatives by her daughter, Arkansas Representative Chelsea Clinton. The stated goal of the legislation was to provide every student with "the option to graduate from a public college or university in their state without taking on any student debt." The legislation stalled in committee and never came to the floor for a vote.
As part of OFRRA, $20 billion USD was been allocated to public schools, given to each district on a per-capita basis. The Education Department subsequently released a set of guidelines for how the funds should be spent.
Former President and First Gentleman Bill Clinton launched the "Every School a Village" initiative early in his tenure, describing it as "a national campaign to elevate and modernize the teaching profession, by preparing, and supporting, teachers."
Clinton signed the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act into law in January 2018.
Healthcare[]
Clinton was heavily involved in crafting the Healthcare Modernization Act of 2017 (HMA), the largest expansion of healthcare since the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Among the HMA's provisions, a public health insurance option was established through the ACA exchanges, the National Health Service Corps was doubled in size, and the changed ACA’s employer mandate to cover companies with 300 employees, rather than 50. President Clinton signed the HMA into law on October 9th, 2017.
COVID-19[]
President Clinton and First Gentleman Bill Clinton at the inauguration of Ivanka Trump, wearing face masks to slow the spread of COVID-19
Main Article: White House Task Force on the Novel Coronavirus (The More Things Changed)
Clinton's final year in her term had been marked by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‑19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2). The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States was announced by the state of Washington on January 21st, 2020; the same day, a public health emergency was declared.
On February 6th, 2020, President Clinton appointed the White House Task Force on the Novel Coronavirus, charged with overseeing the administration’s pandemic preparations and response.
The pandemic and shutdown measures enacted to prevent the spread of COVID-19 led to a major global recession, ending 114th months of continued job growth in the United States. Two relief bills were signed by President Clinton in early 2020, amounting to $8 billion on March 6th, and a further $192 billion on March 18th. A much larger third package, which was to become the CARES Act, was negotiated between the White House and the Republican majorities in Congress.
On April 28th, 2020, the CDC reported that 10,000 people had died from COVID-19 in the United States. By September 22nd, the number of coronavirus-related deaths had reached 50,000. At the end of Clinton's term, the number had peaked and surpassed 100,000, although the number of daily cases had fallen with the denouement of the second wave. By January 20th, 2021, over 160 million doses of COVID-19 vaccinations had been administered.