Deval Laurdine Patrick was born on July 31,1956 and is an American politician, civil rights lawyer, author, and businessman who served as the 71st governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015.
70 Facts About Deval Patrick
2.
Deval Patrick was first elected in 2006, succeeding Mitt Romney, who chose not to run for reelection to focus on his 2008 presidential campaign.
3.
Deval Patrick was the first African-American Governor of Massachusetts and the first Democratic Governor of the state in 16 years since Michael Dukakis left office in 1991.
4.
Deval Patrick was briefly a candidate for President of the United States in the 2020 US presidential election.
5.
Deval Patrick went on to attend Harvard College and Harvard Law School.
6.
Under Deval Patrick, Massachusetts joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
7.
Deval Patrick is a managing director at Bain Capital and serves as the chairman of the board for Our Generation Speaks, a fellowship program and startup incubator whose mission is to bring together young Israeli and Palestinian leaders through entrepreneurship.
8.
Deval Patrick holds a board of directors position at telehealth company American Well.
9.
In November 2019 uneasy about the existing field of Democratic candidates, Deval Patrick was reported to have called a few leading Democrats and allies to say that he would soon announce a 2020 presidential bid.
10.
Deval Patrick formally entered the race on November 14,2019.
11.
Deval Patrick ended his campaign on February 12,2020, following a very poor showing in the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary.
12.
Deval Patrick was born on July 31,1956 in the South Side of Chicago, where his family resided in a two-bedroom apartment in the Robert Taylor Homes' housing projects.
13.
Deval Patrick is the son of Emily Mae and Pat Deval Patrick, a jazz musician associated with Sun Ra.
14.
In 1959, Deval Patrick's father abandoned their family in order to play music in New York City, and because he had fathered a daughter, La'Shon Anthony, by another woman.
15.
Deval Patrick reportedly had a strained relationship with his father, who opposed his choice of high school, but they eventually reconciled.
16.
Deval Patrick was raised by his mother, who traces her roots to American slaves in Kentucky.
17.
Deval Patrick graduated from Milton Academy in 1974 and went on to attend college, the first in his family.
18.
At Harvard, Deval Patrick won "Best Oralist" in the Ames Moot Court Competition, in 1981.
19.
Deval Patrick proceeded to fail the State Bar of California exam twice, before passing on his third try.
20.
Deval Patrick then served as a law clerk to Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for one year.
21.
Federal affirmative action policy was under judicial and political review, and Deval Patrick defended Clinton's policy.
22.
Deval Patrick worked on issues including racial profiling, police misconduct, and the treatment of incarcerated criminals.
23.
Between 1995 and 1997, Deval Patrick coordinated an investigation into a series of arsons of predominantly black churches across the South.
24.
In 1999, partly because of his work on the Equality and Fairness Task Force, Deval Patrick was offered the job as General Counsel of Texaco, responsible for all of the company's legal affairs.
25.
In 2001, Deval Patrick left Texaco to become the Executive Vice-President, General Counsel and Secretary at The Coca-Cola Company.
26.
Deval Patrick pushed for a thorough review of allegations that some workers at bottlers of Coke products in Colombia had been abused or even killed by paramilitary groups as a result of union organizing activity.
27.
Deval Patrick concluded the allegations to be unsubstantiated and untrue, but counseled that the company allow an independent inquiry to lay all questions to rest.
28.
Deval Patrick joined the board at the request of Ameriquest's founder, Roland Arnall, who asked for his help managing the investigations and changing the company's culture.
29.
In 2005, Deval Patrick announced his candidacy for governor of Massachusetts.
30.
Deval Patrick was at first seen as a dark horse candidate, facing veteran politicians Thomas Reilly and Chris Gabrielli in the Democratic primary.
31.
Deval Patrick contributed $5,000 towards the DNA testing which linked LaGuer to the crime.
32.
However, once the DNA test proved LaGuer's guilt, Deval Patrick withdrew his support for the inmate's release.
33.
Deval Patrick was opposed for the Democratic nomination by Grace Ross, the 2006 Green-Rainbow nominee for governor, but she withdrew when she could not garner the number of signatures needed to run.
34.
Deval Patrick crafted and signed a bill that allows for the construction and operation of three resort-style casinos in the state.
35.
Deval Patrick argued that these casinos would generate over $2 billion for the state economy.
36.
Deval Patrick touted that the casinos would create 30,000 construction jobs and 20,000 permanent jobs.
37.
Deval Patrick proposed that the revenue generated would be spent to beef up local law enforcement, create a state gambling regulatory agency, repair roads and bridges, and aid in gambling addiction treatment, and that the remainder would go towards property tax relief.
38.
In 2009, Deval Patrick was among the top campaign contribution recipients from casino lobbying interests, and from financiers backing the Wampanoag casino interests.
39.
Deval Patrick's conduct was criticized and his commitment to the bill questioned when it was revealed that he was not in the state on the day the bill was voted on in the legislature.
40.
However, Deval Patrick vetoed it as he previously stated that he would only accept one slot parlor.
41.
The scandal resulted in the Massachusetts legislature passing a bill and overriding a veto by Deval Patrick requiring background checks on casino regulators.
42.
In 2010, Deval Patrick pushed for legislation to limit the purchase of firearms, citing a series of gun violence incidents and violent crime in Boston.
43.
In 2011, Deval Patrick proposed new legislation that would require more stringent regulations on firearms.
44.
Deval Patrick committed a historic amount of public funds to Massachusetts schools, introduced legislation to tackle a persistent education gap among minority students, and won the national Race to the Top competition.
45.
On October 23,2014, Deval Patrick spoke at the university in celebration of the science complex that would be completed the following January.
46.
Deval Patrick worked with the state legislature to prevent a ballot measure eliminating same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, which protected the state's first-in-the-nation same-sex marriage allowance.
47.
Deval Patrick proposed a bill that would streamline Massachusetts' permit appeals process for wind energy projects.
48.
Deval Patrick made expanding renewable energy a focus of his second term, but faced a setback when lawmakers failed to raise caps on solar generation in Massachusetts and to expand the amount of hydropower purchased by utility companies from Canada.
49.
The Deval Patrick administration lobbied for and passed a major transportation reform bill, which incorporated many of the TFC-recommended reforms, and which created the Massachusetts Department of Transportation by merging smaller transportation agencies.
50.
Deval Patrick has been a supporter of the South Coast Rail Link project.
51.
On September 24,2009, Patrick appointed Paul G Kirk as the interim US senator in the wake of Ted Kennedy's death.
52.
On January 30,2013, Deval Patrick chose his former chief-of-staff Mo Cowan to serve as interim US senator until a special election to fill the seat left vacant by Secretary of State designate John Kerry.
53.
Later in the same month Deval Patrick again came under fire, this time for contacting Citigroup Executive Committee chair and former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin on behalf of the financially beleaguered mortgage company Ameriquest, a subsidiary of ACC Capital Holdings, that had been accused of predatory lending practices and of which Deval Patrick is a former board member.
54.
Deval Patrick attempted to deflect criticism, claiming he was calling not as governor but as a private citizen.
55.
In 2014, Deval Patrick signed a law requiring health insurers to extend coverage to people struggling with drug addiction by covering up to two weeks of inpatient treatment.
56.
Deval Patrick served as senior advisor to the Chicago Police Accountability Task Force.
57.
Deval Patrick was involved in the Boston 2024 organization, which was in charge of Boston's bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics.
58.
Deval Patrick responded that he intended to return to the private sector after completing his second term as governor.
59.
In July 2013, Deval Patrick unequivocally ruled out a 2016 presidential bid.
60.
On February 28,2018, in response to reports that David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett wanted him to run for president, Deval Patrick stated on public radio that it was "on my radar screen".
61.
On November 11,2019 The New York Times reported that Deval Patrick was considering making a late entry into the presidential race.
62.
The next day, on November 14, Deval Patrick officially announced that he would enter the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries.
63.
Deval Patrick's second scheduled public event since announcing his candidacy, a speech at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia on November 20,2019, was cancelled when only two people showed up.
64.
Deval Patrick spent $100,000 in ads in New Hampshire and $60,000 in South Carolina.
65.
Deval Patrick launched the Future of Tech Commission with Common Sense Media founder Jim Steyer and former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings in April 2021.
66.
The claims were largely dismissed after Deval Patrick explained that he had encouraged their use.
67.
Deval Patrick generated controversy when he took a position that directly opposed that of the campaign, defending the business practices of the Boston-based private equity firm Bain Capital, which was founded by Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee.
68.
In March 2016, Deval Patrick was named by USA Today as a possible Obama nominee to fill the US Supreme Court associate justice seat, vacated by the February 2016 death of Antonin Scalia.
69.
On May 20,2013, Deval Patrick became a grandfather when Sarah gave birth to a son, Gianluca Noah Deval Patrick Morgese.
70.
On May 28,2015, Deval Patrick was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws by Harvard University.