1. John Olof Norquist was born on October 22,1949 and is a retired American politician, urbanist consultant, and author.
17 Facts About John Norquist
1. 2.
John Norquist previously represented Milwaukee's south side in the Wisconsin State Assembly and Wisconsin Senate.
3.
John Norquist ran against completing the Stadium South Freeway, which was to run from Milwaukee County Stadium south to I-894.
4.
John Norquist defeated Keegan in the Democratic primary and faced no opposition in the general election.
5.
John Norquist continued to oppose the new freeway despite his constituents voting for completion in the November 1974 Milwaukee County freeway referendums.
6.
John Norquist was re-elected to three more terms in the Assembly before winning a seat in the Wisconsin Senate in 1982.
7.
John Norquist was strongly in favor of light rail as a solution for the city's transit problems and was known throughout the country for his anti-freeway stance and for the removal of the Park East Freeway, the largest highway ever purposely destroyed.
8.
One of the first controversies of John Norquist's tenure occurred in 1988, when he took a trip to Israel.
9.
The trip was paid for by local Milwaukee Jewish organizations, but as a result of the controversy, John Norquist afterward paid much of the cost himself.
10.
John Norquist admitted to a five-year consensual affair, but whether it was consensual is contested.
11.
In July, 2001, when the Communist Party held its 27th national convention in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student union, John Norquist sent the convention his greetings, noting commonalities between the city's socialist heritage and the goals of the Communist Party.
12.
When presented in June 2003 with the opportunity to lead the Congress for the New Urbanism, John Norquist said that he would resign at the beginning of the following year rather than serve out his full term.
13.
John Norquist's term was marked by public conflicts with other city leaders, including Bo Black, former head of Summerfest; Arthur Jones, his one-time bodyguard who became chief of police; and Bradley DeBraska, head of the police union.
14.
At the beginning of 2004, John Norquist began working full-time as the head of the Congress for the New Urbanism, an urban planning and development reform organization based in Chicago, Illinois.
15.
John Norquist left CNU in 2014 after a decade with the organization.
16.
John Norquist is a son of Rev Ernest O Norquist and his wife Jeannette Norquist.
17.
John Norquist is married to Susan Mudd and has one son, Benjamin, and one daughter, Katherine.