36 Facts About Paul Cellucci

1.

Argeo Paul Cellucci was an American politician and diplomat from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

2.

Paul Cellucci served as the Commonwealth's 68th lieutenant governor from 1991 to 1999, as well as in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate from 1977 to 1991.

3.

When Bill Weld resigned in 1997 after being nominated for United States Ambassador to Mexico, Cellucci became acting governor.

4.

Paul Cellucci then was elected governor in 1998, and served until 2001, when he resigned to become the US Ambassador to Canada under President George W Bush, a post he held until 2005.

5.

Paul Cellucci's father was of Italian descent from the small Lazio village of San Donato Val di Comino, and his mother was of Irish ancestry.

6.

Paul Cellucci graduated from Hudson Catholic High School, Boston College, and Boston College Law School.

7.

Paul Cellucci served in the United States Army Reserve from 1970 to 1978, reaching the rank of Captain.

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8.

Paul Cellucci was a Republican, and held the distinction of never losing an election over his three decades in elected office in overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts.

9.

Paul Cellucci was first elected to public office as a member of the Hudson Charter Commission in 1970.

10.

Paul Cellucci then became a member of the Massachusetts Senate, serving from 1985 to 1991.

11.

Paul Cellucci became the Governor of Massachusetts in 1997 upon the resignation of Bill Weld.

12.

On November 3,1998, Paul Cellucci was elected as governor, narrowly defeating Democratic attorney general Scott Harshbarger.

13.

Paul Cellucci was sworn in as the 69th Governor of Massachusetts on January 7,1999.

14.

Paul Cellucci was a fiscally conservative, anti-tax governor who had the ability to work in a bipartisan fashion with an overwhelmingly Democratic State Legislature.

15.

Paul Cellucci was successful in maintaining the state's high education standards for most students.

16.

The teachers unions wanted to weaken the standards just as they were about to take effect, but Paul Cellucci worked with Speaker of the House Thomas Finneran and Senate President Thomas Birmingham, both Democrats, to hold the line on this issue.

17.

However, in 2000, Paul Cellucci signed a budget bill that lowered the state's longstanding "maximum feasible development" standard for special education to the federal mandate of a "free and appropriate public education," which set a much lower standard for the provision of special education to students with disabilities.

18.

Paul Cellucci removed the project manager, James Kerasiotes, and put his Secretary of Administration and Finance, Andrew Natsios, in charge of the project.

19.

Paul Cellucci was known to take a conservative approach to crime.

20.

In 2000, Paul Cellucci proposed an amendment to the Massachusetts constitution to strip felons of the right to vote.

21.

Paul Cellucci's appointment marked the first time a woman headed a branch of government in Massachusetts history.

22.

Paul Cellucci was succeeded by Jane Swift, who became the first woman in Massachusetts history to occupy the governor's office.

23.

On March 25,2003, at a speech to the Economic Club of Toronto, Paul Cellucci faced controversy when he criticized Canadian opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq.

24.

Paul Cellucci argued that America was waging war for its own security, and that the United States would "never hesitate" to support Canada if it faced a security threat.

25.

Paul Cellucci expressed support for Canada joining the US missile defense program, and for urging Canada to increase defense spending.

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26.

On March 18,2005, the day after Paul Cellucci had resigned from his ambassadorship, Magna Entertainment Corporation announced they had hired Paul Cellucci.

27.

In September 2005, Paul Cellucci published a book called Unquiet Diplomacy, a memoir of his time as ambassador.

28.

Paul Cellucci acknowledged, "Part of the unfairness was that we took a Canadian citizen, shipped him to a third country without consulting with Canada," apparently exonerating Canadian officials.

29.

Paul Cellucci did point out that as a result of the Canadian Government's protest about Arar, the United States and Canada exchanged letters, in which each undertook to notify the other country if either government was going to remove, involuntarily, a National of the other country to a third country.

30.

In 2008, Paul Cellucci said that, after thirty-five years in public service, he had no intention of seeking further office, and that, while he had no interest in serving as vice president, he did not exclusively rule it out.

31.

Paul Cellucci supported John McCain's candidacy for president in 2008.

32.

In 2013, Cellucci was a signatory to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the United States Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage during the Hollingsworth v Perry case.

33.

Also in 2013, Paul Cellucci helped free a US citizen who was imprisoned by the Venezuelan government.

34.

In January 2011, Paul Cellucci announced he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and that it was progressing relatively slowly.

35.

Paul Cellucci responded to his diagnosis by leading an effort to raise $10 million for research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School into amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

36.

Paul Cellucci died of complications from his disease on June 8,2013.