73 Facts About Ray Mabus

Ray Mabus was born on October 11,1948 in Ackerman, Choctaw County, Mississippi, United States.

Ray Mabus worked as a law clerk in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and as a legal counsel to a subcommittee of the United States House Committee on Agriculture.

Ray Mabus was one of several of the governor's aides who delivered lectures across the state to build popular support for the reform bill.

Ray Mabus helped draft an open records law and more stringent driving under the influence legislation.

Surprised, Ray Mabus reminded the department that he wanted the three latest audits.

Ray Mabus declared that the department was two to four years behind on most of its audits.

King wrote an open letter to Ray Mabus rejecting his claims as exaggerations and asked a legislative committee to conduct a review of the Department of Audit.

Ray Mabus was sworn-in as state auditor on January 5,1984.

Ray Mabus convinced the legislature to permit the department to contract out auditing services to private Certified Public Accountant firms to work on the backlog.

Ray Mabus's office released a single comprehensive annual financial report for state government for the 1986 fiscal year instead of separate reports for each state agency, the first time this had been done in Mississippi.

Ray Mabus discovered early in his tenure that many department auditors conducting reviews of county government finances were forced to piece together county accounting records as they worked.

Many auditors found that records were missing, which Ray Mabus feared might conceal evidence of fraud.

Ray Mabus had field auditors supplied with undercover tags so that their vehicles could not be traced during their investigations.

Ray Mabus met with each of the 82 county boards to advise them of relevant state laws and his expectations.

Early in his term Ray Mabus began collaborating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation on a corruption investigation into Mississippi county governments known as Operation Pretense.

Ray Mabus advised restricting federally-convicted criminals from holding public office, barring convicted vendors from securing government contracts, and creating a white collar crimes unit in the office of the Attorney General of Mississippi.

Ray Mabus was succeeded as State Auditor by Pete Johnson on January 7,1988.

Ray Mabus began planning a gubernatorial bid in 1985 and formally declared his candidacy four days after Operation Pretense was revealed to the public in 1987.

Ray Mabus had an advantage in being from northeast Mississippi, which usually heavily participated in Democratic primaries.

Ray Mabus enjoyed the good faith of many journalists for cracking down on corruption.

Ray Mabus ran with the slogan "Mississippi will never be last again," and while his campaign did not articulate many specific stances, it emphasized a theme of change.

Ray Mabus pledged to raise the state's teacher salaries to the Southeastern average, which Reed criticized as necessitating either a tax hike or funding cuts to other government responsibilities.

Ray Mabus spent a total of $2.9 million on his campaign, the most ever spent on a Mississippi gubernatorial candidacy.

Ray Mabus won with 53.4 percent of the vote, relying on a coalition of support from blacks, urbanites, and traditional Democrats from the northeastern portion of the state.

Ray Mabus was inaugurated as the 60th Governor of Mississippi on January 12,1988.

Ray Mabus staffed his gubernatorial administration with a significant number of political moderates from outside the state.

Ray Mabus appointed the first black members to the State Tax Commission and the first woman head of the Department of Public Safety.

Ray Mabus had potential judicial appointments vetted by a commission before making a selection among their nominees.

At the beginning of his term, Ray Mabus enjoyed the cooperation of legislators and an $85 million budget surplus.

Ray Mabus established the Governor's County Unit Task Force in January 1991 to examine the progress of the unit transition and recommend improvements.

Ray Mabus convinced the legislature to appropriate the projected revenue surplus towards increasing schoolteacher salaries, and successfully lobbied the body to adopt several government reorganization recommendations, including the creation of a Department of Finance and Administration, which replaced the Fiscal Management Board and assumed its responsibilities for making budget recommendations and fiscal adjustments.

The bond proposal expired due to disagreement between the Senate and House, so Ray Mabus called the legislature into special session to address the issue.

Ray Mabus decided to focus on improving public education during the 1990 legislative session.

In funding his proposals, Ray Mabus eschewed sales or income tax increases, arguing that "the working people of Mississippi pay enough taxes", and argued for the establishment of a state lottery.

Ray Mabus suggested several options for the body to consider including the lottery, gambling taxes, or higher government service fees, but refused to consider tax increases, arguing that the state had overused that option for previous education improvements.

Ray Mabus gave teachers the largest pay raise in the nation; and was named one of Fortune Magazine's ten "best education governors".

In January 1988, Ray Mabus indicated that he wanted to replace the chairman of the Mississippi Democratic Party, Ed Cole, the first black man to hold the position.

Ray Mabus mocked Mabus' 1987 slogan by saying that if elected "Mississippi would never be lost again".

Ray Mabus denounced his opponent as part of the "old guard" of Mississippi politicians and criticized his attendance record in the US Congress.

Fordice had not been expected by most observers to win his own primary and thus entered the general election with momentum, while Ray Mabus had been harmed by his narrow victory in the Democratic contest.

Ray Mabus' campaign focused on attempting to make Fordice unappealing, while Fordice's campaign concentrated their efforts on turning the election into a referendum on Ray Mabus' performance.

Ray Mabus labeled Mabus a "Kennedyesque liberal" who focused too much on education and criticized his deficit spending.

Ray Mabus continued to advocate support for public education and attack Fordice as a lobbyist and outsider who did not appreciate the needs of the state.

Ray Mabus aired a series of television ads which accused Fordice of planning to shut down the state's historically black schools.

Ray Mabus was appointed by President Bill Clinton to be the United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Ray Mabus served as the company's CEO during a bankruptcy reorganization and resigned from the post in 2007 to spend more time in Mississippi.

In 2008 Ray Mabus campaigned for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in Mississippi, who was elected President of the United States.

On March 27,2009, Ray Mabus was nominated by Obama to be appointed Secretary of the Navy.

Ray Mabus was sworn in on May 19,2009, and held a ceremonial swearing in at Washington Navy Yard on June 18,2009, where he was re-sworn in by the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Several months after taking office, Ray Mabus declared that he wanted to originate half of all of the Navy's power needs from non-petroleum sources by 2020.

Ray Mabus argued that using alternative energy sources would reduce the force's reliance on foreign oil imports and thereby increase its energy independence.

Later in his tenure the destroyer USS Mason successfully operated on a biofuel blend that cost only $1.99 per gallon, a fact which Ray Mabus claimed was overlooked.

Ray Mabus further stated that this particular class of auxiliary ship, of which the John Lewis would be the lead ship, would all be named after civil rights leaders.

Congressional Republicans accused Ray Mabus of politicizing the ship-naming process, and Representative Steven Palazzo unsuccessfully attempted to amend a defense appropriation bill to bar the secretary from naming ships after congressmen who were not military service members.

Ray Mabus then gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute highlighting the McKinsey report, calling the back-office costs "pure overhead" and particularly criticizing the Defense Finance and Accounting Service and the Defense Logistics Agency.

Carter's draft budget for the Department of Defense did not reflect this appropriation, and in December 2016 Ray Mabus released a memo stating that he did not wish to cut money from shipbuilding, citing the decline in the size of the navy from 2001 to 2008.

Ray Mabus told Carter that "you and I both know that this budget is almost totally a symbolic one," making note of the impending end of Obama's tenure.

Ray Mabus stated that he placed emphasis on "developing a more diverse force" during his tenure.

Ray Mabus created new Reserve Officers' Training Corps programs at different universities, including Harvard University and Arizona State University.

Ray Mabus removed zone distinctions from promotion considerations, allowing personnel to be considered equally for rank promotions without regard towards their specializations.

Ray Mabus arranged for women to enter the submarine fleet in 2011.

Ray Mabus pushed for the introduction of unisex uniforms in the Navy and the United States Marine Corps.

Ray Mabus immediately dismissed the findings, saying the Marine Corps failed to describe the effectiveness of the highest-performing women and did not provide sufficient reason to continue to exclude women from the most demanding roles in the corps.

Ray Mabus subsequently met with Marine Commandant General Robert B Neller and agreed to leave boot camp segregated by gender.

Ray Mabus's actions provoked the ire of members of Congress, with Representative Duncan D Hunter demanding his resignation and others criticizing the narrow timeframe he had given the corps.

Ray Mabus declared in March 2016 that he would consider retirement and stepped down as Secretary of the Navy on January 20,2017 upon the inauguration of President Donald Trump.

Ray Mabus was succeeded by Assistant Navy Secretary Sean Stackley, who became acting secretary pending the confirmation of a new permanent secretary.

Ray Mabus was one of only a few national security officials to serve continuously during Obama's entire tenure and the longest-serving secretary of the navy since Josephus Daniels, who served from 1913 to 1921.

Ray Mabus has been awarded the US Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Award, the US Army's Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the Martin Luther King Jr.

Ray Mabus is active in many community activities, primarily focusing on education.

Ray Mabus married Julie Hines, the daughter of a Jackson banker, in 1987, shortly before he ran for governor.

Ray Mabus is a fan of the Boston Red Sox having first followed the team during the 1975 World Series while a student at Harvard Law School.

Ray Mabus made a cameo appearance as himself in the "It's Not a Rumor" episode of the TV series The Last Ship, issuing orders to the crew of the Nathan James via a recorded message; in the storyline, by the time the ship received the orders, Ray Mabus had succumbed to the "Red Flu" virus.