26 Facts About Ron Kirk

Ronald Kirk was born on June 27,1954 and is an American lawyer and politician who served as the United States Trade Representative from 2009 to 2013, as the 97th Secretary of State of Texas, and as the 57th Mayor of Dallas from 1995 to 2002.

From 1994 to 1995, Kirk worked as the Secretary of State of Texas, until he was elected as the Mayor of Dallas, where he served from 1995 to 2002 and was the first African-American to hold either of those positions.

Ron Kirk ran for the United States Senate in 2002, but was defeated by Republican opponent John Cornyn.

On January 22,2013, Ron Kirk announced that he would be stepping down as US Trade Representative.

Ron Kirk grew up in a predominantly black community, and attended Austin's public schools.

Ron Kirk was a leader in high school, and was elected student council president in his senior year at John H Reagan High School.

Ron Kirk attended Austin College, graduating with a degree in both political science and sociology in 1976.

Ron Kirk then went to the University of Texas School of Law.

In 1983, Ron Kirk returned to Texas to lobby the state legislature in Austin, first as an attorney with the city of Dallas, and later with a law firm.

Ron Kirk is the nephew of civil rights leader William Astor Ron Kirk.

In 1994, Ron Kirk worked for then-Texas Governor Ann Richards as Secretary of State of Texas.

Ron Kirk pushed the construction of the American Airlines Center, whose opening he oversaw in 2002.

In 1999, Ron Kirk was re-elected as mayor of Dallas in a landslide with 74 percent of the vote.

In 2002, Ron Kirk resigned as mayor of Dallas in order to run for the Senate seat vacated by retiring Republican Phil Gramm.

Ron Kirk was briefly a candidate for chairman of the Democratic National Committee after the 2004 election.

Ron Kirk's nomination ran into further controversy when it was revealed that he owed $9,975 in back taxes.

Ron Kirk should have included the $37,750 payments with his gross income and then claimed a charitable deduction for the same amount.

Ron Kirk claimed deductions for three years of season tickets to the Dallas Mavericks as qualifying entertainment expenses.

The US Senate confirmed Ron Kirk as United States Trade Representative on March 18,2009, with a vote of 92 in favor and five opposed and he was sworn in the same day.

Ron Kirk was formally sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden on March 20,2009.

Ron Kirk is the first person of African American descent to hold the position of United States Trade Representative.

Ron Kirk has repeatedly raised concerns of American businesses that China is not properly enforcing intellectual property rights of American companies doing business there.

Ron Kirk has been cited as the US agent who convinced South Korea to adopt and enforce an early draft of the secretly negotiated Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

In May 2012, a group of 30 legal scholars, critical of the USTR's "biased and closed" Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty negotiation process and proposed intellectual property-related provisions, publicly called upon Ron Kirk to uphold democratic ideals by reversing the "dialing back" of stakeholder participation and to release negotiating texts for public scrutiny.

Ron Kirk dismissed the "tension" as natural and noted that when the Free Trade Area of the Americas drafts were released, negotiators were subsequently unable to reach a final agreement.

On January 22,2013, Ron Kirk announced that he would be stepping down as the US Trade Representative.