Thomas Gerard Tancredo is an American politician from Colorado, who represented the state's sixth congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1999 to 2009 as a Republican.
92 Facts About Tom Tancredo
2.
Tom Tancredo ran for President of the United States during the 2008 election, and was the Constitution Party's unsuccessful nominee for Governor of Colorado in 2010.
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Tom Tancredo was elected to the Colorado House of Representatives in 1976 and served two terms.
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Tom Tancredo decided to not seek re-election in 2008, instead running a presidential campaign, centered on the issues of illegal immigration and terrorism.
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Tom Tancredo dropped out of the race in December 2007 to assist former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in his campaign for the nomination.
6.
Tom Tancredo announced on July 26,2010, that he planned to change parties and run for Governor of Colorado on the American Constitution Party ticket.
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Tom Tancredo ran for governor in 2014, this time as a Republican, because of his opposition to Colorado governor John Hickenlooper's refusal to execute convicted murderer Nathan Dunlap, and because of Hickenlooper's attempts to pass gun control legislation.
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Tom Tancredo competed for the Republican Party's nomination with Bob Beauprez, Steve House, Greg Brophy, Mike Kopp, and Scott Gessler.
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Tom Tancredo left the Republican Party in 2015, becoming an independent.
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Tom Tancredo again ran as a Republican for governor in 2018, but withdrew from the race.
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Tom Tancredo was born in Denver, Colorado, the son of Adeline and Gerald Tom Tancredo.
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Tom Tancredo grew up in the then-predominantly Italian neighborhood of North Denver, and attended St Catherine's Elementary School and Holy Family High School.
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Tom Tancredo graduated from the University of Northern Colorado with a degree in political science.
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Tom Tancredo was active with the College Republicans and a conservative organization, Young Americans for Freedom.
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Tom Tancredo has said he went for his physical, telling doctors he had been treated for depression, and eventually got a "1-Y" deferment.
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Tom Tancredo was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to be the regional representative in Denver for the Department of Education in 1981.
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Tom Tancredo became president of the Independence Institute in 1993, a conservative think tank based in Golden, Colorado, serving there until his election to Congress.
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Tom Tancredo was a leader in the Colorado term limits movement.
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Tom Tancredo was only the second person to represent the 6th District since its creation in 1983.
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Under the act, only spouses and children of American citizens would be allowed to immigrate, which Tom Tancredo estimated would amount to 300,000 immigrants annually.
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Organizations that have endorsed Tom Tancredo's bill include: NumbersUSA, Population-Environment Balance, Carrying Capacity Network, Federation for American Immigration Reform, Negative Population Growth, and the American Patrol.
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In 2005, Tom Tancredo introduced a resolution calling on the president to recognize the government of the Republic of China and to abandon the One-China policy.
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Tom Tancredo has been critical of the People's Republic of China.
24.
In February 2005, Tom Tancredo announced he would seek the Republican nomination for president if all other candidates failed to address the illegal immigration problem.
25.
On February 9,2006, Tom Tancredo addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual conference of the American Conservative Union.
26.
On January 16,2007, Tom Tancredo announced that he formed an exploratory committee on seeking the presidential nomination of the Republican Party.
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Tom Tancredo said that the Republican Party needs someone who can offer America a "common sense agenda".
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Tom Tancredo took first with a lifetime ranking of 99 out of 100.
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Tom Tancredo denounced other Republican candidates for their lack of consistency on the illegal immigration issue, the issue on which Tancredo will run.
30.
On September 5,2007, during a visit to Concord, New Hampshire, Tom Tancredo made it clear that he supports strictly enforcing immigration laws and deporting all illegal immigrants.
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Tom Tancredo believes so-called sanctuary policies provide safe havens for criminals.
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Tom Tancredo urged New Hampshire Governor John Lynch to veto an upcoming immigration bill and demanded the ouster of the bill's sponsors.
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On November 13,2007, the Tom Tancredo campaign released an ad called "Tough on Terror" in which a hypothetical terrorist attack occurs in a shopping mall.
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On his 62nd birthday December 20,2007, Tom Tancredo ended his candidacy for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination, and endorsed Mitt Romney.
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Tom Tancredo granted himself $200 for his campaign and received no federal funding.
36.
Tom Tancredo spoke at the Constitution Party's national committee meeting on October 23,2009.
37.
In July 2010, Tom Tancredo warned the two Republican candidates for governor, Scott McInnis and Dan Maes, that he would launch a third-party bid as candidate of the Constitution Party's Colorado branch if the Republican primary winner was behind in general election polling and did not drop out.
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Tom Tancredo felt that McInnis was unelectable because his plagiarism scandal had exposed him as "basically a fraud," while Maes' campaign finance violations likewise made him unelectable.
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Tom Tancredo subsequently announced that he was going ahead with plans to run as a Constitution Party candidate.
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Tom Tancredo placed second in the election with 36.5 percent of the vote, well ahead of Maes, the Republican Party candidate.
41.
In January 2011 Tom Tancredo re-registered as a Republican, saying it is the "only game in town".
42.
Tom Tancredo announced he would run for governor again in 2014.
43.
Tom Tancredo was angry at Colorado governor John Hickenlooper because Hickenlooper had passed gun restrictions, and because Hickenlooper had granted a stay of execution for Nathan Dunlap, the man responsible for the 1993 Aurora, Colorado shooting that killed 4.
44.
Tom Tancredo lost the Republican primary to Bob Beauprez, who went on to lose the general election to Hickenlooper.
45.
On October 31,2017, Tom Tancredo announced he would run for Governor of Colorado a third time.
46.
Tom Tancredo's bid was fueled in part by Republican politicians' reluctance to criticize the cancellation of an April 2018 VDARE event where Tancredo was scheduled to speak.
47.
On January 30,2018, Tom Tancredo announced he was withdrawing from the race.
48.
Tom Tancredo founded the Team America political action committee in 2004 in order to raise contributions for congressional candidates who opposed illegal immigration.
49.
Campaign laws forced Tom Tancredo to resign from Team America PAC.
50.
Tom Tancredo kept Epstein on his staff despite the guilty plea.
51.
In June 2011 Tom Tancredo founded a Super PAC called the American Legacy Alliance to support candidates for federal office who oppose illegal immigration.
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Tom Tancredo urges America to reject "the siren song of multiculturalism" and depicts Islam as "a civilization bent on destroying ours".
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In July 2005, Tom Tancredo proposed that America respond to any future terrorist attack by bombing Mecca and other holy sites.
54.
In September 2006, when Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech quoting a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who said the prophet Mohammed had brought "things only evil and inhuman", sparking Muslim anger throughout the world, Tom Tancredo urged him not to apologize.
55.
Tom Tancredo has said that abortion "compromises the sanctity of life" and "attacks the most vulnerable among us: unborn boys and girls".
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Tom Tancredo voted in favor of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and in favor of legislation requiring parental notification when a minor seeks an abortion.
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Tom Tancredo received an "A" on the National Right to Life Committee report card, indicating that he votes in Congress on the anti-abortion side of this issue.
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Tom Tancredo was criticized by anti-abortion forces for accepting over $20,000 in donations from John Tanton, founder of the Federation for American Immigration Reform and a founder of a Planned Parenthood chapter.
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Tom Tancredo is perhaps best known for his opposition to immigration.
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Tom Tancredo founded the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus in May 1999.
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Tom Tancredo served as its chairman until January 2007, when he turned the chairmanship over to Brian Bilbray.
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Tom Tancredo has called for halting illegal immigration, and a three-year moratorium on all legal immigration to allow those immigrants already in the country to be assimilated.
63.
Tom Tancredo called for the deportation of the family of Jesus Apodaca, an undocumented immigrant child in a Denver high school.
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Tom Tancredo criticized the Denver Public Library system for purchasing reading materials written in Spanish and for offering space for classes to be held for these library users, on the grounds that putting Spanish-speakers in a 'linguistic ghetto' would delay their integration into American society.
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Tom Tancredo sponsored legislation to eliminate H-1B visas for temporary workers in 2005.
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Tom Tancredo was the sponsor of a successful, bi-partisan amendment to a Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill that would withhold federal emergency services funds from 'sanctuary cities'.
67.
On July 30,2007, Tom Tancredo "criticized Congressional Democrats for eliminating a requirement that anyone applying for Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program services provide proof of US citizenship".
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Tom Tancredo has made it a point in all of his public speeches to differentiate between those who enter the United States legally and those who come illegally.
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Tom Tancredo frequently attends naturalization ceremonies to support new citizens for "doing it the right way".
70.
In 2006, Tom Tancredo published In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America's Border and Security through Joseph Farah's WND Books in Nashville, Tennessee.
71.
Tom Tancredo's has staunchly supported tightening immigration requirements from Islamic countries.
72.
The Chris Romer campaign tried to erode rival Michael Hancock's support among Hispanics by emails and robocalls claiming that Tom Tancredo had endorsed Hancock.
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Tom Tancredo, who had neither met nor endorsed Hancock, responded by appearing on a radio talk show and endorsing Romer.
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Tom Tancredo was one of 33 congressmen to vote against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act because he asserted that its requirement of multilingual ballots would result in a costly unfunded mandate.
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Tom Tancredo was one of a handful of Republicans who voted for an amendment proposed by Maurice Hinchey and Dana Rohrabacher to stop the Department of Justice from raiding medical marijuana patients and caregivers in states where medical marijuana is legal, citing states' rights concerns.
76.
Tom Tancredo was awarded a grade of A for votes he cast in 1999 to 2007 inclusively.
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Additionally, Tom Tancredo received the National Taxpayers Union's "Taxpayers' Friend Award" in 1999 to 2006 inclusively as well The award is given by the NTU to those members of Congress that are among "the strongest supporters of responsible tax and spending policies".
78.
Tom Tancredo is a strong supporter of the FairTax and advocates the repeal of the 16th Amendment.
79.
In 1970 Tom Tancredo appealed his 1-A draft status, which would have put him at the top of the list for draft eligibility during the Vietnam War.
80.
Several days later, in an interview on CNN together with James Zogby, Tom Tancredo said that the attack was mentioned merely as a hypothetical response and insisted that there was nothing for which he should apologize.
81.
On February 4,2010, Tom Tancredo spoke at the National Convention for the Tea Party movement where he told attendees that Barack Obama won because of "people who could not even spell the word 'vote' or say it in English".
82.
Tom Tancredo then proposed "a civics literacy test" as a prerequisite to voting.
83.
Tom Tancredo has denied the charge that his remarks were aimed at a specific group.
84.
Tom Tancredo has declared himself in favor of the legalization of marijuana.
85.
On July 22,2010, in an editorial in The Washington Times, Tom Tancredo said that Congress should bring impeachment charges against President Obama.
86.
Tom Tancredo called me and said to me, 'You're jeopardizing your career in this place by doing these things.
87.
On September 11,2006, in Columbia, South Carolina, Tom Tancredo spoke to a gathering of the "Americans Have Had Enough Coalition", which he had helped found.
88.
Several days later, Tom Tancredo came under heavy criticism from a group of Denver ministers for attending the function.
89.
On December 12,2006, Tom Tancredo was announced by the Rotary Club of Miami as its guest speaker.
90.
Tom Tancredo said protesters organized on the Internet social networking site Facebook and "declared ahead of time on Facebook that they would not allow me to speak".
91.
Tom Tancredo has stated that he would like to see the United States give more support to the Iranian exile organization People's Mujahedin of Iran.
92.
On February 3,2009, The Denver Post revealed that Tom Tancredo had probably lost a significant amount of money invested in hedge funds with Agile Group, a Boulder-based investment company with substantial investments in Bernie Madoff's investment firm.