Vito Fossella Early life, education and family Where was Vito born? Staten Island Did he have brothers and sisters? the fourth of seven children, Where did he go to school? Iona College What did he study in college? Bachelor of Science degree in economics in Was he married? Fossella married Mary Patricia Rowan. Did he have children? three children
When did he decide to run for office?
When did Vito Fossella decide to run for office?
Fossella was born on Staten Island into a Roman Catholic family of Irish and Italian descent. Fossella's great-grandfather James A. O'Leary represented Staten Island in Congress from 1935 to 1944. One of his uncles, Frank Fossella, was a prominent Staten Island Democrat who was a City Council member for four years, ending in 1985. His father, Vito John Fossella Sr., served in various appointed positions in the city administrations of Democratic Mayors Edward I. Koch and Abraham D. Beame, then became a successful construction engineer.  Fossella, the fourth of seven children, was a basketball player at Monsignor Farrell High School, where he got his first political experience in the student council. He briefly played violin and percussion with the Christian pop band Sonseed. He attended Iona College in New Rochelle, then transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in economics in 1987. At Penn, he was a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity.  After college, Fossella worked as a management consultant at the accounting firm Deloitte & Touche. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu was the second largest campaign contributor to Fossella in the 2006 campaign cycle and among the largest contributors in the 2008 campaign cycle.  Fossella then attended law school. He received a Juris Doctor from the Fordham University School of Law in 1993, and worked as an associate at a medical malpractice defense law firm Schiavetti Begos & Nicholson.  In 1990, Fossella married Mary Patricia Rowan. They have three children and live in the Great Kills neighborhood on Staten Island. Fossella also had a daughter out-of-wedlock in 2005 with retired Lt. Col. Laura Fay. CANNOTANSWER
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Vito John Fossella Jr. (born March 9, 1965) is an American Republican politician from the state of New York who currently serves as Staten Island Borough President. He formerly represented the state's 13th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives for six terms, from 1997 to 2009 serving as the lone Republican from New York City. Fossella, a Staten Island native, was born to a family that included several politicians.  Fossella initially took office in 1997, after winning a special election held to replace the resigning Susan Molinari.

After a DUI arrest in Alexandria, Virginia on May 1, 2008, it was discovered that he was living with Laura Fay, a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel, while Fossella was married.  The two had a child together and were living in Virginia as a married couple while he was living in Staten Island with his wife. He announced on his official website on May 20 that he had chosen to serve out the remainder of his term, which ended on January 3, 2009, but decided not to run for re-election.

In March 2021, Fossella announced that he was running for Borough President of Staten Island. He was endorsed by Donald Trump and won the Republican nomination in July 2021. He was elected Borough President after defeating opponents Mark Murphy and Leticia Remauro.

Early life, education and family 
Fossella was born on Staten Island into a Roman Catholic family of Irish and Italian descent. Fossella's great-grandfather James A. O'Leary represented Staten Island in Congress from 1935 to 1944. One of his uncles, Frank Fossella, was a prominent Staten Island Democrat who was a City Council member in 1985. His father, Vito John Fossella Sr., served in various appointed positions in the city administrations of Democratic Mayors Edward I. Koch and Abraham D. Beame, then became a successful construction engineer.

Fossella, the fourth of seven children, was a basketball player at Monsignor Farrell High School, where he got his first political experience in the student council. He briefly played violin and percussion with the Christian pop band Sonseed. He attended Iona College in New Rochelle, then transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in economics in 1987.  At Penn, he was a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity.

After college, Fossella worked as a management consultant at the accounting firm Deloitte & Touche. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu was the second largest campaign contributor to Fossella in the 2006 campaign cycle and among the largest contributors in the 2008 campaign cycle.

Fossella then attended law school. He received a Juris Doctor from the Fordham University School of Law in 1993, and worked as an associate at a medical malpractice defense law firm Schiavetti Begos & Nicholson.

In 1990, Fossella married Mary Patricia Rowan. They have three children and live in the Great Kills neighborhood on Staten Island. Fossella also had a daughter out-of-wedlock in 2005 with retired Lt. Col. Laura Fay.

New York City Council

Early political work; election 
Fossella was a political protégé of Michael J. Petrides, a member of the city's School Board and a Staten Island political strategist. In 1990, Fossella changed his voter registration from the Democratic Party to become the family's first Republican. "I found myself voting more and more for Republicans," he said in 1997. "For the most part, my family reacted well. But still, I would love to have been a fly on the wall." Under Petrides' guidance, he joined the 1992 re-election campaign of Staten Island Congresswoman Susan Molinari and, in 1993, the mayoral campaign of Rudy Giuliani.

Fossella's political career began in April 1994, when he won a special election to the New York City Council, representing Staten Island's South Shore and Mid-Island section. He replaced Councilman Alfred C. Cerullo III, who had left to become Commissioner of Consumer Affairs in the Rudy Giuliani administration. Fossella spent $92,000 in the election, in which he had five opponents.

In November 1994, Fossella was reelected to the remaining three years of Cerullo's term, defeating Democrat Rosemarie Mangano. He served on the Council until November 1997.

Council initiatives 
Fossella's council initiatives included:

 Authoring the legislation that led to the agreement to permanently close the Fresh Kills Landfill
 Conceiving the idea of the South Richmond Rezoning Study, a comprehensive rezoning initiative on Staten Island
 Securing funding for the construction of P.S. 56 and P.S. 6, the first new schools to be built on Staten Island in over a decade.

United States Congress

Initial election 
In June 1997, Fossella was selected by executive committee of the Staten Island Republican Party as its candidate to run for the Congressional seat being vacated by Representative Susan Molinari. 
Fossella won the special election in November 1997, defeating Democratic Assemblyman Eric Vitaliano with 61 percent of the vote.

Re-elections 
In November 1998, Fossella won a full term with 68 percent of the vote. He was re-elected in 2000, winning 65 percent of the vote against Democrat Katina M. Johnstone even as Al Gore carried the district. In 2002, he was re-elected with 70 percent of the vote, defeating Democrat Arne M. Mattsson.
 
In 2004, Fossella faced his first close contest against former state assemblyman and judge Frank J. Barbaro. Barbaro actually won the Brooklyn portion of the district by seven points, the first time Fossella had not won that area; Barbaro had represented much of this area in Albany for 23 years. However, Barbaro performed poorly on Staten Island, and Fossella won there by 26 points—enough for him to win a fourth full term with 59% of the vote districtwide. Some have speculated that he was helped by George W. Bush's 13-point win on Staten Island.

Fossella was considered a possible challenger to Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the 2005 election, but he chose not to make the race.

In 2006, incumbent Fossella defeated Democrat Steve Harrison, a relatively unknown Brooklyn attorney, by a margin of 56.7%-43.3%.

2008 election 
Before Fossella announced that he would not run in 2008, he was included in the National Republican Congressional Committee's list of Republican candidates who qualified for fundraising help because they were thought to be particularly vulnerable.

Steve Harrison hoped to run against Fossella again in the 2008 election, but New York City Council member Domenic Recchia also began seeking the Democratic nomination.

For several days after his DWI arrest and his admission of an adulterous affair and fathering an out-of-wedlock child, Fossella gave indications that he might run for re-election despite these problems. On May 20, however, he dropped out of the race. Fossella was succeeded by Democrat Michael McMahon.

Committee assignments 
 Committee on Energy and Commerce
 Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection
 Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials
 Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet

Political positions 
In August 2002, appearing on CNN's Crossfire, Fossella argued for partly privatizing Social Security and allow some of the funds be placed on Wall Street investments. He said "I happen to think the President is on the right side of history here. And I think the more you empower American people, the more you give them the opportunity to invest on their own and being in control of their own destiny and their own retirement, the better off we'll be."

In June 2003, Fossella wrote an op-ed for the Washington Times, in which he said "The claims that progress is too slow, the situation unstable and the United States lacks the expertise to get the job done does not reflect reality on the ground in Baghdad, Kirkuk and beyond. Indeed, the critics who complain that the seeds of democracy will not take root in the sands of a desert where tyranny ruled are as wrong today as the pessimists were in 1945." The final sentence of the column was "The United States will fulfill its commitment to Iraq, and then we will depart, having liberated a nation, freed a people and established a democracy of the people, by the people and for the people." In August 2006, Fossella said that leaving Iraq now would "do a disservice to the noble sacrifice that the troops have made on behalf of our national security."

Fossella voted for the Marriage Protection Act in 2004, and for the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004 and 2006, all of which would nationally define marriage as between a man and a woman. In 2007, Fossella voted for the  Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a bill nationally prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation.

In 2005, Fossella spoke out against the Bush Administration's handling of appropriating Homeland Security funds.

After the 2007 State of the Union Address, Fossella crossed the aisle to join with Senator Hillary Clinton in 2007 to raise awareness of health issues suffered those who at worked at the World Trade Center site on and after 9/11. Fossella is quoted as saying "We have made progress over the last year to begin getting the resources necessary to help our 9/11 heroes. However, we now need a significant investment by the federal government into health monitoring and treatment for those who are sick or injured. In addition, the federal government must develop a comprehensive plan to address the health impacts of 9/11. We continue urging the White House to provide adequate funding in the 2008 budget to help all those who are sick or injured as a result of the terror attacks."

Legislative initiatives 
Fossella's legislative initiatives while in Congress included the following:

 Return over $700 million to individual investors by eliminating fees by the SEC with the Investor and Capital Markets Fee Relief Act. The Act was signed into law by President Bush on January 16, 2002.
 Help repair the 86th Street subway station in the Bay Ridge area of Brooklyn. This station serves as a transfer point where passengers connect to bus service to Staten Island over the Verrazano Bridge.

See also 
 List of federal political sex scandals in the United States

References

External links 
 Re-Elect Congressman Vito Fossella official campaign site
 
 Profile at SourceWatch
 Fossella's Mug Shot
 A chronicle the DWI Arrest of Vito Fossella
 Detailed map of New York's 13th Congressional District (pdf)
 

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1965 births
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René François Gautier (25 April 1851 – 30 August 1936) was a French Bonapartiste politician. He was twice deputy of Charente during the French Third Republic.

Life

René-François Gautier was born on 25 April 1851 in Aigre, Charente.
His father was Louis Gautier, deputy of Charente.

After his father resigned, René-François Gautier was elected in his place for the district of Ruffec on 29 February 1880.
He won by 7,277 votes to 6,876 for his republican opponent. 
In the Chamber he joined the Appel au peuple parliamentary group, and voted with the conservative minority.
He voted against the amnesty for the members of the Paris Commune, against the new laws on the press and the right of assembly.
He was reelected on 21 August 1881.
He spoke out against the ministries of Léon Gambetta and Jules Ferry, and against the colonial policy.
He did not run for reelection on 4 October 1885.
He left office on 14 October 1885.

Gautier was elected to the General Council of Charente for the canton of Aigre.
He ran in the by-election in Ruffec on 27 April 1890 after the death of John de Champvallier(fr), but was defeated in the second round by the republican candidate Eugène Duportal(fr).
He ran again in the general elections of 1893 against Duportal and was elected on 3 September 1893.
During the session that followed he did not participate in debates but submitted a draft proposal to revise the constitutional laws to allow direct election by universal suffrage of the President and the two Chambers and to let the people to decide by vote on the constitutional laws.
He held office until 31 May 1898.

Gautier did not run for reelection until 1910, when he was defeated in the second round by the incumbent Maurice Raynaud(fr).
He died on 30 August 1936 in Paris.

Notes

Sources

1851 births
1936 deaths
People from Charente
Politicians from Nouvelle-Aquitaine
Appel au peuple
Members of the 2nd Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic
Members of the 3rd Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic
Members of the 6th Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic A general election was held in the U.S. state of Mississippi on November 3, 2015. All of Mississippi's executive officers were up for election. Primary elections were held on August 4, 2015, with primary runoffs, necessary if no candidate wins a majority of the vote, to be held on August 25, 2015. The filing deadline for primary ballot access was February 27.

Governor

Incumbent Republican Governor Phil Bryant won re-election to a second and final term in office. He was challenged in the Republican primary by Mitch Young.

Retired firefighter Robert Gray, physician Valerie Short and attorney Vicki Slater ran for the Democratic nomination.

Lieutenant Governor

Incumbent Republican Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves is running for re-election to a second term in office. He is being challenged in the primary by teacher Alisha Nelson McElhenney. Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, State Senator and candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2014 Chris McDaniel and State Senator Michael Watson all considered running against Reeves in the Republican primary, but none did so.

Two candidates filed for the Democratic nomination: actor and candidate for Mayor of Greenwood in 2013 Jelani Barr and former Republican State Senator and former Republican Madison County Supervisor Tim Johnson. Mississippi Public Service Commissionner Brandon Presley was a potential Democratic candidate but is instead running for re-election.

Democratic primary

Candidates
Jelani Barr, actor and candidate for Mayor of Greenwood in 2013
Tim Johnson, former Republican State Senator and former Madison County Supervisor

Results

Republican primary

Candidates
Tate Reeves, incumbent 
Alisha Nelson McElhenney, teacher

Results

General election

Results

Secretary of State

Incumbent Republican Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann had considered running for Lieutenant Governor against Tate Reeves in the Republican primary. However, he chose to run for re-election to a third term in office instead. Had Hosemann retired or run for another office, potential Republican candidates included State Senator Michael Watson and attorney and Hosemann's former Chief of Staff Cory Wilson.

Retired firefighter Charles Graham is running for the Democrats. State Senator David Blount and former Secretary of State Dick Molpus were potential Democratic candidates, but neither chose to run.

Democratic nomination

Candidate
Charles Graham, retired firefighter

Republican primary

Candidate
Delbert Hosemann, incumbent

Results

General election

Results

Attorney General

Incumbent Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood had been mentioned as a potential candidate for Governor, but he is instead running for re-election to a fourth term in office.

The only candidate to file for the Republican nomination was Assistant U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst. Attorney Russ Latino considered running but declined to do so. Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, State Senator Chris McDaniel, State Senator Michael Watson, Jackson County District Attorney Tony Lawrence, Madison and Rankin Counties' District Attorney Michael Guest were all mentioned as potential Republican candidates. However, none of them filed to run. State Representative Mark Baker and attorney, author and former Madison County Supervisor Andy Taggart declined to run.

Democratic nomination

Candidate
Jim Hood, incumbent

Republican primary

Candidate
Mike Hurst, Assistant U.S. Attorney

Results

General election

Results

State Auditor

Incumbent Republican State Auditor Stacey Pickering is running for re-election to a third term in office. Pickering is being challenged in the Republican primary by Mary Hawkins-Butler, the Mayor of Madison. State Senator Michael Watson had considered running but did not do so.

Joce Pritchett, an engineer, is running as a Democrat. Charles Graham, a retired firefighter, had been running, but decided instead to run for Secretary of State.

Democratic nomination

Candidate
Jocelyn Pritchett, engineer

Republican primary

Candidates
Stacey Pickering, incumbent 
Mary Hawkins-Butler, the Mayor of Madison

Results

General election

Results

State Treasurer

Incumbent Republican State Treasurer Lynn Fitch is running for re-election to a second term in office. Attorney David McRae, whose family formerly owned the McRae's department store chain, is running against Fitch in the Republican primary.

No Democrat filed to run for the office.

Republican primary

Candidates
Lynn Fitch, incumbent 
David McRae, attorney

Results

General election

Results

Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce

Incumbent Republican Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Cindy Hyde-Smith is running for re-election to a second term in office

Addie Lee Green is running as a Democrat.

Democratic nomination

Candidate
Addie Lee Green

Republican primary

Candidate
Cindy Hyde-Smith, incumbent

Results

General election

Results

Commissioner of Insurance

Incumbent Republican Commissioner of Insurance Mike Chaney is running for re-election to a third term in office. Businessman John Mosley is running against Chaney in the Republican primary.

Former State Representative and Director of the Mississippi Democratic Trust Brandon Jones was a possible Democratic candidate. No Democrat filed to run for the office.

Republican primary

Candidates
Mike Chaney, incumbent 
John Mosley, businessman

Results

General election

Results

Public Service Commission

Northern District
Incumbent Democratic Commissioner Brandon Presley had considered running for Governor and Lieutenant Governor, but decided not to and is running for re-election to a third term in office.

Mike Maynard is running as a Republican.

Central District
Incumbent Republican Commissioner Lynn Posey is retiring rather than run for re-election to a third term in office.

For the Republicans, Brent Bailey and attorney and candidate for Governor in 2003 Mitch Tyner are running. Other potential Republican candidates were former State Senator and candidate for State Treasurer in 2011 Lee Yancey and Jason Cochran, a utility construction company project manager, the son of former Commissioner Nielsen Cochran and nephew of U.S. Senator Thad Cochran Neither filed to run.

Bruce Burton and State Representative Cecil Brown are running for the Democrats. Robert Amos originally qualified as a Democratic candidate for this seat, but switched to run for the Central District of the Transportation Commission.

Southern District
Incumbent Republican Commissioner Steve Renfroe, who was appointed to the office in September 2013 after Leonard Bentz resigned to become executive director of the South Mississippi Planning and Development District, is not running for election to a full term in office. Sam Britton and State Senator Tony Smith are running for the Republican nomination. State Senator Philip Moran and Hancock County Supervisor Steve Seymour ruled out running and 2011 candidate Travis Rose chose not to run again.

Thomas Blanton was a potential Democratic candidate but he did not file and neither did any other Democrat.

Transportation Commission

Northern District
Incumbent Republican Mike Tagert, who won a special election in 2011 following the death of Democratic Commissioner Bill Minor, is running for re-election to a second full term in office. He is also running in the May 2015 special election for Mississippi's 1st congressional district. Hernando Mayor Chip Johnson has announced that he is running for the Republican nomination. An ally of Tagert, he will withdraw from the race if Tagert does not win the Congressional election.

No Democrat filed to run for this seat.

Central District
Incumbent Republican Commissioner Dick Hall, who was appointed to the Commission in 1999, is running for re-election to a fifth full term in office.

Robert Amos is running for the Democrats. Former Jackson Mayor Harvey Johnson, Jr. was a potential Democratic candidate, but he did not run.

Southern District
Incumbent Republican Commissioner Tom King is running for re-election to a second term in office.

Chad Toney is running for the Democrats.

Special Congressional election

A special election for Mississippi's 1st congressional district was held to fill the term left by the vacancy created by the death of Alan Nunnelee. Nunnelee, a member of the Republican Party, died on February 6, 2015. The top-two primary was held on May 12, with Democrat Walter Zinn and Republican Trent Kelly advancing. Kelly defeated Zinn in the June 12 runoff election.

References