William Jefferson Clinton

1. 42th President AP US History By: Ashley Peace William Jefferson Clinton

2. Starting Out • Bill Clinton attended Georgetown University to major in international affairs. • Bill Clinton spent the summer after his sophomore year at Georgetown University he worked on the campaign of a Democratic candidate for governor, George McGovern, who was running against President Richard Nixon. • The candidate lost but Bit made contacts that helped him land a post in the Washington office of Arkansas senator J. William Fulbright. • As a junior assistant, he stuffed envelopes and answered the phone. • Fulbright was an early critic of the Vietnam War, and Clinton’s views were often influenced by what he heard.

3. After graduation in 1973, Bill landed a teaching job at the University of Arkansas Law school, in the college town of Fayetteville. Before his first year of teaching ended, 27-year-old Bill Clinton announced his first run for public office- for a seat in the U.S. Congress from the 3rd District in Arkansas. He won the Democratic primary and faced Republican congressman John Paul Hammerschmidt in November. Hammerschmidt was popular in the district, while Clinton was barely known. He ran a great campaign and was catching up to his experience opponent, but it wasn’t enough- he lost by 6,000 votes A beginning in Politics

4. Even though Clinton lost his first election, he was a rising political star. In 1976 he was encouraged to run for attorney general. No Republican ran against Clinton, so he had the free time to direct the campaign to elect Democrat Jimmy Carter for president- both were elected. Clinton worked hard as attorney general, but he saw the position as a stepping-stone. In 1978 he announced he would run for governor and demonstrated his talents as a campaigner, receiving 63 percent of the vote. Bill Clinton, just 32, had become the youngest governor of a U.S. state in 40 years. Governor of Arkansas

5. (Cont) • In April 1980, Fidel Castro announced that anyone who was unhappy in Cuba could leave. • On June 1, 1980, a group of refugees at Fort Chaffee rioted, and about 300 escaped, causing alarm in the small towns near the base. • Governor Clinton was forced to call out the National Guard to help round up the escapees and to protect them from angry Arkansans who resented their presence. • The images of chaos at Fort Chaffee shocked voters and made Clinton look like a weak governor who couldn’t protect his state.

6. Clinton moved aggressively to introduce new policies to Arkansas, one of the poorest states in the nation. The state government was deep in debt, its education system was one of the poorest, and unemployment was high. Clinton pushed for education reforms, worked to control clear-cutting of the state’s forests by timber companies, and fought for a plan to improve the state’s sadly run-down highways. To pay for highway repairs, he persuaded the legislature to raise license fees on cars, which ended up being very unpopular. When he was criticized, he would deny responsibility or shift the blame. At the end of his term, votes turned him out in favor of Frank White, a savings and loan executive.

7. Reelection for Governor • Clinton went to work at Little Rock law firm but spent most of his time campaigning for re-election. • In the 1982 race, Clinton admitted his mistakes and used his charm to convince the voters to re-elect him. • He won in 1982 and again in 1984. • Voters then supported him for two, four-year terms in 1986 and 1990. • As governor, Clinton advocated educational reform, appointing Hillary Clinton to lead a committee to draft higher standards for Arkansas schools. • One of the administration’s proposals called for competence tests for all teachers. • Governor Clinton’s sweeping education reforms positively impacted Arkansas schools.

8. Future President Material • Bill Clinton was viewed as someone who stood a good chance of winning the presidency for the Democratic Party, which had been out of office since 1981. • At the National Democratic convention in Atlanta, Clinton was chosen to give the nominating speech for Michael Dukakis, proving him with his first national presentation to a mass political audience, but it turned out to be a disaster. • In 1989, President George H. W. Bush appointed Clinton co-chair of a national meeting of governors to discuss education matters. • Clinton was engaging in activities that seemed destined to result in his candidacy at the Democratic National Convention in 1992. • Clinton convinced the delegates to the Democratic Leadership Council that a drastic shift was needed if the Democrats were to get any chance at regaining the presidency. • The Ronald Reagan presidency had gained ascendancy by a landslide in 1980- Reagan portrayed the Democrats as big spenders and supporters of big government. • Clinton denied rumors that he was about to announce his candidacy for president.

9. In July 1991 he admitted he was considered to fun for president. October3, 1991, speaking form the Old State House in Little Rock, Arkansas, Clinton announced his intention to become a candidate for the presidency. Clinton promised that if he were elected, he would impose higher taxes on the rich, making possible lower taxes for the middle class and the poor. Clinton suggested that, after eleven years of Republican leadership, the United States was heading toward a disastrous direction. Under the Reagan-Bush administrations, the nation had built up a staggering four-trillion dollar debt by 1991. Clinton promised that he would work strenuously to reduce the national debt and the interest payments required to service that debt. He vowed to put the Social Security and Medicare systems on a firmer financial footing. Eyeing the Presidency

10. Clinton’s first stop on the campaign trail was New Hampshire, which holds the earliest national primaries in the US. Clinton was on the Democratic ballot with five other candidates, and finished second. It was surprising since two scandals involving Clinton surfaced during the primary, the first being a prolonged sexual affair with Gennifer Flowers and the second being a letter he had written while he was a college student in an effort to avoid being drafted. When the scandals were made public, many voters wrote Clinton off, remembering how previous politicians had been destroyed by similar allegations, but eventually forgave him. Although the 1992 election was between George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, a third candidate, H. Ross Perot, declared his candidacy as an independent. Clinton easily won primaries in most of the southern states, as well as in Illinois, New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Clinton’s Campaign for President

11. By June, he had won California, whose electoral votes, combined with the others he received, spelled a clear victory for him at the Democratic Convention held later on. The voters had qualms about Clinton because of the scandals involving him, but they had greater qualms with President Bush because of the weakening of the national economy. Perot appeared frequently on television, but when asked pointed questions about how he would deal with the economic problem, he said he wished he would have know he was going to be asked that question because he had charts he could have brought with him that would have clarified his answer. Perot later withdrew his candidacy on the last day of the Democratic National Convention, only to reenter the race in October, shortly before the election, saying he had made a mistake to withdraw. Shortly before the election, Clinton, Bush, and Perot engaged in a debate on national television. (Cont)

13. Outcome of the 1992 election • At this point in time, the election appeared to be anybody’s. • The final tally showed Clinton with 43 percent of the vote, Bush with 38 percent, and Perot with only 19 percent. • Clinton had won 32 states and Bush won 18. • Clinton became the second-youngest president of the Unites States, only a little older on the day of his inauguration than Theodore Roosevelt when he was first elected. • Clinton was also the first president to be born after World War 2, making him a part of the baby boomer generation.

14. Clinton was inaugurated on January 20, 1993. He had vowed to bolster the nation’s economy, to support gun control and crime prevention, to overhaul the health care and welfare systems, to make the federal government more efficient, and to sign the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). By the end of his first year, Clinton had battled Congress to secure adoption of an economic package that combined tax increases and spending cuts. His 1993 economic package passed without a single Republican vote in either chamber of Congress. This economic policy lowered the deficit from $290 billion in 1992 to $203 billion by 1994. By 1999, surging tax revenues had generated a surplus of $124 billion. Clinton’s Promises

15. One problem that face American society was health care. • Many American families had no health insurance and had little access to the medical care that one might expect to take for granted in a society as rich as that of the United States. • The president appointed Hillary Clinton to head a task force to investigate how the health care system in the US could and should be altered. • Although it carried no salary, this appointment raised cries of impropriety, and the final report of the task force was harshly criticized in many area. • This report opened needed dialogue about a pressing national problem and might have led to positive outcomes had not another scandal, Whitewater, erupted about the same time the report was released. Healthcare

16. During their time in Arkansas’s executive mansion, Bill and Hillary Clinton had taken a financial interest in a land development project called Whitewater. • The Clintons were friends of James and Susan McDougal, who were principals in the Whitewater project. • James MacDougal was accused of misappropriating funds, and it appears that the Clintons might have been involved in questionable activities relating to the Whitewater project. • The right wing of the Republican Party called for an investigation by Congress, but the Democratic majority scuttled the investigation. • Vince Foster, the Clinton’s attorney, was under suspicion for illegal dealings relation to Whitewater. • On July 20, 1993, his body was found in Fort Marcy Park near Alexandria, Virginia, with a single bullet hole in the head. • Foster’s death , even though it was ruled as suicide, set the White House into turmoil. The Whitewater Problem

17. Some suspected that Foster had been murdered to keep him quiet. Hillary Clinton was accused of removing crucial papers from his office as soon as she heard of his death. These rumors raised embarrassing questions for the president and the first lady. Although no immediate action taken regarding Whitewater, Attorney General Janet Reno appointed an independent counsel, Kenneth Starr, to investigate Whitewater. When Starr subpoenaed documents from the fist lady regarding billing practices at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, that she was involved in during Bill’s governorship, she claimed that the documents were misplaced and did not get them to Starr until months later when they mysteriously surfaced. (Cont)

18. Two Arkansas troopers who had worked for Clinton during his terms as governor admitted to reporters that when Clinton was governor, they had arranged assignations for him in hotel rooms. This scandal generated a lawsuit against Clinton by Paula Jones, who claimed that the then-governor lured her into a hotel room where he proposed that they commit a sex act. A legal question arose as to whether a sitting president could be required to defend himself against such an accusation while he still held office. It was finally ruled that the suit could proceed, with the president giving a deposition under oath in answer to questions posed by the prosecuting attorney. The president still continued to attend to affairs of the state. Paula Jones received financial assistance in her lawsuit from the Rutherford Foundation, a conservative think-tank that was opposed to Clinton and all that he stood for. The upshot of the Paul Jones lawsuit was that Clinton eventually paid a substantial financial settlement to Jones in order to close the case and keep to it out of court. The Paula Jones Controversy

19. The economy began to show renewed vigor and finally to expand in ways that affected nearly all Americans. Inflation was coming under control, free enterprise seemed to be flourishing, and unemployment was decidedly declining. On February 5, 1993, Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act in to law, and on November 30, he signed the Brady bill, which imposed a five-day waiting period on those wishing to buy handguns. On December 1993, he signed the highly controversial NAFTA into law. and the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which led to the establishment in 1995 of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Congress also approved a deficit reduction bill, rules allowing abortion counseling in federally funded clinics, a waiting period for handgun purchases (the Brady Bill), and a national service program. (Cont)

20. The 1996 Presidential Election • The Paula Jones case broke in May, 1994, and the press covered it quite fully- this scandal and others were partly responsible for the Democrats’ losing their majorities in both the House and the Senate in the off-year election in 1994. • The American people acknowledged that Clinton was an effective president and his approval ratings remained high. • By the time that the 1996 elections were held, the public had been able to separate Clinton’s private life from his professional life. • Running against Republican senator Bob Dole, Clinton won by a landslide with 49 percent of the vote to Dole’s 41 percent. • Ross Perot ran again as an independent, but received only 8 percent. • Clinton received 276 electoral votes while Doles received 156 electoral votes.

21. In January 1997, Bill Clinton took the oath of office for the second time. • In 1996, Clinton signed a bill to “end welfare as we know it.” • It required able-bodied people who received welfare payments to work, and limited the number of years they could receive welfare payments. • In May 1997 he led the drive for the Welfare to Work Partnership, a program to help more people get off welfare, get needed education and training, and find jobs. • The booming economy, reduced military spending, and Clinton’s economic initiatives also helped continue dramatic reductions of the government’s deficit. President for the 2nd Time

22. He improved his international image when the Israel–Jordan peace agreement was signed at the White House in the summer of 1994 by Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan's King Hussein. In the fall of that year, the administration succeeded in restoring Haiti's ousted president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to power. Clinton scored again by bolstering Russian president Boris Yeltsin's popularity with promises of economic aid. The problems in Eastern Europe were Clinton's next big challenge. Though he wanted desperately to end the brutal ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, he did not want to commit American ground troops to do so. A peace accord involving American peacekeeping troops was ultimately signed in Dayton, Ohio, in Nov. 1995. Foreign Affairs

23. Domestic Affairs • In the summer of 1996, Congress passed a sweeping reform bill , fulfilling Clinton’s 1992 campaign promise to “end welfare as we know it.” • The legislation replaced the long standing Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program with a system of block grants to individual states. • It also dropped the eligibility of legal immigrant for welfare assistance during the first five years of their residency. • Clinton also won an increase in the minimum wage to %5.15 per hour. • The President blocked Republican attempts to bar public education to children of illegal immigrants.

24. During his campaign, Clinton vowed to end the exclusion of homosexuals from military service. A federal court ruling just days after Clinton’s election moved that controversial topic onto the public agenda, where it was difficult for the President to set it aside until a more convenient time. A political fight ensued with conservative members of Congress and the leadership of the armed forces Clinton compromised by agreeing to delay a decision on gays in the military for six months. He ultimately proposed a policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” meaning that the military services would not ask about the sexual orientation of serve personnel and that these personnel would not be required to divulge this information. Liberals and gays felt betrayed by the President, and conservatives overrode the administration’s executive directive by writing a more restrictive policy into law in a defense authorization bill. (Cont)

25. A former White House worker, Linda Tripp, who had been transferred to the Pentagon and who apparently held a grudge against Clinton, had become the friend and confidante of a 21 year old White House aide, Monica Lewinsky. Lewinsky was an appealing young lady who had gone out of her way to ingratiate herself to the president. Lewinsky had greater access to Clinton’s White House office than aides generally are permitted She revealed to Tripp that she was sexually involved with Clinton The story broke on January 21, 1998, after Tripp had gone to the Independent Counsel Kenneth Star with tapes of Lewinsky’s late-night telephone alls to her detailing her sexual adventures in the pantry off the Oval Office. Clinton went before the nation on television and denied categorically that he had had sexual relations “with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.” Starr persisted his investigation, which now extended far beyond his original charge to investigate Whitewater. The Monica Lewinsky Affair

26. When the Lewinsky story hit the press, few in the White House thought that the president could survive the accusations and continue in office. His protests of innocence were received skeptically, but he was finally backed into a corner when Lewinsky produced a blue dress stained with semen that she claimed was from the president. She had told Tripp about this dress, and Tripp had urged her to preserve it. Clinton was forced to submit to DNA testing, which conclusively that the semen was his. Refusing to admit defeat, Clinton again appeared on television and admitted to the public that he had acted inappropriately with Lewinsky; he was guilty. (Cont)

27. The last and only president to be impeached before 1998 was Andrew Johnson shortly after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Rich Nixon avoided impeachment by resigning from the presidency before they could impeach him. The House of Representatives listened to several days of testimony and read The Starr Report, which outlined every detail of the relationship between Clinton and Lewinsky. The House voted to bring the matter before the Senate because a 2/3 vote was required for conviction and it seemed certain the president would be vindicated, freed from any question of guilt. After hearings that dragged out for several days, the Senate on February 12, 1999, voted on the two articles of impeachment lodged against the president” perjury and obstruction of justice. Impeaching President Clinton

28. (Cont) • In the final vote, 55 senators (45 Democrats and 10 Republicans) voted against convicting the president of perjury, while another 45 ( all Republicans) voted for conviction, giving the president the numbers he needed to be acquitted of the charge. • On the charge of obstruction of justice, the president did not do as well; he received a simple majority for acquittal • Fifty Senators, including 5 Republicans who jumped ship, voted against conviction and another 50 voted for conviction; a conviction of either charge would have meant Clinton’s removal from office.

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