John Spencer (politician)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

John Spencer

Mayor of Yonkers, New York
In office January 1996 – December 2003
Preceded by	Terence M. Zaleski
Succeeded by	Philip A. Amicone

Born	November 17, 1946 Yonkers, New York
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Kathy Spring-Spencer

For other persons named John Spencer, see John Spencer (disambiguation).

John Spencer (born November 17, 1946 ) is the former Mayor of Yonkers, New York (1995-2003) and the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate seat held by incumbent Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton. Prior to entering politics as a member of the Yonkers City Council in 1991, he worked in retail, food service, construction, waste management, and banking.

1 Career
2 Personal life
3 New York Senate race
4 Controversy
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Career

Spencer, a former lieutenant in the US Army, is a veteran of the Vietnam war.^[1] He was the founder of Spencer Consulting Group, where he uses his personal experience of overcoming alcoholism to help others defeat their addictions.^[2]

In 1996, John Spencer was sworn in as mayor of Yonkers. The city's finances had been under the oversight of a federal board for two decades. Spencer's efforts to revitalize the city, particularly its waterfront, proved successful.^{[citation needed]}

In 1998, control of the city's finances were returned to its citizens. ^[3]

In 2001, Spencer unsuccessfully supported a ballot measure to rescind a term limits law he had spearheaded while on the City Council. ^[1]

In November 2002, Spencer could not run for re-election as mayor due to that same term limits law.

In March 2004, former City of Yonkers employee Joan Gronowski successfully won a first amendment lawsuit against former Mayor John Spencer for the politically motivated termination of her civil service job. This guilty verdict against John Spencer and the City of Yonkers was upheld despite two subsequent appeals by the City of Yonkers.

In December 2004, nine months after the successful prosecution of Spencer, the City of Yonkers quietly reached a US$250,000 out-of-court settlement with a Board of Education employee who alleged he was denied promotional opportunity due to former Mayor John Spencer's disfavor with the employee's brother, a union official. [1]

[edit] Personal life

Spencer was born in Yonkers, New York. He married Kathy Spring, his third wife, and they have three children together, two of whom were born while Spencer was married to his second wife and while Spring was serving as Spencer's mayoral chief of staff. Spring's annual salary, which started at $52,000, increased to $138,000 by the time she and Spencer both left office. Spencer did not publicly acknowledge the affair until 2002.^[2]

[edit] New York Senate race

Main article: New York United States Senate election, 2006

In 2005, Spencer announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is seeking re-election to a second term. Politically, Spencer is generally opposed to abortion, against gun control, and a supporter of tighter border security. ^[4] His support for the Bush Administration and its policies is well known, including but not limited to the war in Iraq.

On 31 May 2006, Spencer won the endorsement of the state Republican Party organization but did not achieve the threshold of 75 percent he needed to prevent his rival, former Pentagon aide Kathleen Troia “K.T.” McFarland, from gaining an automatic position on the primary ballot. He only received 63 percent, and thus faced McFarland in the 12 September 2006 Republican primary, which he won by a margin of 20 points. [2] "Spencer called on McFarland to step aside after the vote, but McFarland told CQPolitics.com she had no intention of withdrawing from the race." ^[5]

In a June 2006 radio ad, Spencer attacked national Republicans for not funding his Senate campaign.

In his 2006 election campaign, Spencer came out in favor of New York's Court of Appeals denying same-sex marriage to 42 gay and lesbian couples who challenged that denial as unconstitutional. On his campaign page, Spencer says that marriage equality for same-sex couples equates to "special rights for gays".

Mr. Spencer ultimately lost the United States Senate Race to incumbent Hillary Clinton, having garnered only 31% of the vote. Further, he failed to win any of the 12 wards of his hometown of Yonkers, New York, where he served for two terms as mayor.

[edit] Controversy

On 18 August 2005, Spencer gave a radio interview where he attacked District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, another candidate for the Republican nomination, calling her chances of winning the Conservative Party nomination "a Chinaman's chance."^[2] Spencer was asked to apologize for the comment after an outcry from the Asian community that the statement was derogatory.^[6] Pirro dropped out of the race in December 2005.

Publicly, Spencer has referred to Clinton as a "traitor" who "aids and abets our enemies" in the War on Terrorism.^[7]

Spencer has been dogged by accusations of nepotism throughout his political career. The most obvious case is hiring his mistress (now Mrs. Spencer) as his chief of staff while mayor and increasing her salary by $80,000; more recently, he has been accused of paying campaign funds to both Mrs. Spencer and to longtime ally Liam McLaughlin^[8]

On October 23, 2006, The New York Daily News published an account by reporter Ben Smith of an encounter he had with Spencer as they were en route to a campaign event. According to Smith Spencer disparaged the physical appearance of Senator Hillary Clinton and suggested that she had undergone extensive plastic surgery.[3] After vociferously denying the charges Spencer appeared on the Jerry Hager radio program-broadcast by 77-WABC-asserting that his comments had been taken out of context, and implying that his campaign was considering pursuing further action against The Daily News.