Kit Bond
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| Christopher Bond | |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office January 6, 1987– Serving with Claire McCaskill |
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| Preceded by | Thomas Eagleton |
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| Succeeded by | Incumbent (2011) |
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| Born | March 06, 1939 (age 68) St. Louis, Missouri |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Linda Bond |
| Religion | Presbyterian |
Christopher Samuel "Kit" Bond (born March 6, 1939) is the former governor and current senior United States Senator of Missouri. He has been in the Senate since 1987 and is a member of the Republican Party.
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[edit] Early life and career
Bond was born in St. Louis, Missouri to Elizabeth Green and Arthur D. Bond.[1] He graduated from Deerfield Academy in 1956. He graduated from Princeton University in 1960, and took his law degree from the University of Virginia, where he was first in his class. After law school, Bond served as a clerk on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Atlanta, Georgia, and practiced law for three years at the Washington, D.C. firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. A sixth-generation Missourian, Bond's father, Art Bond, was captain of the 1924 University of Missouri football team.
[edit] Initial public service
Bond's rise in Missouri politics was meteoric -- four years after he returned to his home state, Bond was elected governor. In 1968 Bond returned to his hometown of Mexico, Missouri, to run for Congress. He won the Republican primary in August, and nearly defeated the incumbent, Democratic Congressman Bill Hungate, in November. Then-Attorney General John Danforth hired Bond as an Assistant Attorney General in 1969, where Bond led the office's Consumer Protection Division. At the age of 31, Bond was elected Missouri State Auditor in 1970; two years later, Bond captured the governor's mansion, making him, at 33 years of age, the youngest governor in the history of Missouri.
In many ways Bond governed as a moderate during his first term as governor: for example, he drew criticism from conservatives for his support of the Equal Rights Amendment. While governor, on June 25, 1976 he signed an executive order rescinding the Extermination Order against "Mormons" issued by governor Lilburn Boggs on October 27, 1838. In 1976, in a surprising upset, Bond was defeated for re-election by Democrat Joseph P. Teasdale, then Jackson County Prosecutor. Teasdale's tenure was rocky, and in 1980 Bond made a successful comeback, defeating fellow Republican and incumbent Lieutenant Governor Bill Phelps in the primary, and Teasdale in November. Among his greatest accomplishments was taking the Parents As Teachers program statewide.
Bond was succeeded as governor in 1985 by John Ashcroft, also a Republican.
[edit] U.S. Senate
[edit] Elections
After Sen. Thomas Eagleton decided not to run for re-election, Bond was elected Senator in 1986, defeating Lieutenant Governor Harriett Woods. Bond was narrowly re-elected in 1992 over St. Louis County Councilwoman Geri Rothman-Serot. In 1998 Bond decisively defeated Attorney General Jay Nixon and Libertarian Tamara Millay after a hard-fought campaign, and in 2004 he handily won re-election over Democratic challenger State Treasurer Nancy Farmer with 56 percent of the vote.
[edit] Actions as Senator
In 2004, Fannie Mae was under investigation by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) for questionable accounting practices, and enlisted Bond's assistance in order to turn the spotlight away from them and towards investigators themselves. Bond sent a letter on behalf of Fannie Mae asking the Department of Housing and Urban Development's inspector general to investigate whether OFHEO had improperly leaked confidential information about Fannie Mae. In 2006, OFHEO investigators discovered that the letter Bond sent on behalf of Fannie Mae was in fact written by Fannie Mae lobbyists; OFHEO found a draft of Bond's letter on a Fannie Mae computer system dated nearly two weeks before Bond's office sent the request.[1]
In July of 2005, Bond, chairman of the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee, coauthored the federal highway bill which was signed into law in 2006. The five-year bill provides $286.5 billion for highways, roads and bridges. Bond announced that Missouri will receive almost $1.3 billion in new highway funds as a result of the bill. The new bill provides $862 million per year, a $200 million per year increase. Also, Bond secured $467.5 million for Missouri transportation projects statewide.
On October 5, 2005, Bond was one of only nine Senators to vote against the Interrogation Limits bill, which strictly defines the methods of interrogation that can be used by US forces.
In January, 2006, Bond joined Senators Evan Bayh (D-IN), Barack Obama (D-IL), and Congressman Harold Ford (D-TN) for meetings with the U.S. Military in Kuwait and Iraq.
On March 28, 2006, Bond voted [2] against creating the Office of Public Integrity, which would have looked into charges of corruption by lawmakers [3].
During August of 2006, he introduced legislation that would require government employers to sign extra papers as a condition of employment. The purpose of this act is to ensure that should they leak any classified information to the press, they will have already agreed to prosecution with probable prison sentences. His reasoning follows previous public disclosure about secret overseas interrogation centers and secret domestic surveillance programs. [4](August 2, 2006, Kansas City Star Newspaper)
On January 10, 2007, Bond introduced a measure that would designate the United States courthouse located at 555 Independence Street, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, as the "Rush Hudson Limbaugh, Sr. United States Courthouse". [5] This bill would honor the grandfather of the well-known conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh III. Limbaugh, Sr. was a respected lawyer in the Cape Girardeau community.
On March 12, 2007, Senator Bond, with US Rep Kenny Hulshof, announced that Truman Memorial Veterans Hospital in Columbia, MO will receive $25.8 Million in federal money for a new operating room.
On March 20, 2007, in a Senate vote of 94-2 to revoke executive (government) power to replace federal prosecutors without a preliminary hearing, Senators Kit Bond and Chuck Hagel were the only opposition.[6]
[edit] Personal life
Bond's son Sam, who completed a tour of duty in Iraq in March of 2006 and is currently preparing to return for a second tour of duty, is a member of the United States Marine Corps, making Bond one of only a few federal elected officials with a child serving in uniform.
In 1994, his wife, Carolyn, filed for a divorce, which was finalized the following year. Bond married Linda Pell, now Linda Bond, in 2002. She grew up in the Kansas City, Mo., suburb of Gladstone and works as a consultant to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. She and Bond had dated for about a year before they were engaged on May 17, 2001, and had also dated in 1996 and 1997. It is her second marriage as well.
After winning his second term as Governor, Bond sued his investment manager and PaineWebber, alleging his $1.3 million trust fund had been drained. He was one of several clients who sued, and he settled in 1996 for $900,000.
Bond has permanent vision loss in one eye which he claims is the result of undiagnosed amblyopia during childhood.[7][8]
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] External links
- United States Senator Kit Bond official Senate site
- Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
- Federal Election Commission - Christopher S Bond campaign finance reports and data
- On the Issues - Christopher Bond issue positions and quotes
- OpenSecrets.org - Christopher Bond campaign contributions
- Project Vote Smart - Senator Christopher Bond (MO) profile
- SourceWatch Congresspedia - Christopher S. Bond profile
- Washington Post - Congress Votes Database: Christopher Bond voting record
- Kit Bond for U.S. Senate official campaign site
| Preceded by Haskell Holman |
Missouri State Auditor 1971–1973 |
Succeeded by John Ashcroft |
| Preceded by Warren E. Hearnes |
Governor of Missouri 1973–1977 |
Succeeded by Joseph P. Teasdale |
| Preceded by Joseph P. Teasdale |
Governor of Missouri 1981–1985 |
Succeeded by John Ashcroft |
| Preceded by Thomas Eagleton |
United States Senator (Class 3) from Missouri 1987– Served alongside: John Danforth, John Ashcroft, Jean Carnahan, Jim Talent, Claire McCaskill |
Succeeded by Incumbent |
| Governors of Missouri |  |
|---|---|
| McNair • Bates • Williams • Miller • Dunklin • Boggs • Reynolds • M. Marmaduke • Edwards • King • Price • Polk • H. Jackson • Stewart • C. Jackson • Gamble • Hall • Fletcher • McClurg • Brown • Woodson • Hardin • Phelps • Crittenden • J. Marmaduke • Morehouse • Francis • Stone • Stephens • Dockery • Folk • Hadley • Major • Gardner • Hyde • Baker • Caulfield • Park • Stark • Donnell • Donnelly • Smith • Donnelly • Blair • Dalton • Hearnes • Bond • Teasdale • Bond • Ashcroft • Carnahan • Wilson • Holden • Blunt |
| Missouri's current delegation to the United States Congress |
|---|
| Senators: Kit Bond (R), Claire McCaskill (D)
Representative(s): Lacy Clay (D), Todd Akin (R), Russ Carnahan (D), Ike Skelton (D), Emanuel Cleaver (D), Sam Graves (R), Roy Blunt (R), Jo Ann Emerson (R), Kenny Hulshof (R) All delegations: Alabama • Alaska • Arizona • Arkansas • California • Colorado • Connecticut • Delaware • Florida • Georgia • Hawaii • Idaho • Illinois • Indiana • Iowa • Kansas • Kentucky • Louisiana • Maine • Maryland • Massachusetts • Michigan • Minnesota • Mississippi • Missouri • Montana • Nebraska • Nevada • New Hampshire • New Jersey • New Mexico • New York • North Carolina • North Dakota • Ohio • Oklahoma • Oregon • Pennsylvania • Rhode Island • South Carolina • South Dakota • Tennessee • Texas • Utah • Vermont • Virginia • Washington • West Virginia • Wisconsin • Wyoming — American Samoa • District of Columbia • Guam • Puerto Rico • U.S. Virgin Islands |
