Lamar Alexander in My Life, by Bill Clinton

On Education: 1985: Raised state taxes to improve education

The summer governors' conference, held in Idaho, was marked by an unusual partisan fight over a fund-raising letter for the Republican governors signed by President Reagan. The letter took some hard shots at their Democratic colleagues for being too liberal with tax-and-spend policies, a violation of our unwritten commitment to keep the governors' meetings bipartisan. The Democrats were so angry we threatened to block the election of Republican governor Lamar Alexander of Tennessee to the chairmanship of the National Governors Association, normally a routine action since he was the vice chair and the chairmanship rotated by party every year. I liked Lamar and doubted he had his heart in the attack on his Democratic colleagues; after all, he, too, had raised taxes to fund higher school standards. I helped to broker a resolution to the conflict, in which the Republicans apologized for the letter & said they wouldn't do it again, an we voted for Lamar for chairman. I was elected vice chair. Source: My Life, by Bill Clinton, p.319 Jun 21, 2004

The above quotations are from My Life, by Bill Clinton. Click here for other excerpts from My Life, by Bill Clinton. Click here for other excerpts by Lamar Alexander. Click here for a profile of Lamar Alexander.
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Page last updated: Feb 19, 2019