Anne Meagher Northup (born
January 22, 1948) is an American
Republican politician from
the state of Kentucky
.
From 1997
to 2007, she represented the Louisville
-centered 3rd
congressional district of Kentucky
in the United States House of
Representatives, where she served on the powerful House Appropriations
Committee. She lost reelection to
Democratic politician
John Yarmuth in the
2006 election. She then
ran for governor, losing by 15 points to embattled
Governor of Kentucky Ernie Fletcher in the Republican
primary election for the
2007 Kentucky
gubernatorial election. Prior to her election to the
United States House of
Representatives, Northup had served in the
Kentucky House of
Representatives.
Northup ran again for her old congressional seat in the 2008
election, losing again to Yarmuth.
On July 30, 2009,
President Barack Obama announced nominated Northup to a
seat on the
Consumer
Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and was confirmed by the
U.S. Senate on August 7.
Personal
Northup
was born to a large family, having nine sisters and a brother, and
grew up in St.
Matthews
, a suburb of Louisville. Northup was educated
at Sacred Heart Academy
and Saint Mary's College
, earning a bachelor's degree in economics and
business. She married Woody Northup, who attended
nearby Notre
Dame
, and they have six children. One of her
sisters is
Mary T. Meagher, who won three
gold medals in
swimming (butterfly) in the
1984 Summer Olympics, as well as a
bronze in
1988.
She was one of the wealthiest members of the House of
Representatives, ranking 34th out of the 435—with assets of $4.4
million to $15.9 million—based on financial disclosure statements
made for the 2006 campaign.
Political career
Northup first became active in politics as a volunteer for
Ronald Reagan's
1980 presidential
campaign. She was elected to the
Kentucky General Assembly in 1987
where she served as Representative of Kentucky's 32nd House
district until 1996.
She was elected to the United States House in 1996, narrowly
defeating one-term Democratic incumbent
Mike Ward. The seat had
been held for the previous 24 years by Democrat
Ron Mazzoli.
1998 campaign and second term
In 1998, Northup defeated Democratic candidate
Chris Gorman, a former state
attorney general, by just 4 percentage points. She voted for three
of the four impeachment charges against President
Clinton in December 1998.
2000 campaign
In 2000, Northup defeated
Eleanor
Jordan, receiving 53% of the vote to Jordan's 44%. Jordan, a
member of the Kentucky General Assembly who began her adult life as
an unwed mother on welfare, was trying to become Kentucky's first
black member of Congress. As with many of Northup's other
opponents, Jordan argued that Northup too often sided with her
Republican counterparts, voting the party line over 90% of the
time. Northup ran on her record of getting federal money for the
district, and argued Jordan would be "too liberal" for
constituents.
The competitive race—the candidates were in a dead heat in early
polls—was of national interest in a year when Democrats were trying
to regain control of the house. It attracted a visit from
then-President
Bill Clinton in support
of Jordan, and became at the time the second most expensive House
race in Kentucky history. A memorable Northup ad featured a clip of
Jordan speaking in the Kentucky House's floor, urging colleagues to
hurry up and vote a bill, saying "I have a fund-raiser at 6 o'clock
and I want to get out of here." The
Courier-Journal
credited that ad, combined with Jordan's admission on a local radio
program that she didn't know the cost of a Medicare bill she had
voted for, with Jordan's gradual decline in support late in the
campaign.
Although the race looked close early on, it became Northup's
largest margin of victory and would remain so until 2004.
2002 campaign
While campaigning for a fourth term in 2002 against
Jack Conway, it was revealed that
Northup's office had both telephoned and sent a letter to the
Federal Communications
Commission regarding a licensing problem that had previously
been dismissed concerning her husband's company. Since the letter
referred to a company vice president as a constituent and did not
mention that Northup's husband was the president, the
Center for Public Integrity
called the action a breach of
ethics and the
Congressional
Accountability Project called for an investigation by the House
ethics panel. Northup's staff said the letter, which had also asked
for updates on the application's progress, did not reveal Northup's
ties to the company to avoid the appearance of special
consideration. FCC officials acknowledged that the case was
reopened on the date of the letter, but said it had done so before
the letter arrived. The FCC said Northup's actions had no part in
its decision to grant the application four days after receiving the
letter.
2004 campaign
Northup was elected to a fifth term with 60 percent of the vote in
2004, her largest margin of victory. Her earlier House races were
much closer. She defeated long time Jefferson County Circuit Court
Clerk
Tony Miller. In three
debates in October, she attacked her opponent as uninformed on
national issues and unprepared for office. In polls before the
debates, Northup led by 7 percentage points; in polls afterwards,
she led by 24 points.
She ran on her past performance, as well as
the promise of securing funding for two new Ohio River bridges and a new
Veteran's
Administration
hospital.
Northup was endorsed by
The Courier-Journal (typically
seen as liberal), several local Democratic officeholders, and
former state Attorney General
Chris Gorman, a Democrat who ran
against her for the seat in 1998.
2006 campaign
Northup was defeated for re-election to a sixth term in the
2006 congressional
election. She lost to Democratic challenger
John Yarmuth, former publisher and editorialist
of the
Louisville
Eccentric Observer (LEO), an alternative newsweekly. Although
initially considered an underdog for his lack of a political
background and the potential for his views to be portrayed as
strongly liberal, Yarmuth garnered 122,139 votes (51%) to Northup's
116,157 votes (48%). Third party candidates garnered 2,896 votes
(1%).
The campaign was relatively civil, although ads were run calling
Yarmuth a hypocrite for his statements condemning the
minimum wage as immoral while his family's
restaurants paid some employees minimum wage. She also attempted to
exploit Yarmuth's lengthy record in print, repeating in campaign
ads some of his potentially unpopular statements (such as allegedly
supporting the legalization of marijuana) and holding a press
conference to complain that not all of his old columns had been
made available to her campaign. Major themes of Northup's campaign
was that she was independent of the then-unpopular President Bush,
and that she was uniquely able to secure federal funds for
Louisville projects. Due to her support for many of the President
Bush's policies and her past campaigning with the president her
reelection was closely watched on election night as an indicator as
to how well the Democrats would do in the mid-term elections.
2007 gubernatorial campaign
On January 17, 2007 Northup entered the
Republican primary election
for Governor of Kentucky.
Northup's running mate was State
Representative Jeff Hoover of Jamestown,
Kentucky
, Republican leader in the Kentucky House.
Northup received endorsements from prominent Kentucky Republicans
including U.S. Senator
Jim Bunning and
Lt. Governor
Steve Pence.
After a lengthy scandal and investigation during his first term
involving alleged abuses of the state's merit-based hiring system,
many believed incumbent governor
Ernie
Fletcher, who sought re-election, no longer had sufficient
support from either the Republican Party leadership or voters. It
was released from
The Courier-Journal newspaper that Anne
Northup was praised as a "formidable" candidate by the state's top
Republican leader, long-time U.S Senator and Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell, although McConnell stopped short of an endorsement of
any particular candidate. Northup faced Fletcher and businessman
Billy Harper in the primary.
Northup began television advertisements about six weeks before the
primary election, with the slogan "The only Republican who can win
in November". On May 22, 2007, Northup was defeated in the
Republican primary by Fletcher. Fletcher lost in the general
election to Democrat
Steve
Beshear.
2008 campaign
On January 28, 2008, Northup announced she would run for her old
congressional seat in the 2008 election. She had previously
endorsed Louisville lawyer Erwin Roberts, who had planned to run,
and helped raised money for him. However, Roberts withdrew from the
race after learning he would likely be called to active duty in the
U.S. Army Reserve. Northup defeated Bob DeVore
Jr. and developer Chris Thieneman in the Republican primary.
Yarmuth was not opposed in the Democratic primary.
At a press conference held in front of a gas station on June 17,
2008, Northup said that the 2008 elections were about the rising
price of energy.
On November 4, 2008, Northup was defeated by John Yarmuth 59% to
41%.
References
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