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Chris King | |
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Personal details | |
Born | Thomas Christopher King October 18, 1978 Orlando, Florida, U.S. |
Political party | Democratic |
Other political affiliations | Republican (Before 2010) |
Spouse(s) | Kristen King |
Children | 3 |
Education | Harvard University (BA) University of Florida (JD) |
Thomas Christopher King (born October 18, 1978) [1] is an American entrepreneur and politician. He officially entered the Florida gubernatorial election in 2018 before becoming Andrew Gillum's running mate. [2] He also founded the Elevation Financial Group and is a board member of Grace Medical Home. [3]
Andrew Demese Gillum is an American politician who served as the 126th Mayor of Tallahassee from 2014 to 2018. A member of the Democratic Party, he was its nominee for Governor of Florida in the 2018 election. He previously was a Tallahassee City Commissioner from 2003 until 2014, first elected at the age of 23.
Chris King was born to David and Marilyn King. His father was a lawyer for the Fair Districts movement, which worked to combat partisan gerrymandering in Florida by proving that the Constitution of Florida was violated by the Florida Legislature when it redrew congressional and Florida Senate district lines. [3] Chris' mother, Marilyn King, served 27 years as a board member, including two terms as chair, of Orlando's premier health organization, Orlando Health. Marilyn was also the founding Chair of Grace Medical Home, a not-for-profit medical facility that serves those without affordable health care. Chris served on both the Board of Grace Medical Home and on the Foundation Board of Orlando Health.
Gerrymandering is a practice intended to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries. The resulting district is known as a gerrymander ; however, that word is also a verb for the process. The term gerrymandering has negative connotations. Two principal tactics are used in gerrymandering: "cracking" and "packing". A third tactic, shown in the top-left diagram in the graphic to the right, is homogenization of all districts.
The Constitution of the State of Florida is the document that establishes and describes the powers, duties, structure and function of the government of the U.S. state of Florida, and establishes the basic law of the state. The current Constitution of Florida was ratified on November 5, 1968.
The Florida Legislature is the Legislature of the U.S. State of Florida. It is organized as a bicameral body composed of an upper chamber, the Senate, and a lower chamber, the House of Representatives. Article III, Section 1 of the Florida Constitution, adopted in 1968, defines the role of the Legislature and how it is to be constituted. The Legislature is composed of 160 State Legislators. The primary purpose of the Legislature is to enact new laws and amend or repeal existing laws. The Legislature meets in the Florida State Capitol building in Tallahassee.
King graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Religion, Politics and American Public Policy. King, an evangelical Christian, narrowly lost a race for president of Harvard’s undergraduate council in 1999 after the Harvard Crimson declined to endorse him, noting that his ticket’s “ties to religious groups have raised concerns among students.” “I was nailed to the cross,” King told the Newhouse News Service after the election. “And most of the editorial staff that was so hard on me, the vast majority were Jewish.” [4] He then received his Juris Doctor from the University of Florida Law School. [3] He is currently a board member of the non-profit Grace Medical Home which provides medical care to uninsured Floridians. He is also the founder and chairman of The Elevation Foundation. [3]
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with about 6,700 undergraduate students and about 15,250 post graduate students. Established in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, clergyman John Harvard, Harvard is the United States' oldest institution of higher learning, and its history, influence, and wealth have made it one of the world's most prestigious universities.
The Juris Doctor degree, also known as the Doctor of Jurisprudence degree, is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The Juris Doctor is earned by completing law school in Australia, Canada, the United States, and some other common law countries. It has the academic standing of a professional doctorate in the United States, a master's degree in Australia, and a second-entry, baccalaureate degree in Canada.
King founded the Elevation Scholars Program which works with the University of Central Florida and Orange County Public Schools to provide merit scholarships to students from Title I schools. King also developed the Elevation Global Initiative, which works on tree reforestation, fish farming and entrepreneurship training in Haiti and areas of Africa. [3] [5] [6]
The University of Central Florida, or UCF, is a state university in Orlando, Florida. It has more students enrolled on campus than any other U.S. college or university.
Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) is the public school district for Orange County, Florida. It is based out of the Ronald Blocker Educational Leadership Center in Downtown Orlando. As of the 2018-19 school year, OCPS has an enrollment of 212,605 students, making it the 9th largest school district in the United States and the fourth largest in Florida. The school district also employs over 23,900 instructional and classified employees, which make up more than 95% of the OCPS work force.
Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti and formerly called Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola, east of Cuba in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Haiti is 27,750 square kilometres (10,714 sq mi) in size and has an estimated 10.8 million people, making it the most populous country in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the second-most populous country in the Caribbean as a whole.
He founded Elevation Financial Group, LLC which specializes in real estate investment, property management and property renovation. [3] The group launched six private equity funds. Currently, Elevation owns and operate assets in five states in the US. [3]
In 2004, King was defeated for selection as the Republican candidate for a seat in the Florida House of Representatives by Michael J. Grant. [7]
The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major political parties in the United States; the other is its historic rival, the Democratic Party.
The Florida House of Representatives is the lower house of the Florida Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Florida, the Florida Senate being the upper house. Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution of Florida, adopted in 1968, defines the role of the Legislature and how it is to be constituted. The House is composed of 120 members, each elected from a single-member district with a population of approximately 157,000 residents. Legislative districts are drawn on the basis of population figures, provided by the federal decennial census. Senators' terms begin immediately, upon their election. As of 2019, Republicans hold the majority in the State House with 71 seats; Democrats are in the minority with 46 seats. Three seats are vacant due to resignations.
Michael J. Grant is a Republican politician who served as a member of the Florida House of Representatives from 2004 to 2008, representing the 71st District, which included western Charlotte County, northern Lee County, and eastern Sarasota County. He ran for the Florida House in 2016 and won because he ran unopposed.
In 2018, having converted to the Democratic Party, King ran and was defeated as a candidate for Governor of Florida in the Democratic primary. He ran against former U.S. Representative Gwen Graham (daughter of Governor Bob Graham), Philip Levine, former Mayor of Miami Beach, Andrew Gillum, Mayor of Tallahassee and billionaire real estate developer Jeff Greene. King was the first gubernatorial candidate to promise to refuse to accept campaign contributions from the Florida sugar industry. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] King's polling average was about 4.5%. Following his election defeat, King congratulated and endorsed Andrew Gillum for governor. On September 6, 2018, Andrew Gillum announced Chris King as his selection for Lieutenant Governor.
Party political offices | ||
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Preceded by Annette Taddeo | Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Florida 2018 | Most recent |