Dennis Kucinich Runs for Mayor of Cleveland
By Jason Sibert
Dennis Kucinich has reentered public life recently with an announcement that he will run for mayor of Cleveland, Oh.
Kucinich has a long career in public service. He grew up in Cleveland the son of a truck driver and a homemaker mother. He graduated from Case Western Reserve University with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in speech and communication. Kucinich started his political career with a run for Cleveland city council in 1967 which he lost. He won a seat on the council in 1969. Kucinich served on the council from 1970 to 1973.
Kucinich ran for the United States House of Representatives in 1972 as a Democrat and lost. The former councilmen ran for the Democratic nomination again in 1974 and lost but ran as an independent in the general election and won 30 percent of the vote.
In 1975, Kucinich became a clerk on the municipal court and held the position for two years, as he was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1977. His tenure as mayor was considered one of the most tumultuous in the history of the city. He was the youngest mayor in the history of big city mayors, earning him the name “boy mayor.” During his time in office, Kucinich refused to sell the city’s publicly owned utility, Municipal Light. The Cleveland mafia plotted to assassinate him in a contract killing, but the plot fell apart when he was hospitalized and missed the Columbus Day Parade. The Cleveland Trust Company, a bank, required the city’s debts to be paid in full, forcing the city into default. The company made the announcement after the news broke that the mayor would not sell the utility. Kucinich was defeated by George Voinovich in his reelection bid in 1979. In 1998, the Cleveland City Council honored him for having the “courage and foresight” to stand up to the banks. The city owned utility saved the city $185 million between 1985 and 1995.
Kucinich spent the next few years in limbo, struggling to find employment. However, he did work as a talk show host, lecturer, and consultant. He returned to politics in 1983 when he won a special election for city council in Cleveland. Kucinich gave up his council seat to run for governor of Ohio as an independent but withdrew from the race. He lived in New Mexico until 1994 and then returned to Ohio to win a seat in the Ohio Senate.
Kucinich won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996 and served there until 2013. He ran for president in the Democratic primary in 2004 and 2008 on a platform that looked a lot like the Bernie Sanders’ campaigns. He also ran for the Democratic nomination for Ohio governor in 2018. Mr. Kucinich’s presidential campaigns voiced a concern for the cause of peace. He advocated the establishment of a Department of Peace. Mr. Kucinich is addressing the cause again in his campaign for mayor. He’s running on the establishment of a Cleveland Civic Peace Department which will identify hot spots in the city and intervene before the outbreak of violence.
This Civic Peace Department will create new policies which address crime, both in prevention and rehabilitation, establish and coordinate new community-based violence prevention programs and conflict resolution strategies. The candidate for mayor also wants to work on drug addiction by decriminalizing nonviolent drug crimes and making battling addiction a priority.
Jason Sibert is the Executive Director of the Peace Economy Project in St. Louis.
