Mel Martinez
Melquiades Rafael Martinez (born October 23, 1946) is a Cuban-American politician. Martinez served as the 12th Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President George W. Bush.
Martinez resigned his cabinet post on December 12, 2003 to run for an open U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Bob Graham. Since winning the Republican primary on August 31, 2004, Martinez's main opponent is Democrat Betty Castor.
Biography
Martinez was born in Sagua La Grande, Cuba. He came to the United States in 1962 as part of a Roman Catholic humanitarian effort called Operation Peter Pan, which brought into the U.S. more than 14,000 children. Catholic charitable groups provided Martinez a temporary home at two youth facilities. At the time Martinez was alone and spoke virtually no English. He subsequently lived with two foster families, and in 1966 was reunited with his family in Orlando.
Martinez graduated from the College of Law at Florida State University in 1973. During his 25 years of law practice in Orlando, he was involved in various civic organizations. He served as Vice President of the Board of Catholic Charities of the Orlando Diocese.
Before becoming Secretary of HUD, Martinez was the elected Chairman of Orange County, Florida, and served on the Governor's Growth Management Study Commission. He previously served as President of the Orlando Utilities Commission, on the board of directors of a community bank, and as Chairman of the Orlando Housing Authority. Martinez was one of the 25 electors from Florida who voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election, and served as co-chairman of Bush's campaign in Florida.
Martinez and his wife have three children and a granddaughter. He is the brother of Rafael E. Martinez.
Martinez is the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate seat of retiring Democrat Bob Graham. Much of Martinez's support has come from Washington: he has been endorsed early by many prominent Republican groups, and has been publicly supported by key national Republican figures such as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. His Cuban background and his popularity in the battleground Orlando region have both contributed to his appeal to the statewide GOP in Florida: many believe that his campaign could help George W. Bush win these key swing groups in the concurrent presidential race.
However, Martinez's nomination was far from certain through the primary election, and he was seriously challenged by former Congressman Bill McCollum. McCollum criticized Martinez's background as a plaintiff's attorney, and many Republicans initially feared that Martinez's nomination would destroy the GOP's ability to criticize Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards' background. Martinez was also said to be soft on tort reform, a major Republican issue in the 2004 race.
Following a McCollum surge in the final weeks leading up to the primary, Martinez fought back in the last week of the race, sending a mass mailing that called McCollum "the new darling of homosexual extremists," pointing out that McCollum had sponsored hate crimes legislation while a member of the House of Representatives. The tactic caused Martinez's support to rise dramatically in socially conservative areas of Florida, most notably in the Florida Panhandle, which had previously been firmly in the McCollum camp. However, Martinez's campaign was criticized for its negativity, and the St. Petersburg Times withdrew its endorsement of Martinez, a rare step for a newspaper to take.
In the Republican primary on August 31, Martinez won a decisive victory over McCollum (42 to 33 percent with 74% of precincts reporting). Shortly afterward, he was scheduled to speak alongside President Bush at the 2004 Republican National Convention on September 2.
Martinez is tied with Democratic candidate Betty Castor in statewide opinion polls. Some pundits predict that his standing will drop relative to Castor because of his more extreme social positions (Castor's positions, while generally representative of the left, are not markedly liberal in American terms). Others believe that support from the Bush administration and Florida's Cuban community will help him to prevail in the general election.
Positions
- Abortion: Opposed to abortion generally.
- Economy: Supports free trade generally; supports tax cuts; advocates lowering regulation of employers and reducing liability insurance burdens.
- Education: Supports No Child Left Behind Act; advocates more standardized testing; supports school voucher programs.
- Foreign policy: Supports the Bush Doctrine; supports Israeli self-determination; supports tightening travel and trade embargo on Cuba; opposes foreign aid to countries that oppose U.S. policies.
- Health care: Supports private Medicare and Social Security accounts for new workers; advocates more thorough investigations of Medicare fraud.
- Homeland security: Opposes base closures in Florida; advocates maintaining "the strongest military in the world."
- Religion: Supports free exercise of religion; opposes "removing all public displays of religious devotion" from society.
- Same-sex marriage: Supports constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
- Second Amendment: Supports the right to bear arms.
