Fortuno Taps McClintock for Secretary of State of Puerto Rico
Tags: Kenneth D. McClintock, Luis Fortuño
Puerto Rico Governor-elect Luis Fortuño today announced the designation of Senate President Kenneth Davison McClintock, 51, as the U.S. territory’s Secretary of State, the only Cabinet appointment that requires the advice and consent of both houses of Puerto Rico’s Legislative Assembly.
McClintock, who also would fulfill the role of Lieutenant Governor as Secretary of State, said he is “deeply honored by the designation and the trust that Governor-elect Fortuño places in me.” “Subject to the consent of the legislative branch in which I have worked since my teenage years, I look forward to continuing to serve the people of Puerto Rico as part of the Fortuño administration,” McClintock said.
McClintock, a graduate of Tulane University Law School in New Orleans, has extensive experience in the Puerto Rican government and has been one of its most visual and vocal spokespersons for the island on the mainland and internationally.
McClintock served 16 years in the Puerto Rico Senate and as Senate President for the last four years. He has aggressively advocated in Washington for Puerto Rico to become the 51st state.
The first Hispanic Chairman of the Council of State Governments (CSG) in 1999 and the second President of the Parliamentary Conference of the Americas (COPA) in 2000, McClintock has been active in multiple national organizations, including the National Conference of State Legislators, the National Council of La Raza, LULAC, AARP, the Senate Presidents Forum, and the State Legislative Leaders Foundation.
Earlier this year, McClintock co-chaired the successful Clinton presidential primary campaign in Puerto Rico and campaigned for President-elect Barack Obama among Puerto Rican voters in Ohio and Florida. Although Governor-elect Fortuño is a Republican, McClintock, as well as Fortuño’s newly-elected successor to Puerto Rico’s non-voting seat in Congress, Resident Commissioner-elect Pedro Pierluisi, are Democrats.
Fortuño and Pierluisi were elected in a landslide as the candidates of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party (NPP), which is not affiliated to either national party. McClintock would be active in the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), currently headed by a fellow Puerto Rican, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Pedro Cortés, and the National Lieutenant Governors Association (NLGA). He would remain a member of the Democratic National Committee, which he has served on since 2000.
The Secretary of State-designate, born in London, England to a Texan father and a Puerto Rican mother, both deceased, is married to Mari Batista, a former Olympic swimmer and current head of the City of San Juan’s Sports and Recreation Department. The couple has two children; Kevin Davison, 13, and Stephanie Marie, 11. The family lives in San Juan. “
