Pete Buttigieg is an American politician and former Intelligence Officer of the United States Navy Reserve. He served as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, from 2012 to 2018. On April 14, 2019, Buttigieg officially announced he was running for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2020.
Background
Pete Buttigieg was born on January 19, 1982, in South Bend, Indiana, United States. He is an only child of Joseph and Jennifer Anne Buttigieg. His father is an immigrant from Hamrun, Malta. He was a professor of European literature who taught at New Mexico State and then Notre Dame. Pete's mother was also a professor at Notre Dame for nearly three decades. Joseph Buttigieg passed away in January 2019.
Education
Pete attended St. Joseph High School in South Bend, where he was a valedictorian of his high school senior class. He then attended Harvard College, where he majored in history and literature. He was president of the Harvard Institute of Politics Student Advisory Committee and worked on the Institute's annual study of youth attitudes on politics. Pete graduated from Harvard in 2005. He also attended Pembroke College, Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, where he received first-class honors in philosophy, politics, and economics.
Before graduating from college Pete Buttigieg worked as an investigative intern at Chicago's NBC news affiliate, WMAQ-TV. He also worked as an intern for Jill Long Thompson's unsuccessful 2002 congressional campaign. He then served as conference director for former United States Secretary of Defense William Cohen's international strategic consulting firm, The Cohen Group, from 2004 to 2005. Buttigieg worked as a policy and research specialist for Senator John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. After earning his Oxford degree Pete was a consultant at McKinsey and Company from 2007 through 2010.
Buttigieg was elected mayor of South Bend in November 2011, winning by 74% vote. He took office in January 2012 becoming the second-youngest mayor in South Bend history after Schuyler Colfax III. He was 29 years old then. One of his signature programs has been the "Vacant and Abandoned Properties Initiative," a project to repair or demolish blighted properties across the city. The goal was reached by the program's scheduled end date in November 2015.
During this term Buttigieg demoted South Bend police chief Darryl Boykins in 2012, after a federal investigation found that the police department had improperly recorded telephone calls. He also fired the police department's communications director, who had "discovered the recordings but continued to record the line at Boykins' command." A federal judge ruled in 2015 that Boykins' recordings violated the Federal Wiretap Act.
Pete was deployed to Afganistan in 2014 and assigned to the Afghan Threat Finance Cell. His deployment lasted for seven months, after which he returned to South Bend and remained a lieutenant in the Naval Reserve until 2017. In his absence, Deputy Mayor Mark Neal served in the role of the executive from February 2014 until Buttigieg returned to his role as mayor in October 2014.
Buttigieg won his second term as mayor of South Bend in November 2015 with over 80% of the vote. Having proposed a "Smart Streets" urban development program to improve South Bend's Downton area in 2013, he secured a bond issue for the program in early 2015. "Smart Streets" was aimed at improving economic development and urban vibrancy as well as road safety. The project involved the conversion of one-way sidewalks, streetside beautification, the addition of bike lanes, and the introduction of roundabouts. The project was officially completed in 2017. South Bend also launched a $50 million investment in the city's parks under him.
Pete was the leading figure behind the creation of a nightly laser lighting display along downtown South Bend's St. Joseph River trail as public art. The "River Lights" installation was unveiled as part of the city's 150th-anniversary celebrations in May 2015.
Buttigieg was also a 2017 candidate for chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). He announced his candidacy for DNC chair on January 5, 2017 and withdrew his candidacy prior to the first round of voting at the DNC meeting on February 25, 2017.
In December 2018 Pete Buttigieg announced that he would not seek a third term as mayor of South Bend. In January 2019 he declared that he was creating an exploratory committee as a possible candidate for President of the United States in 2020. He officially announced for the 2020 presidential campaign on 14 April 2019. If elected, he would be the youngest as well as the first openly LGBT American president.
In February 2019 Buttigieg published his memoir, Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future, in which he provides a new vision for America’s shortest way home.
(A mayor’s inspirational story of a Midwest city that has ...)
2019
Religion
Buttigieg is a devout Christian, and he has stated that faith has had a strong influence in his life. A member of the Episcopal Church, Buttigieg is a congregant at the Cathedral of St. James in downtown South Bend.
Politics
Buttigieg describes himself as a proponent of democratically influenced capitalism. He favors universal healthcare with retention of private insurance; dialogue and cooperation between the Democratic Party and organized labor; universal background checks for firearms purchases; and environment policies that address pollution and fight climate change, which he views as "a security issue". He also supports federal legislation banning discrimination against LGBT people and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for immigrants. Buttigieg self-identifies as a progressive and a supporter of democratic capitalism. He identifies regulatory capture as a significant problem in American society
Personality
Pete Buttigieg taught himself to speak Norwegian and is also conversational in Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Maltese, French, and Farsi.
He plays guitar and piano and has performed with the South Bend Symphony Orchestra.
Pete has two rescue dogs, Truman and Buddy.
Connections
Buttigieg announced his engagement to a junior high school teacher Chasten Glezman in December 2017. They started dating after meeting on the dating app Hinge in August 2015. The couple got married on 16 June 2018 in a private ceremony at the Cathedral of St. James.
Father:
Joseph Buttigieg
Mother:
Jennifer Anne (Montgomery) Buttigieg
Spouse:
Chasten James Buttigieg
References
Pete Buttigieg: An Unauthorized Biography of the South Bend Mayor and 2020 Presidential Candidate
This pamphlet profiles Pete Buttigieg, the South Bend mayor who might become America's first gay President. Buttigieg is a Harvard graduate, Rhodes Scholar, and former McKinsey consultant. He is also a member of the Navy reserve who has served in Afghanistan. Find out how his career has developed and how he came to be a presidential candidate.
2019
Home Alone: A Neighbor's Thoughts on Pete Buttigieg
Presidential aspirant South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg poses the question "What would my next-door neighbors think of all this?" in his political autobiography Shortest Way Home. In Home Alone, E. Michael Jones, who has lived with his family on the very block where Buttigieg grew up since before Buttigieg was born, answers that question, and his answer is devastating.