|
|
Michael Dukakis
J.D. (Harvard Law School, 1960) Visiting Professor of Public Policy (Each Winter Quarter)
Phone: 310-794-4228
Fax: 310-206-0337
duke@spa.ucla.edu |
Michael Stanley Dukakis was born in Brookline, Massachusetts on November 3, 1933.
His parents, Panos and Euterpe (Boukis) Dukakis both emigrated from Greece to
the mill cities of Lowell and Haverhill, Massachusetts before marrying and settling
down in the town of Brookline, just outside Boston. Dukakis graduated from Brookline
High School (1951), Swarthmore College (1955), and Harvard Law School (1960).
He served for two years in the United States Army, sixteen months of which he
spent with the support group to the United Nations delegation to the Military
Armistice Commission in Munsan, Korea.
Dukakis began his political career as an elected Town Meeting Member in the
town of Brookline. He was elected chairman of his town’s Democratic organization
in 1960 and won a seat in the Massachusetts Legislature in 1962. He served
four terms as a legislator, winning reelection by an increasing margin each
time he ran. In 1970 he was the Massachusetts Democratic Party’s nominee
for Lieutenant Governor and the running mate of Boston mayor Kevin White in
the year’s gubernatorial race which they lost to Republicans Frank Sargent
and Donald Dwight.
Dukakis won his party’s nomination for Governor in 1974 and beat Sargent
decisively in November of that year. He inherited a record deficit and record
high unemployment and is generally credited with digging Massachusetts out
of one of its worst financial and economic crises in history. But the effort
took its toll, and Dukakis was defeated in the Democratic primary in 1978 by
Edward King. Dukakis came back to defeat King in 1982 and was reelected to
an unprecedented third, four-year term in 1986 by one of the largest margins
in history. In 1986, his colleagues in the National Governors’ Association
voted him the most effective governor in the nation.
Dukakis won the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States
in 1988 but was defeated by George Bush. Soon thereafter, he announced that
he would not be a candidate for reelection as governor. After leaving office
in January 1991, Dukakis and his wife, Kitty, spent three months at the University
of Hawaii where Dukakis was a visiting professor in the Department of Political
Science and the School of Public Health. While at the University of Hawaii,
he taught courses in political leadership and health policy and led a series
of public forums on the reform of the nation’s health care system. There
has been increasing public interest in Hawaii’s first-in-the-nation universal
health insurance system and the lessons that can be learned from it as the
nation debates the future of health care in America.
Since June 1991, Dukakis has been a Distinguished Professor of Political Science
at Northeastern University and visiting professor at the School of Public Affairs at UCLA. His research has focused on national health care policy reform
and the lessons that national policy makers can learn from state reform efforts.
He and the late former U.S. Senator Paul Simon authored the book
titled “How to Get Into Politics – and Why,” which is designed
to encourage young people to think seriously about politics and public service
as a career.
Dukakis was nominated by President Clinton for a five-year term as a member
of the new Board of Directors of Amtrak, The National Railroad Passenger Corporation
on May 21, 1998 and served as Vice-Chairman on the Amtrak Board.
Mike and Kitty Dukakis have three children: John, Andrea and Kara, and are
the proud grandparents of Alexandra Jane Dukakis, Harry Nicholas Hereford, Josephine Katharine Hereford, Olivia Dukakis Onek, Peter Antonio Dukakis, Nora Dukakis Onek, and Sofia Elena Dukakis.
|
