Matt Cohen (writer)
Canadian writer
Matthew Cohen (30 December 1942 – 2 December 1999) was a Canadian writer who published both mainstream literature under his own name and children's literature under the pseudonym Teddy Jam.
History.
Matt Cohen was born in Montreal, son of Morris Cohen and Beatrice Sohn, and was raised in Kingston and Ottawa. He studied political economy at the University of Toronto and taught political philosophy and religion at McMaster University in the late 1960s before publishing his first novel "Korsoniloff" in 1969.
His fiction was translated into German, Dutch, French, Greek, Spanish and Portuguese. "The Spanish Doctor", his biggest international success, continues to sell well in the French and Spanish markets.
His greatest critical success as a writer was his final novel "Elizabeth and After" which won the 1999 Governor General's Award for English-language Fiction only a few weeks before his death. He had been nominated twice previously, but had not won, in 1979 for "The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone" and in 1997 for "Last Seen".
A founding member of the Writers' Union of Canada, he served on the executive board for many years and as president in 1986. During his presidency, the Writer's Union was finally able to persuade the government of Canada to form a commission and establish a Public Lending Right program. He also served on the Toronto Arts Council as chair of the Literary Division and was able to obtain increased funding for writers. In recognition of this work, he was awarded a Toronto Arts Award and the Harbourfront Prize.
He also published a number of children's books under the pseudonym Teddy Jam. Cohen's authorship of the Teddy Jam books was not revealed until after his death. "Dr. Kiss", illustrated by Joanne Fitzgerald won the Governor General's Award in 1991 and "Fishing Summer" was also nominated for a Governor General's Award for children's literature in 1997, making Cohen one of the few writers ever to be nominated for Governor General's Awards in two different categories in the same year.
He was married three times; first to Arden Ford, next to Susan Bricker and then to Patsy Aldana.
Cohen died at home in Toronto after a battle with lung cancer. His final book of short stories, "Getting Lucky", and his final Teddy Jam title, "The Kid's Line", were posthumously published in 2001. A Canadian literary award, the Matt Cohen Award, is presented in Cohen's memory by the Writers' Trust of Canada.
A film adaptation of his 1990 novel "Emotional Arithmetic" has been produced by Triptych films starring Max von Sydow, Christopher Plummer, Gabriel Byrne and Susan Sarandon. It was the closing gala at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival.
Bibliography.
Years link to corresponding "year in literature" or, for poetry, to "year in poetry".
References.
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />

Elizabeth and After
1999 novel by Matt Cohen
Elizabeth and After is a novel by Matt Cohen, first published in 1999 by Knopf Canada. His final novel, it won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction just a few weeks before Cohen's death.
Plot summary.
The story is about the lives of a few people living in a small town north of Kingston, Ontario. Carl McKelvey, a "white trash male" as he describes himself, returns to the town after a three-year absence in the hope that he can live with his daughter again, and maybe even renew his relationship with his ex-wife, Chrissy. He carries deep in his heart his guilt of having driven his car into a tree, killing his mother, Elizabeth, many years earlier.
Elizabeth's sudden death ended not only an unhappy marriage she had with William McKelvey, a failed farmer, but also a secret relationship she had with Adam Goldsmith, Carl's real father. Elizabeth might have felt that the uncultured McKelvey ruined her life, or she might be too frightened to ruin her life herself by leaving him. In either case, her life has affected McKelvey, Adam and Carl so deeply that her influence is still felt eleven years later.
When Carl is attacked by Fred (Chrissy's boyfriend), Adam, even though reserved and gentle-natured, decides to do something for his son. Adam takes Fred in his car and drives him into the same tree that Elizabeth's car crashed into eleven years earlier. Both Adam and Fred are killed instantly. Carl learns about his relationship with Adam in a letter Adam left for him.
Reception.
"Elizabeth and After" received positive reviews. Kirkus Reviews described the novel as "An extremely satisfying work, finding new depth in old themes, and offering a fitting memorial to a talented, deeply humane writer." Publishers Weekly wrote that Cohen's "empathy and compassion, and his delicate depiction of loss and longing in a closely knit community, haunt his narrative."
"Booklist" also reviewed the novel.
References.
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />
External links.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
American novelist
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (August 31, 1844 – January 28, 1911) was an early feminist American author and intellectual who challenged traditional Christian beliefs of the afterlife, challenged women's traditional roles in marriage and family, and advocated clothing reform for women.
In 1868, three years after the Civil War ended, she published "The Gates Ajar", which depicted the afterlife as a place replete with the comforts of domestic life and where families would be reunited—along with family pets—through eternity.
In her 40s, Phelps broke convention again when she married a man 17 years her junior. Later in life she urged women to burn their corsets. Her later writing focused on feminine ideals and women's financial dependence on men in marriage. She was the first woman to present a lecture series at Boston University. During her lifetime she was the author of 57 volumes of fiction, poetry and essays. In all of these works, she challenged the prevailing view that woman's place and fulfilment resided in the home. Instead, Phelps' work depicted women as succeeding in nontraditional careers as physicians, ministers, and artists.
Near the end of her life, Phelps became very active in the animal rights movement. Her novel, "Trixy", published in 1904, was constructed around the topic of vivisection and the effect this kind of training had on doctors. The book became a standard polemic against experimentation on animals.
Early life.
Elizabeth (August 31, 1844 – January 28, 1911) was born in Boston, Massachusetts to American Congregational minister Austin Phelps and Elizabeth Wooster Stuart Phelps (1815–1852). Her baptismal name was Mary Gray Phelps, after a close friend of her mother's. Her mother wrote the Kitty Brown series of books for girls under the pen name H. Trusta. Her brother, Moses Stuart Phelps, was born in 1849. Her mother was the eldest daughter of Moses Stuart, the well-known professor of Sacred Literature at Andover Theological Seminary. Her mother was intermittently ill for most of her adult life and died of brain fever shortly after the birth of their third child, Amos, on November 20, 1852, Then eight years old, Mary Gray asked to be renamed in honor of her mother.
Her father Austin Phelps was a widely respected Congregational minister and educator. He was pastor of the Pine Street Congregational Church until 1848, when he accepted a position as the Chair of Rhetoric at Andover Theological Seminary. He met Elizabeth Phelps that same year and they were married in the fall. The family moved to Boston and in 1869 he became President of the Andover Theological Seminary, where he served in that role for 10 years. His writings became standard textbooks for Christian theological education and remain in print today.
Two years after her mother' death, Elizabeth's father married her mother's sister, Mary Stuart. She was also a writer but died of tuberculosis only 18 months later. Less than six months later her father married Mary Ann Johnson, the sister to a minister, and they had two sons, Francis Johnson (1860) and Edward Johnson (1863).
Phelps received an upper class education, attending the Abbot Academy and Mrs. Edwards' School for Young Ladies. She had a gift for telling stories as a child. One source noted, "She spun amazing yarns for the children she played with... and her schoolmates of the time a little farther on talk with vivid interest of the stories she used to improvise for their entertainment. At thirteen, she had a story published in "Youth's Companion" and other stories appeared in Sunday School publications.
Writing.
In most of her writings she used her mother's name "Elizabeth Stuart Phelps" as a pseudonym, both before and after her marriage in 1888 to Herbert Dickinson Ward, a journalist seventeen years younger. She also used the pseudonym Mary Adams. She gained recognition early in life from prominent literary figures including Thomas Wentworth Higginson and John Greenleaf Whittier.
At age 19 she sent a Civil War story titled "A Sacrifice Consumed" to "Harper's Magazine". The magazine editor warmly received her contribution and sent her a generous payment along with a note asking her to write for them again. In 1864 "Harpers" published her first adult fiction. She then began writing her first books for children which became known as the "Tiny series". She followed these with the four-volume "Gypsy Breynton" series, which was later recognized as her best-known juvenile writing. She also published two books that depicted the realistic adventures of a four-year-old boy named Trotty, "The Trotty Book" (1870) and "Trotty's Wedding Tour, and Story-book" (1873). Her story "The Tenth of January" appeared in "The Atlantic Monthly" in March 1868. It was about the death of scores of girls in the Pemberton Mill collapse and fire in Lawrence, Massachusetts on January 10, 1860.
Spiritualist novels.
Ward wrote three Spiritualist novels. The first, "The Gates Ajar", became her most famous. It took her two years to write. She wrote later that after she spent more than two years revising it, "I could have said it by heart." The book was finally published after the end of the Civil War. In it, she writes about a girl named Mary Cabot, whose brother was killed during the Civil War. The grief-stricken girl becomes convinced that she and her brother will be reunited in an afterlife in which people retain their physical shapes and personalities.
The book became very popular, in part from its positive portrayal of death shortly after the Civil War, during which more than 400,000 individuals lost their lives. It also received a great deal of criticism for the way Phelps depicted heaven as less a place to greet God than to be reunited with loved ones. It rejected the traditional Calvinist view of Heaven. The controversy only stimulated sales, and within a few weeks after its release, her publisher sent her a payment for $600 (about $ in today's dollars) and a note, “Your book is moving grandly. It has already reached a sale of 4,000 copies.”
Over 100,000 copies were sold in the United States and England and it was translated and reprinted in at least four other languages.
She received thousands of letters in response to the first book. She wrote two more books on the same topic, "Between the Gates" and "Beyond the Gates". She then wrote a novella about animal rights titled "Loveliness". Phelps said she wrote "The Gates Ajar" to comfort a generation of women who were devastated by the losses of their loved ones following the Civil War and who found no comfort in traditional religion. Phelps' vision of heaven made the book a run-away best seller. She later built on the success of the first Gates book with a series of other books that featured the word "Gates" in their titles and which continued to reinforce her views of the afterlife as a place with gardens, comfortable front porches, and finely built houses.
"The Gates Ajar" inspired works by other authors in the following decades, such as Mark Twain's parody "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" (1909) and Louis B. Pendleton's "Wedding Garment: A Tale of the Afterlife" (1894). The final novel in the "Gates" series was also adapted into a stage play in 1901 titled "Within the Gates".
Advocate for social reform.
While writing these and other popular stories, she became an advocate through her lectures and other work for social reform, temperance, and women's emancipation. She was also involved in clothing reform for women, and in 1874 urged them to burn their corsets.
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />Burn up the corsets! ... No, nor do you save the whalebones, you will never need whalebones again. Make a bonfire of the cruel steels that have lorded it over your thorax and abdomens for so many years and heave a sigh of relief, for your emancipation I assure you, from this moment has begun.
A key influence on her writings on women's rights, especially her beliefs regarding marriage, were the works of John Stuart Mill, such as Mill's 1869 essay The Subjection of Women. Though Phelps was an avid writer on reform issues, she was not actively involved with women's rights organizations or other reform groups of the time. The progressive deterioration of her health from the 1870s onward kept her contributions mostly literary in nature rather than public.
In 1877 she published a novel, "The Story of Avis", that was ahead of its time. The work focuses on many of the early feminist issues of her era. In it she portrayed a woman's struggle to balance her married life and associated domestic responsibilities with her passion to become a painter. The protagonist is an independent, extraordinary woman in her time who initially decides her goals will not be constrained by marriage and financial dependence on a husband, although she eventually ends up marrying anyhow. She may have been reflecting her mother's life when she described the impossibility of pursuing both her artistic ambitions and adhering to her domestic responsibilities. Elizabeth's novel was largely influenced by Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh. Phelps's unfavorable depiction of men's and women's roles in marriage was controversial.
In 1876 Phelps became the first woman to present a lecture series at Boston University. Her presentations were titled "Representative Modern Fiction" and they analyzed the works of George Eliot.
Social advocacy was also incorporated in Phelp's various children's literature publications as she did not attempt to conceal the inequities of the era's class structure. In stories such as "Bobbit's Hotel", "One Way to Get An Education", and "Mary Elizabeth", Phelps directly illustrates the impact of poverty on children. In "Bobbit's Hotel", the title character dies in an effort to shelter two young orphans. "Mary Elizabeth" depicts a young homeless girl's choices between theft and begging as a means of survival. "One Way to Get An Education" depicts a child laborer's desire for a better life than mill work and subsequent decision to self-injure in order to attain an education.
Later work.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and her husband co-authored two Biblical romances in 1890 and 1891. Her autobiography, "Chapters from a Life", was published in 1896 after being serialized in McClure's. She also wrote a large number of essays for Harper's Magazine.
Phelps continued to write short stories and novels into the twentieth century. Her novel "Trixy" (1904) focused on antivivisection, a cause she supported later in life. Writer, feminist, and animal rights advocate Carol J. Adams describes the novel as "important and timely." Her last work, "Comrades" (1911) was published posthumously. Phelps died January 28, 1911, in Newton Center, Massachusetts.
Selected works.
<templatestyles src="Div col/styles.css"/>
References.
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />
  incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:

Elizabeth Kane
American physician, writer and philanthropist
Elizabeth Dennistoun Wood Kane (May 12, 1836 – May 25, 1909) was an American physician, writer, philanthropist, and women's rights activist. She was one of the first students to attend the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania. Her writing supported the part her husband, Thomas Kane, played in the lobbying efforts that attempted to prevent the Poland Bill from persecuting members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who then practiced plural marriage.
She wrote two travel accounts, "Twelve Mormon Homes Visited in Succession on a Journey through Utah to Arizona" and "A Gentile Account of Life in Utah's Dixie", published from her letters to home and her personal diaries that recounted the time that she spent in Utah with Thomas Kane associating with the Mormons. While the books may have influenced congressional debate about the Poland Bill, they more importantly represent a close first-person account of Mormons in the mid-late 1880s and reveal their lifestyles and opinions about polygamous practices.
Early life.
Elizabeth Dennistoun Wood was born on May 12, 1836, in Liverpool, England, in a suburb called Bootle. She was the third of six children of William Wood and Harriet Amelia Kane (first cousin of Thomas Kane's father). William was Scottish and Harriet was American; the two met in New York City, and married in September 1830. William Wood worked in the family mercantile business Dennistoun & Company. He attended University of St Andrews and University of Glasgow and had a wide variety of intellectual interests. Elizabeth grew up in a loving home, where her secular and spiritual education were cultivated by her parents. She met Thomas Leiper Kane, her second cousin and future husband, when he visited her family in 1842. Her family relocated to New York City in 1844.
Elizabeth's mother died after giving birth to her seventh child when Elizabeth was ten years old. Her father's lack of skill in raising and nurturing children created an unhappy home life for Elizabeth. He married his cousin's widow, Margaret Lawrence, but Elizabeth never bonded with her stepmother. Her teenage years were full of emotional insecurity, influencing her desire to marry at an early age. She married Thomas Kane in 1853 in New York City, when she was sixteen. The couple lived in Philadelphia where Thomas's father, John K. Kane, worked as a United States District Court judge.
Mid life.
Elizabeth and Thomas Kane envisioned working together to close the gender equality gap through women's education and they also sought to reform the institution of marriage. She enrolled in the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania (now Drexel University Medical School) in 1854 as one of its first students. She studied on and off for 29 years, finally earning her M.D. in 1883. She and her husband founded a school for underprivileged children in Philadelphia, based on French preschools. She was a local leader in the House of Refugee movement, which served to help reform juvenile delinquents. She was also an amateur photographer.
Kane did not share her husband's interest in the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; she resented them because of their influence on him and their practice of polygamy. While her husband was away working, her father-in-law suggested that she study mathematics to keep herself busy. With this newfound knowledge, she helped manage his business affairs with a practical hand. Her husband encouraged her to cultivate her writing skills, hoping she would become a political and activist writer. Although she did not become a public activist at the time, she did write privately. She also did some historical writing about local families and communities. Her most acclaimed work, however, was two travel accounts she wrote while accompanying her husband on a trip to visit the Mormons in Utah.
When Kane's husband went on extended trips to help his Mormon compatriots, he would abandon his job, leaving her in financial distress. Accustomed to an upper-middle-class lifestyle, she expected her husband to be the sole provider for the family. Her anxiety about their finances, however, made her consider finding employment on multiple occasions. She had to rely on her father-in-law for financial security during her husband's extended trips. In 1858, they moved to McKean and shortly after moved to Elk, where they would spend most of the year, returning to Philadelphia in the winter. When her husband enlisted in the Civil War, Kane and her children lived with her aunt, Ann Gray Thomas. Kane received special permission to pass through enemy lines to doctor her husband when he was wounded in battle. After returning home, the small settlement they started became Kane, Pennsylvania.
Later life and death.
Shortly after Kane graduated from medical school in 1883, her husband died of pneumonia. She continued to write, completing the final chapter of her father's autobiography after he died, as well as a biography of her ancestor John Kane. She taught in the Presbyterian Sunday School and was elected president of a local chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, attending both state and national conventions.
She never independently practiced medicine, but her children often consulted with her about their patients. She traveled to Mexico with her son to a conference for the Pan-American Medical Congress. Her travel account in Mexico was published by Kane's newspaper. She remained politically active throughout her life. She continued to develop her skills and talents, botanical drawing, wood carving, microscopic picturing, and photography. She spoke fluent French, had fair skills in Swedish and Italian, and had learned German earlier in her life. She never lost her passion for learning; she was studying Spanish before she died on May 25, 1909, at the age of 73.
In an obituary, she was called the "Mother of Kane". The businesses in town closed in honor of her funeral, despite it being private.
Career.
"Twelve Mormon Homes Visited in Succession on a Journey through Utah to Arizona".
In the winter of 1872, Kane accompanied her husband on a twelve-day trip from Salt Lake City to St. George, Utah, with her two younger sons Evan O'Neil and William Wood, as guests of Brigham Young in view of Thomas Kane's work in defending the Latter-day Saints in Utah. She was initially uninterested in going but changed her mind when she thought the change in weather could improve her husband's poor health.
Kane hoped that issues with polygamy would be solved if Congress legitimized current polygamous marriages, but prohibited subsequent marriages. She used her time in Utah to converse with Mormon women and understand their opinions on polygamy. She was shocked to discover that they staunchly defended polygamy and appeared to be content in their plural marriages.
Kane's book "Twelve Mormon Homes Visited in Succession on a Journey through Utah to Arizona", consisted of her letters home and her personal travel journal. This specific travel account described her time traveling through Salt Lake City to St. George. Each of the twelve homes she visited was a stop for food and lodging on the way. In writing, her objective was to inform rather than to persuade. This was neither an unusual approach nor a new topic, as at the time many writers wrote Mormon travel accounts similar to hers. According to Eric A. Eliason, the travel accounts had become their own style of literature, due to the interest and recording of the point of view of the subject matter. Kane followed this approach in writing her travel account, interviewing the Mormons and recording their opinions, while attempting to remain detached from the subject matter. In contrast to most of the Mormon travel accounts written at the time, her writing focused on rural Utah rather than urban locales, covering more than one visited settlement. She also added accounts of Mormon pioneering and their relationships with the Native Americans.
During her time in Utah, Kane had the opportunity to attend some Mormon church meetings. While many other travelers were not impressed with Mormon meetings, she admitted to liking their informality and simplicity. She was particularly impressed by a sermon given by William C. Staines, recording her children's fondness, but regretted not taking notes from it. Having spent a good deal of time with the Mormons in Salt Lake City, she befriended Mormon women, better understanding the issues of polygamy, women's rights, and the general hardships that Mormon people faced. She appreciated the goodness of the people, despite not sharing their beliefs.
Her husband encouraged her to publish her personal journals and letters to family in order to help lobby against the Poland Act. Kane used fictitious names to protect the Saints' anonymity. "Twelve Mormon Homes Visited in Succession on a Journey through Utah to Arizona", was published in New York by her father in 1874. Experiencing growing sympathy for the Mormons, particularly the women, Kane hoped the book would lessen the persecution of the Latter-day Saints. While her book failed to attain mainstream success, it was received well by many and mentioned in some newspaper articles.
"A Gentile Account of Life in Utah's Dixie".
Kane's time in the Southern Utah desert in St. George was the turning point of her feelings towards Mormons. Although she enjoyed her time in Salt Lake City, she still harbored some negative feelings towards them. After associating with more women, she began to see polygamy in a light different than that portrayed by other writers. She observed the women's increased independence in comparison to Eastern ideas of harems, as Mormon women often contributed to running finances, businesses, and households while their husbands were away. She observed the relationships between members of a polygamous family, observing that the marriage worked quite well; some women were in love with their husbands and some women were not. Even though it was difficult sometimes, they believed there was a greater reward in heaven awaiting those who made sacrifices on the earth.
Kane revealed that she admired the Saints in St. George more than those in Salt Lake City, because she respected their economic sacrifices. At the end of the trip in Utah, her family was invited by Brigham Young to stay with his family at the Lion House. She wrote that her opinion had changed of the Mormons and that she was willing to stay and "eat salt with them". By the end of her book, Kane revealed she had become a friend of the Mormons, just like her husband, and she also involved herself in lobbying efforts to defend the Mormons. She wrote to Senator Simon Cameron, urging Congress to end persecution of the Saints, since it only fueled the fire of their faith, as they were willing to die for what they believed in. The Poland Act did pass, but it was a milder bill than initially proposed, perhaps due, in part, to the contributions of Elizabeth and Thomas Kane."A Gentile Account of Life in Utah's Dixie", was not published until 1995.
Social and philosophical beliefs.
Religious beliefs.
Kane's deeply religious upbringing influenced the faith she maintained throughout her life. She attended church regularly, read the Bible, prayed frequently, and even wrote prayers in her journals. She tried to live her life by "God's will" and stated that her religion brought her peace and happiness. She was confirmed in the Presbyterian church when she was fifteen. After her first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage she began to fear for her own mortality. She also had deep-rooted fears because her own mother died in childbirth and she cited God as the source of her comfort. Evident of her religious beliefs, she believed that the miscarriage was a punishment from God for secretly not wanting the child and being ungrateful for the pregnancy.
Her husband's lack of interest in organized religion caused heartache for Elizabeth, feeling that she had to live her religion alone. Conflict arose when Thomas did not want their firstborn to be baptized. He pleased her for a time by announcing to her that he was a Christian before leaving on an extended trip to Utah in 1858. It gave her comfort while he was away, but she was devastated when he returned a few months later. His change of heart towards the Mormons strengthened her disdain for them. By the end of her trip to Utah, she reconciled with herself, realizing that although her husband did not espouse Christianity, he was a Christian by his works. Her encounters with the Mormons made her question and consider her own faith and made her wonder if her practice of religion was adequate compared to the Saints'.
Views on women.
Kane was interested in the role that women played in society. As one of the first women to attend medical school at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, she proved to be a pioneer in the cause of higher education for women. She was said to have associated with prominent women's rights advocate Lucretia Mott, to whom her husband introduced her. When she was newly married, she criticized society for reprimanding women for holding "respectable" jobs and, as a result, driving them to less respectable positions. She foresaw a time when women would have a more equal role to play in society. She and her husband were both very interested in the cause of women's rights, and he encouraged her to become a political activist for women. Her father, William Wood, also contributed to her early interest in higher education. He was a member of the New York City Board of Education and worked to open the Normal School for Females in 1870. Thomas Kane was supportive in promoting her education and often argued that those pursuits were more important than her responsibilities at home.
Developing her writing skills, she wrote a "Theory" on women in her personal diary in which she saw polygamy as a sexual double standard that held women to a higher level of chastity than men. In general, she criticized the sexualization of women in society. Drawing on her medical background, she claimed that sex leads to pregnancy, which leads to many health complications and often death for a woman after repeated childbirths and pregnancies. She argued that it was morally wrong for men to expect an excessive amount of childbearing from their wives, and she compared those wives to saintly martyrs. She was a supporter of "voluntary motherhood" but did not necessarily agree with the use of contraception. In her opinion, women should have the right to refuse sexual advances from their husbands to control their own bodies and pregnancies.
She advocated for more female doctors who would better be able to care for the female body, as well as sex education for young women before marriage. She maintained friendships with prominent woman doctors, including Ida Heiberger. She created specific guidelines by which sexually transmitted infections could be dramatically reduced. That included castrating infected males, exiling prostitutes, and granting divorces for males and females but forbidding remarriage.
She believed more emphasis should be put on women's education rather than marriage, which should be achieved when one is grown and mature. Kane also believed in educating boys and girls together rather than separately and thought that both should be allowed to pursue outside occupations. She strongly supported women's suffrage.
Views on Mormons.
Throughout her life, Kane's views on Mormons constantly shifted and were at many times ambivalent. In her book "Twelve Mormon Homes Visited in Succession on a Journey through Utah to Arizona", the title on the second page was "Pandemonium or Arcadia: Which?" Kane metaphorically compared the Mormon community to Pandemonium, the city of Lucifer, and Arcadia, the rural Greek paradise. She revealed that the Mormon state was neither Pandemonium nor Arcadia but rather a mixture of both.
Kane was content with Presbyterianism and disliked several Latter-day Saint doctrines. She was offended by the Mormon claim to religious authority. She objected to polygamy because she believed that it subjugated women. Another reason that she claimed to have disliked the Mormons was that she felt that they drained her husband of his time and resources and prevented him from being interested in her own religion. In many respects, she tolerated the Mormons merely because she loved her husband and wanted to support him even if she failed to share his interest. Unsurprisingly, she did not believe that Mormons were Christian, which was a popular opinion at the time. Evident in her travel account "Twelve Mormons", Kane was impressed by the high morals of the Mormon people and cited their humility, cleanliness, and hospitality.
Later, her views towards Mormons softened as she realized that they held her husband in as high esteem as she. She particularly grew to like William C Staines. Even though he treated her kindly, she still harbored significant animosity towards Brigham Young because he was the leader of the Mormons and an advocate for polygamy. She liked Mormon prayers and hymns, felt that Mormon prayers were more specific than Protestant ones, and welcomed how the whole congregation sang hymns in earnest. She was also impressed by the tolerance that Latter-day Saints had for Native Americans.
She witnessed Utah achieve statehood and the Manifesto end plural marriage. However, her condemnations of Mormons became their most severe upon hearing that a writer was going to publish a book that claimed that Thomas Kane was secretly a Mormon. She defended her husband by claiming that he was too intelligent to have believed stories in the "Book of Mormon" and the "Doctrine and Covenants". She attributed his interest in Mormons solely to pity and gratitude. She always admired the faith of the Saints, but after the death of her husband, she largely ended associations with her former Mormon friends, which proved that was her husband's project, not her own. Kane respected the Saints and admired their faith and some of their religious practices, but she never really was a "friend of the Mormons" in the way that her husband had been.
Personal life.
Marriage.
Elizabeth Wood first met Thomas Kane, her future husband, in 1840 when she was four years old and he was eighteen. He was on a trip to England at the time. He quickly built a relationship with her father, William Wood, which only improved after the death of her mother Harriet. Elizabeth's first memorable encounter with Thomas was at six years old when he was twenty. According to a family story, he gave her a French doll while visiting her family, which sparked her lifelong admiration. Having lost her mother at a young age, she found comfort in her studies and the occasional visit from her cousin Thomas, who, at the age of twelve, she decided she would marry.
Elizabeth was the victim of a difficult family situation, as her father was always working and she disliked her stepmother. As a result, she grew into a quiet, awkward teenager. This was in stark contrast to her love interest, Thomas, who grew up in the loud and outspoken Kane family. During one visit to the Kane family in Pennsylvania, she pretended to fall asleep, while Thomas played piano and sang in the next room, citing that she knew she had fallen in love with him after that moment. Having taken a liking to Elizabeth, he began visiting the Wood's residence frequently. After admitting their mutual attraction, they were engaged on January 25, 1852. As she was so young, her father was hesitant in granting permission, but he eventually agreed, on the condition that they wait until after her seventeenth birthday. They were married on April 21, 1853, three weeks before she turned seventeen, a fact that Thomas never explained.
Elizabeth was lovingly called "Bessie" by her husband, whom she called "Tom". They were both intelligent and idealistic, and they were united by their love for each other and their charity for the less fortunate. Nevertheless, they had vastly different personal philosophies and temperaments. Thomas was a compulsive decision-maker, known for taking risks, and he was suspicious of religious and social constructs. He sought to improve the world through dramatic action by heroically supporting the underdog. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was religious with a love of home and family, desiring physical and emotional security. She was also interested in social reform, but she felt that change was best accomplished through quiet, humble Christian service.
Her early marriage could be best understood by comparing Elizabeth to an "infatuated schoolgirl" and Thomas to her "mentor" or father figure. She was very young and Thomas intended to mold her into the wife and woman she had the potential to be. She idolized Thomas and was overly concerned with what her husband was thinking and feeling about her. Her feelings were hurt easily and her reactions often dramatic, largely due to the significant age and maturity gap between them. Elizabeth was also concerned with the amount of money Thomas was spending on his charities rather than starting his family. His willingness to leave his family and responsibilities to help the Mormons caused much tension in their marriage. He made great sacrifices, which forced her to make sacrifices as well for a cause she did not understand. These conflicts between Thomas and Elizabeth allowed her to become more independent and outspoken than she was at the beginning of their marriage.
She began to feel more comfortable and secure in marriage after the birth of the first two of her four children, Harriet Amelia and Elisha Kent. Although Thomas strove for gender equality in society, ironically he tended to dominate Elizabeth in the interests of his work. For example, he pressured her to apply for the medical school for which he served as a "corporator" (trustee) to promote the higher education of women. Even though they considered themselves


Keith Sebelius
American politician (1916–1982)
Keith George Sebelius (September 10, 1916 – August 5, 1982) was an American politician who served in the United States House of Representatives as a Republican.
He became active in politics following World War II and was later appointed to the Kansas Senate after narrowly losing two Republican primaries for the House of Representatives. He later entered the House of Representatives where he served for a decade before his death from prostate cancer in 1982.
Early life.
Keith George Sebelius was born on September 10, 1916, in Norton, Kansas to Carl Sebelius, who died when he was seven, and Minnie Sebelius. He grew up in Almena, Kansas and graduated from Almena High School. He attended Fort Hays State University, graduated in 1939, earned a law degree from George Washington University in 1942, and returned to Norton to practice law.
During World War II he served in the United States Army and worked for intelligence agencies to detect German U-boats in the Caribbean.
Career.
Early politics.
Following the end of World War II, Sebelius served as a councilor on the Almena city council, and became mayor of the city.
In 1947, Sebelius was elected secretary of the Kansas Young Republicans Club and ran for president of the organization, but was defeated by Paul Lackie. On April 26, 1953, he was selected as the Junior American Legion Commander for the 6th district in Kansas and later became the senior commander in 1954. On September 5, 1955, Sebelius was elected Commander of the Kansas legion by a vote of 494 to 422, with his opponent being John K. Wells. In 1957, he was elected as president of Norton's Chamber of Commerce.
Kansas State Senate.
On December 10, 1962, Sebelius was selected to replace state Senator William B. Ryan, who stepped down to become a district judge, and was appointed by Governor John Anderson Jr. In 1963, he introduced a bill that would put the entirety of Kansas in the Central Time Zone, but it failed.
During the 1964 elections he served as a delegate to the Republican district convention and he announced that he would seek reelection on April 1, 1964. After facing no opposition in the Republican primary Sebelius defeated Democratic nominee Vance Templeton in the general election.
House of Representatives.
Elections.
Sebelius twice ran unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives, losing both races by narrow margins. On January 8, 1958, he announced that he would run for the Republican nomination in Kansas's 6th Congressional District, but was narrowly defeated by incumbent Representative Wint Smith by 51 votes. He ran again in 1960, but was defeated by county attorney Bob Dole by 982 votes.
During the 1976 presidential election, Senator Bob Dole was selected as Ford's vice presidential running mate; had they won, it would have resulted in Dole's resignation from the Senate and a special election. It was speculated that Sebelius would be appointed to replace Dole. However, Governor Jimmy Carter won the presidential election causing Dole to remain in the Senate.
Tenure.
In 1968, Dole left office to run for Senate and was succeeded by Sebelius, who served until 1981. In June 1969, he served in place of House Minority Whip Leslie C. Arends due to his absence and assisted Minority Leader Gerald Ford for one week. In May 1973, the National Federation of Independent Business named him Man of the Year for Kansas.
On November 15, 1973, he stated that "I frankly believe the man is telling the truth" after hearing Richard Nixon speak about Watergate for over an hour. On December 4, 1973, he voted in favor of House Minority Leader Gerald Ford's appointment as vice president after Spiro Agnew's resignation. After the transcript of the Nixon White House tapes were released he stated that they "are depressing to read and give an unfavorable view of the President". When asked what he thought of the possibility of Nixon refusing to comply with the Supreme Court's ruling in "United States v. Nixon" he stated that "it would be damn close to an impeachable offense". He voted in favor of a resolution allowing for live radio and television coverage of the impeachment inquiry by the House Judiciary committee. Following Nixon's resignation and Ford's accession to the presidency, Sebelius voted in favor of Nelson Rockefeller's appointment as vice president.
On April 25, 1980, Sebelius announced that he would not seek reelection to the House of Representatives and was succeeded by Pat Roberts, his administration aide.
Later life.
On January 11, 1981, a banquet was held in his honor and received telegrams from former President Gerald Ford and President-elect Ronald Reagan. On this occasion the Norton reservoir was renamed to Keith Sebelius Lake in his honor and on January 16, he was named as a Distinguished Kansan of the Year. In 1979, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and on August 5, 1982, he died in Norton County Hospital from it. He was buried in Norton, Kansas.
Family.
Sebelius married Elizabeth Adeline Roberts and had two children with her, R. Douglas Sebelius and K. Gary Sebelius, before his death in 1982. In 1974, K. Gary Sebelius married Kathleen Sebelius, the daughter of former Ohio Governor John J. Gilligan. She would later serve as the governor of Kansas from 2003 to 2009, and as United States Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Political positions.
Domestic.
Sebelius introduced a constitutional amendment to legalize voluntary prayer in public buildings in 1971, but no action was taken on it. In April 1971, Kansas held a voter referendum to lower the voting age, which he supported; he later voted in favor of the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. He criticized Nixon's decision to sell 10 million tons of United States grain to the Soviet Union at subsidized prices and later called for the resignation of Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz.
When the House of Representatives voted on recognizing a holiday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., Sebelius was one of the forty-eight representatives who abstained from the vote.
Foreign.
In October 1969, he asked for his name to be removed from a letter created by Representative Sam Steiger to President Richard Nixon asking Nixon to point out to the North Vietnamese that the United States would not rule out any military option in gaining peace with honor, as the wording of the letter promoted an escalation of the war.
On July 18, 1973, he voted against the War Powers Resolution; after Nixon vetoed the bill Sebelius voted against the overriding of it on November 7, but the House and Senate voted to override Nixon's veto. On July 31, 1973, Sebelius voted in favor of a bill that would decrease the United States' military presence overseas by 100,000 and create a cap of 400,000 troops, but it was defeated by a vote of 243 to 163.
Electoral history.
<templatestyles src="Template:Hidden begin/styles.css"/>Keith Sebelius electoral history

Norton, Kansas
City in Norton County, Kansas
Norton is a city in and the county seat of Norton County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 2,747.
History.
Norton was founded in 1872. Like the county, it was named for Capt. Orloff Norton.
The first hotel was a log house, built in 1873.
One of the first recorded tornado pictures was taken in Norton, in 1909, by photographer Will Keller.
Geography.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all land. The city is situated on the north side of Prairie Dog Creek in Norton County. Before the Bureau of Reclamation constructed Keith Sebelius Lake in 1963, Norton was prone to frequent flooding. The construction of the Dam has since resolved the problem and created the current reservoir that sits southwest of Norton. The Nebraska border is located north of the city.
Climate.
Norton is on the boundary of two climate zones, humid continental and semiarid. Temperatures can fluctuate drastically between the winter and summer seasons. Because of its location on the High Plains, snowfall totals can sometimes approach the yearly average after a single snowfall.
Demographics.
<templatestyles src="US Census population/styles.css"/>
2020 census.
The 2020 United States census counted 2,747 people, 1,213 households, and 692 families in Norton. The population density was 1,439.7 per square mile (555.9/km2). There were 1,457 housing units at an average density of 763.6 per square mile (294.8/km2). The racial makeup was 90.21% (2,478) white or European American (88.24% non-Hispanic white), 0.84% (23) black or African-American, 0.55% (15) Native American or Alaska Native, 0.73% (20) Asian, 0.0% (0) Pacific Islander or Native Hawaiian, 1.09% (30) from other races, and 6.59% (181) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race was 5.28% (145) of the population.
Of the 1,213 households, 26.0% had children under the age of 18; 42.6% were married couples living together; 28.9% had a female householder with no spouse or partner present. 37.5% of households consisted of individuals and 16.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.7 and the average family size was 3.5. The percent of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher was estimated to be 15.4% of the population.
24.5% of the population was under the age of 18, 6.7% from 18 to 24, 22.4% from 25 to 44, 24.9% from 45 to 64, and 21.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42.0 years. For every 100 females, there were 104.8 males. For every 100 females ages 18 and older, there were 104.2 males.
The 2016-2020 5-year American Community Survey estimates show that the median household income was $49,069 (with a margin of error of +/- $7,615) and the median family income was $59,648 (+/- $18,177). Males had a median income of $32,346 (+/- $3,580) versus $29,167 (+/- $11,470) for females. The median income for those above 16 years old was $31,683 (+/- $3,071). Approximately, 0.9% of families and 6.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 4.7% of those under the age of 18 and 13.0% of those ages 65 or over.
2010 census.
As of the census of 2010, there were 2,928 people, 1,290 households, and 763 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 1,465 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 96.8% White, 0.2% African American, 0.1% Native American, 0.4% Asian, 0.5% from other races, and 1.9% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.3% of the population.
There were 1,290 households, of which 26.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.5% were married couples living together, 9.3% had a female householder with no husband present, 3.3% had a male householder with no wife present, and 40.9% were non-families. 36.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 18.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.20 and the average family size was 2.86.
The median age in the city was 44.8 years. 23.2% of residents were under the age of 18; 6.4% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 20.6% were from 25 to 44; 27.8% were from 45 to 64; and 22% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 46.6% male and 53.4% female.
2000 census.
As of the census of 2000, there were 3,012 people, 1,331 households, and 814 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 1,517 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 97.91% White, 0.40% Native American, 0.33% Asian, 0.03% African American, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.63% from other races, and 0.66% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.03% of the population.
There were 1,331 households, out of which 27.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.5% were married couples living together, 8.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 38.8% were non-families. 36.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 20.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.19 and the average family size was 2.86.
In the city, the population was spread out, with 24.5% under the age of 18, 5.3% from 18 to 24, 23.5% from 25 to 44, 22.1% from 45 to 64, and 24.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 43 years. For every 100 females, there were 91.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 82.9 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $30,339, and the median income for a family was $36,179. Males had a median income of $25,943 versus $20,559 for females. The per capita income for the city was $16,438. About 5.5% of families and 9.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 10.4% of those under age 18 and 6.5% of those age 65 or over.
Education.
The community is served by Norton USD 211 public school district.
"Eisenhower Elementary School" Constructed in 1954 and added on to in 1966 and 1990, Eisenhower Elementary serves students in USD 211 in grades ECD through sixth grade. Full day, every day kindergarten is offered as is a full range of special education services. Grades ECD through four are taught in self-contained classrooms. Grades 5 & 6 are departmentalized for instruction in math, reading, science, language arts and computer technology. Each teacher also teaches social studies and spelling to their homeroom students.
"Norton Junior High School" Constructed in 1937 and extensively remodeled in 1984, Norton Junior High School serves the 120+ students in grades 7 & 8. In addition to required classes of math, language arts, physical education/ health, science and social studies each junior high student receives 3 semesters of instruction in computer technology and digital media production and one semester of technology exploration (robotics, pneumatics, electronics, etc.). Elective classes are offered in vocal music, instrumental music, art, wood working, and family and consumer sciences.
"Norton Community High School" Constructed in 1975 & 1977, NCHS is a 3A high school with an enrollment of 200+. A comprehensive high school, NCHS is able to offer instruction in the areas of calculus, physics, human anatomy, chemistry II and foreign language. In addition to the regular academic curriculum, NCHS offers fine arts and vocational training.
The "Norton Community High School Bluejays" have won 17 Kansas State High School Activities Association state championships in wrestling, including six consecutive Class 3-2-1A state championships from 2012–17, and three consecutive Class 3-2-1A championships in 2004-06. Norton's football team won back-to-back Class 4A state championships in 1985 and 1986, and finished as state runners-up in 1989. The girls basketball and boys basketball teams won state championships in 1983 and 2003, respectively, and have made numerous state tournament appearances. NCHS also boasts programs in girls tennis, girls volleyball, boys golf, cross country, and track and field.
References.
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />

K. Gary Sebelius
American judge
Keith Gary Sebelius (born November 8, 1949), known professionally as K. Gary Sebelius or Gary Sebelius, is a former magistrate judge and a former federal judicial nominee to the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. He is the husband of former United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and also served as the First Gentleman of Kansas from 2003 to 2009, while his wife was governor.
Early life and education.
Sebelius was born in Norton, Kansas, the son of Elizabeth Adeline (née Roberts) and Keith George Sebelius, a United States congressman from Kansas. Sebelius earned a bachelor's degree magna cum laude from Kansas State University in 1971 and a J.D. degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1974.
Professional career.
Before becoming a judge, Sebelius had a long career as a lawyer in Topeka, Kansas. He worked as an associate at the law firm of Eidson, Lewis, Porter & Haynes from 1974 until 1979, and then served as a partner at the firm from 1979 until 1989. From 1989 until 1993, Sebelius was a partner at the firm of Davis, Wright, Unrein, Hummer & McCallister. Sebelius then worked as a partner at the Topeka law firm Wright, Henson, Somers, Sebelius, Clark & Baker from 1993 until 2003. During his time in private practice, Sebelius became best known for defending the Topeka Board of Education in the reopened "Brown v. Board of Education" case in federal court.
Failed nomination to district court.
On June 6, 2000, President Bill Clinton nominated Sebelius to be a judge on the United States District Court for the District of Kansas to fill the vacancy created by the decision by Judge George Thomas Van Bebber to take senior status. However, with the United States Senate controlled by Republicans, many of Clinton's judicial nominations languished. In particular, Sebelius' nomination was reported to have been held up by Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback. President George W. Bush later successfully appointed Julie A. Robinson to the seat to which Sebelius had been nominated.
Work as a U.S. magistrate judge.
On August 16, 2002, the judges on the United States District Court for the District of Kansas appointed Sebelius to an eight-year term as a United States magistrate judge. Sebelius began hearing cases in February 2003 and was formally sworn in on June 11, 2003. He retired from the bench on February 20, 2019.
Personal.
Sebelius married his wife, Kathleen Sebelius on New Year's Eve 1974. They have two sons.
References.
<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />

Kathleen Sebelius
American politician (born 1948)
Kathleen Sebelius (; née Gilligan, born May 15, 1948) is an American politician who served as the 21st United States secretary of health and human services from 2009 until 2014. As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Sebelius was instrumental in overseeing the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Before becoming secretary, she served as the 44th governor of Kansas from 2003 to 2009, the second woman to hold that office. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Sebelius was the Democratic respondent to the 2008 State of the Union address and is chair-emerita of the Democratic Governors Association (she was its first female chair). She is CEO of Sebelius Resources LLC.
Early life and education.
Sebelius was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, the daughter of Mary Kathryn (née Dixon) and John J. Gilligan. Sebelius was the second oldest of four children in her family. Her family ran funeral homes and her father was a city councilor in Cincinnati. Jack Gilligan ran for Congress near the end of Sebelius's time in high school and served one term in Congress. Her father was elected governor of Ohio when Sebelius was 21 years old. Sebelius worked in her father's campaign traveling around the state. Her family was Catholic and has Irish ancestry.
She attended the Summit Country Day School in Cincinnati and graduated from Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C., with a Bachelor of Arts in political science. She later earned a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Kansas. She moved to Kansas in 1974.
Early career.
Sebelius served as executive director and chief lobbyist for the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association from 1977 to 1986.
Kansas House of Representatives (1987–1995).
Sebelius was first elected to the Kansas House of Representatives in 1986. She won re-election in 1988, 1990, and 1992. She represented Topeka, Kansas.
Tenure.
In the 1988 presidential election, she endorsed Gary Hart.
In 1991, she ran to become House Majority Leader but lost to State Representative Tom Sawyer of Wichita.
She is strongly pro-choice.
Kansas Insurance Commissioner (1995–2003).
In 1994, Sebelius left the state House of Representatives to run for state Insurance Commissioner and stunned political forecasters by winning – the first time a Democrat had won the position in over a century.
She refused to take campaign contributions from the insurance industry and blocked the proposed merger of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas, the state's largest health insurer, with an Indiana-based company. Sebelius's decision marked the first time the corporation had been rebuffed in its acquisition attempts.
When Sebelius became commissioner in 1995, the Insurance Department had an annual budget of $11.7 million. By 2002, the budget had been cut to $10 million. Among the cuts was spending on contracted services after Sebelius fired two contracted lawyers after an audit discovered they had overbilled the state.
In 2001 Sebelius was named as one of "Governing Magazine"'s Public Officials of the Year while she was serving as Kansas Insurance Commissioner.
Governor of Kansas (2003–2009).
2002 election.
In the general election, Sebelius's platform included promises to protect school budgets from budget cuts, not to raise taxes, and to completely review and overhaul the state government. Sebelius raised $4 million for the campaign, a Kansas state fundraising record. Sebelius defeated Republican Kansas State Treasurer Tim Shallenburger 53%–45%. Sebelius's election made her and her father the first father/daughter governor duo in the United States.
First term.
Throughout her first term, Sebelius built upon her popularity and in January 2006 was tied for 20th most popular governor in the country.
During the 2004 election, CNN speculated Sebelius could be a potential running mate for John Kerry.
In November 2005, "Time" named Sebelius as one of the five best governors in America, praising her for eliminating a $1.1 billion debt she inherited, ferreting out waste in state government, and strongly supporting public education – all without raising taxes, although she proposed raising sales, property, and income taxes. The article also praised her bipartisan approach to governing, a useful trait in a state where Republicans have usually controlled the Legislature.
In February 2006, the White House Project named Sebelius one of its "8 in '08", a group of eight female politicians who could possibly run and be elected president in 2008. She was also cited by "The New York Times" to be among the women most likely to become the first female President of the United States.
In October 2006, the Cato Institute gave Sebelius the grade of "D" on their biennial fiscal policy report card, which measures the fiscal performance of U.S. governors based on spending and taxes. Her grade was influenced by the combination of proposed tax increases and expanded spending growth beyond population plus inflation.
2006 re-election.
On May 26, 2006, Sebelius formally announced her candidacy for re-election. Four days later, Mark Parkinson, former chair of the Kansas Republican Party, switched his party affiliation to Democrat; the following day Sebelius announced that Parkinson would be her running mate for lieutenant governor. Parkinson had previously served in the state House during 1991 and 1992 and the Senate from 1993 to 1997. Parkinson was viewed as a pro-business moderate who strongly supported public education. This was somewhat reminiscent of the fact that John Moore had also been a Republican, before switching just days before joining Sebelius as her running mate.
She was challenged by Republican Kansas State Senator Jim Barnett. A September 1 Rasmussen poll showed Sebelius with an 11% lead over Barnett. Other polls gave Sebelius as much as a 20% lead. As of 2004[ [update]], 50% of Kansas voters were registered Republicans, compared to 27% as registered Democrats. Sebelius nevertheless won re-election, defeating Barnett 57%–41%. Because of Kansas's term limits law, her second term as Governor was her last.
Second term.
In February 2008, during Sebelius's second term in office, there was a report in the "Wichita Eagle" that the State of Kansas was suspending tax refunds and that, because of a lack of tax revenue, might not be able to meet payroll for state employees. Sebelius called for issuing certificates of indebtedness, moving funds from various state agency accounts into the general fund to alleviate the crisis. However, Republican leaders in the legislature did not agree with her certificate of indebtedness plan, saying the state would be unable to repay the certificates unless Sebelius issued allotments or signed a budget rescission bill that had been passed by the legislature but had not yet been delivered to her desk. The standoff ended when the budget arrived, and Sebelius agreed to sign it, although she line-item vetoed several cuts she felt were too large. The rescission bill reduced the budget by about $300 million. $7 million of the cuts came in the form of reduced educational funding.
After Barack Obama's clinching of the Democratic nomination for President in June 2008, speculation that Sebelius would be a contender for the vice presidential slot on the Democratic ticket continued. The "Washington Post" listed her as the top prospect for the 2008 nomination. James Carville and Bob Novak also mentioned Sebelius's name, and Wesley Clark, also considered a potential running mate, publicly endorsed Sebelius, referring to her as "the next vice-president of the United States". Speculation that the vice presidential nomination lay in her future was heightened by the fact that she was chosen by the Democratic Party's congressional leaders to give their party's official response to Republican president George W. Bush's 2008 State of the Union Address. The next day, she endorsed Obama's campaign, one week before the Kansas caucus on Super Tuesday. Obama won the caucus easily, with 74% support.
Speculation on her vice presidential selection intensified when a report from political ad agency insider, Tribble Ad Agency, reported on its website that the Obama Campaign owned the domain name "ObamaSebelius.com" through the GoDaddy.com registration service. However, just after midnight on August 23, it was reported by the Associated Press that Obama ultimately selected Joe Biden, the senior senator from Delaware, as his running mate.
Sebelius is a former chair of the Democratic Governors Association. She was the first female chair of the association (elected as such in 2006).
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (2009–2014).
Nomination.
Sebelius was an early supporter of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, endorsing him in January 2008. After he was elected the President of the United States, Sebelius' early support for Obama and her ability to govern as a Democrat in a heavily Republican state made Sebelius look like a likely nominee for Obama's Cabinet. Sebelius asked to be removed from consideration on December 6, 2008. Following Bill Richardson's withdrawal as Obama's nomination for Secretary of Commerce, there was media speculation that Sebelius would be chosen as the new nominee. Through a spokesperson, Sebelius reiterated her earlier statement that she would not consider accepting a nomination to the Cabinet position.
On February 28, 2009, it was reported that Sebelius had accepted Obama's nomination for the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services. On March 2, 2009, Obama officially announced Governor Sebelius as his nominee. At Obama's announcement, Sebelius was accompanied by two Kansas Republicans, former U.S. Senators Bob Dole and Pat Roberts.
Sebelius was Obama's second choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services. Obama's first pick, former Senator Tom Daschle, withdrew from consideration on February 3 after it was revealed he had over $140,000 in tax errors. In a March 2009 letter to the Senate Finance Committee, Sebelius admitted to "unintentional errors" in tax returns and paid nearly $8,000 in back taxes to rectify the errors. A letter to Sebelius from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and ranking member Chuck Grassley acknowledged their review of Sebelius found no other items needing to be addressed and Baucus, a Democrat, publicly expressed his continued support for Sebelius' nomination.
Anti-abortion activists and senators were the primary opponents of Sebelius's nomination. In answer to questions from the Senate Finance Committee during her April 2009 confirmation hearing, Sebelius stated she received $12,450 between 1994 and 2001 from physician George Tiller, one of only three late term abortion providers nationwide, who was later assassinated. The Associated Press, however, reported that from 2000 to 2002 Tiller gave at least $23,000 more to a political action committee Sebelius established to raise money for Democrats while she was serving as state insurance commissioner.
The Senate Finance Committee approved Sebelius' nomination with a vote of 15 to 8. The full United States Senate voted to confirm Sebelius by a vote of 65 to 31. She was sworn in on April 28, 2009, amidst an outbreak of swine flu in the United States. Lieutenant Governor Parkinson was sworn in as Governor of Kansas and served the remainder of Sebelius's term. As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Sebelius led an agency with 6,500 employees and a $700 billion annual budget.
Affordable Care Act.
Sebelius is a staunch advocate for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare. In response to glitches and failures during the launch of the ACA website, HealthCare.gov, she said in October 2013, "You deserve better. I apologize. I'm accountable to you for fixing these problems and I'm committed to earning your confidence back by fixing the site." Republicans called for her resignation in response to the website problems. Fifty-five members of the House of Representatives called for her resignation, while U.S. Senators Ted Cruz, Lamar Alexander and Pat Roberts all called for her resignation. In response to the calls to resign, Sebelius said: "The majority of people calling for me to resign I would say are people who I don't work for, and who do not want this program to work in the first place."
In 2009, 2010, and 2011, "Forbes" named Sebelius the 57th, 23rd, and 13th most powerful woman in the world, respectively.
Hatch Act concern.
On September 13, 2012, the Office of Special Counsel charged Sebelius with violating the Hatch Act by making a political remark during an official government event. Sebelius's office reclassified the event from official to political and reimbursed the government's expenses.
Resignation.
On April 11, 2014, Sebelius announced her resignation from her position as Secretary of Health and Human Services. That same day, President Obama nominated Sylvia Mathews Burwell as Sebelius' successor. Burwell was sworn in on June 9, 2014.
Political positions.
Abortion.
Sebelius is "staunchly pro-choice". Her office stated that abortions declined 8.5% during her tenure as governor. According to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment statistics, the number of induced abortions in Kansas declined by 1,568, or 12.6%, from 2001 to 2007, the year of the most recently available statistics. Her administration attributes the decline to health care reforms that Sebelius initiated, including "adoption incentives, extended health services for pregnant women..., sex education and ... a variety of support services for families". Nationally, the number of abortions declined approximately 7.6% from 2000 to 2005, the year of the most recently available and reliable U.S. statistics.
Sebelius has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood, which has raised funds on her behalf. In 2003, 2005,