Gale Norton

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Gale Ann Norton (born March 11, 1954) served as the 48th United States Secretary of the Interior, serving under President George W. Bush. She was the first woman to hold this position. She announced her resignation from this post on March 10, 2006, and stepped down at the end of the month. On March 16, 2006, Bush nominated Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne to be her successor. Deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett will serve as acting secretary pending Kempthorne's confirmation by the United States Senate.

1 Early life and career
2 Political career
3 Jack Abramoff controversy
4 Electoral history
5 External links
- 5.1 Notes

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Early life and career

Norton graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Denver in 1975 and earned her Juris Doctor degree with honors from the same university in 1978. She is married to John Hughes. In the late 1970s, she was a member of the Libertarian Party and was nearly selected as its national director in 1980. Norton has been associated with a number of groups in the "wise use" or "free-market environmentalist" movement, such as the Political Economy Research Center, of which she is a fellow. As a lawyer, Norton wrote about some industries' "right to pollute." She also worked as Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture and, from 1979 to 1983, as a Senior Attorney for the Mountain States Legal Foundation.

Image:Norton.jpg

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Political career

From 1991 to 1999, Norton served as Attorney General of Colorado. Prior to her election as Colorado Attorney General, Norton served in Washington, D.C. as Associate Solicitor of the United States Department of the Interior, overseeing endangered species and public lands legal issues for the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service.

In 1996, she was a candidate for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, but was defeated by then-Congressman Wayne Allard, in part. It has been suggested that her pro-choice position contributed to her defeat. Before being named Interior Secretary in 2001, Norton was senior counsel at Brownstein, Hyatt & Farber, P.C., a Denver-based law firm. The firm was listed with the U.S. Congress as a lobbyist for NL Industries, formerly known as National Lead Company.

In 2004, Norton was mentioned as a possible candidate for the U.S. Senate in her home state of Colorado, after the incumbent, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, decided to retire. However, she ultimately decided against it, and the seat was won by Democrat Ken Salazar.

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Jack Abramoff controversy

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Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA) was founded by Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Grover Norquist in the 1990's. Jack Abramoff directed his tribal casinos to donate $225,000 to CREA. <ref>Casino Bid Prompted High-Stakes Lobbying - Susan Schmidt, Washington Post, March 13, 2005</ref>

In a February 2002 letter to Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, John Doolittle complained that a Lousiana tribal casino had been wrongly shut down because the Bureau of Indian Affairs refused to recognize a newly elected tribal council. The subsequent new council hired Abramoff's firm after the elections. In June 2003, Doolittle wrote a letter to Norton criticizing the Bush administration's response to a tribal government dispute in Iowa. In October 2003, Doolittle appealed in a letter to Norton for quicker action for a Massachusetts tribe that was seeking federal recognition. Both the Iowa and Massachusetts tribes hired Jack Abramoff's lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig, in that year. <ref>Papers Link GOP Lawmaker, Abramoff Clients - Erica Werner, San Francisco Chronicle, January 29, 2006</ref> There is a 2002 photograph of Norton with Jack Abramoff. <ref>DOI Releases Photo in Response to Freedom of Information Act Request - United States Department of the Interior, accessed March 17, 2006</ref>