John R. McKernan Jr. Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

McKernan has been married twice. His first marriage was to Judith Files. They had one child together, Peter McKernan, but the couple subsequently divorced in 1978. On January 23, 1991, Peter died of a previously undetected heart problem after lying in a coma for nine days. He had collapsed during baseball practice at Dartmouth College. He was 20 years old at the time, played junior varsity baseball at Dartmouth and had recently joined the school’s Beta Theta Pi fraternity.

During his announcement for his re-election campaign, McKernan listed as important successes growth management initiative, a trash reduction and recycling program, and a plan to remove the Kennebec River dam in Augusta by the end of the 1990s. McKernan credited his administration with taking decisive action against illegal drugs, citing the creation of the Bureau of Intergovernmental Drug Enforcement. Troubled by difficult financial issues, McKernan reiterated his claim that Maine has responded to budget difficulties with less impact on taxpayers than other states in the New England region. McKernan pointed out that Maine was the only state in the Northeast that has a balanced budget and that did it without raising taxes. – Polling in May 1990 showed former governor Joseph Brennan with a 9-point lead over the incumbent governor. McKernan felt that the erosion of his support occurred during the legislative budget battles, and would be reversed in the months before the election, believing that the situation would improve as the state budget continued to hold further into the fiscal year.

In 1989, McKernan married eventual U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe after the two had been dating for roughly six years. McKernan and Snowe met while serving in the Maine House of Representatives and again served together in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1983 to 1987.

McKernan retired from Congress to run for governor in 1986, and was sworn in as governor in January 1987.

Before the 1986 election, no Republican had occupied the Blaine House in two decades. Incumbent governor Joseph E. Brennan was term limited and could not run again. McKernan immediately declared his intention to run for governor, and Brennan declared his candidacy for McKernan’s old congressional seat in the first district (which he would eventually win).

McKernan was twice elected to the United States House of Representatives, in 1982 and 1984.

McKernan’s legacy is conflicted. His political party never controlled either branch of the state legislature, so his administration became defined by bitter battles between the Blaine House and the State House. McKernan and the Democratic leadership (particularly John Martin) fostered an extremely hostile and adversarial climate that consumed almost every aspect of Maine government in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The wounds of those conflicts still run deep to this day, as McKernan has made repeated references to the scarred relationship between the two men since leaving office.

While he served in the House, he had the unusual distinction of dating the other member of Maine’s House delegation – Olympia Snowe. The two had met while they had earlier served in the Maine House of Representatives, and began dating in 1978. During their time together in Congress, McKernan and Snowe had nearly identical voting records. Their similar feelings on issues even translated into reversals of opinion – for example, they both switched from opposing aid to the Nicaraguan rebels to later supporting such aid. While their relationship was widely known, it was not reported much by the Maine press.

He left the state legislature in 1976 to begin practicing law at a Portland law firm.

McKernan’s second term became defined by partisan battles with the state legislature’s Democratic majority over fiscal management, given a large budget deficit and a constitution that prohibited borrowing to offset budget gaps. He threatened to invoke a 1976 law permitting the governor to make “fair and equitable” spending reductions to comply with the state’s balanced-budget mandate. His specific controversial actions included drafting plans to cut spending unilaterally and rewriting rules to give state agencies more discretion in how they allocate their reduced funds. Democrats objected and took McKernan to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, but the court upheld the governor’s authority to take such action.

Born in Bangor, Maine, McKernan attended Dartmouth College and then the University of Maine School of Law. A Republican, McKernan was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives before becoming governor. He also served in the state house from 1973 to 1977 and was a delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1976 and 1984.

McKernan’s first entry into politics was being elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 1972. He did so as one of the youngest ever to serve in that capacity, being only 24 years old.

He then returned to Maine and joined the Maine Army National Guard, in which he served from 1970 until 1973. During this time, he moved to Portland, Maine, to pursue graduate studies at the University of Maine School of Law. He completed his J.D. degree in 1974, while already serving in the Maine House of Representatives.

John Rettie “Jock” McKernan Jr. (born May 20, 1948) is an American politician who served two terms as the 71st Governor of Maine, from 1987 to 1995.

John McKernan was born in Bangor, Maine, in May 1948, the son of Barbara Guild McKernan and John R. McKernan, Sr. He grew up there, attending public schools in the Bangor school system all the way through high school. After graduating, McKernan attended Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1970.