Jack F. Kemp

Jack F. Kemp (1935-2009) was the founder and a co-director of Empower America. He served four years as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and as the U.S. Representative from New York state (18 years). He is also on the National Advisory Council for the Free Enterprise Foundation.

Jack Kemp was a honorary co-chairman of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute (AdTI), a conservative, anti-tax think-tank, in the mid-1990s at a time when AdTI was involved in pro-tobacco activities sponsored by Philip Morris (see AdTI-Funding). A Philip Morris document indicates that in 1994 AdTI drafted an article supposedly authored by Kemp which condemned the Clinton administration's proposed cigarette tax increase to cover health care. The article was published in the Los Angeles Times.

In 1996, he was nominated by then Senator Bob Dole as the Republican Party's vice presidential candidate. Kemp is on the board of Habitat for Humanity and "several technology companies including Oracle."

Kemp spent 13 years in professional football, playing quarterback for the San Diego Chargers and the Buffalo Bills. He led the Buffalo Bills to the American Football League championship in 1964 and 1965 when he was named the League's most valuable player. He also co-founded the AFL Players Association and was elected president for five terms. 

Kemp's management at HUD has been described in detail by his then Assistant Secretary of Housing, Catherine Austin Fitts. 


 * Honorary Co-chair, Why Tuesday?
 * International Advisory Board, International Economic Alliance
 * National Advisory Board, Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States
 * Advisory Board, Thayer Hidden Creek

Books

 * Raymond J. Keating, Thomas N. Edmonds, Jack Kemp, "U.S. by the Numbers: Figuring What's Left, Right, and Wrong with America State by State", Capital Books, April 1, 2000, ISBN 1892123142
 * Jack Kemp, Ken Blackwell, "The IRS v. The People", Heritage Books, July 2004, ISBN 089195077X