"70th Gov of Maine" Joseph E. Brennan Hand Signed TLS Dated 1979

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Up for auction the "70th Governor of Maine" Joseph E. Brennan Signed TLS Dated 1979.
ES-3831D
Joseph Edward Brennan
(born November 2, 1934) is an
American
Democratic Party
lawyer and politician from
Maine
. He served as the
70th
Governor of Maine
from 1979 to 1987. He is a former commissioner on the
Federal Maritime Commission
. Born in 1934 in
Portland, Maine
, Brennan lived on Kellogg Street on
Munjoy Hill
. Brennan attended
Boston College
and the
University of Maine School of Law
, and became
Cumberland County
District Attorney before winning election to the
Maine House of Representatives
(1965–1971) and the
Maine Senate
(1973–1975). When first elected to the Maine House he did not own a car and hitched hiked up from Portland.
[6]
His first statewide candidacy was for
Governor
in 1974; he lost the Democratic nomination to
George J. Mitchell
, whom he would later appoint to the
U.S. Senate
. Appointed State
Attorney General
in 1975, Brennan ran for governor again in 1978, winning the primary and general elections. Brennan was reelected in 1982, serving as governor from 1979 to 1987. In 1986 he ran for the
U.S. House
in Maine's First Congressional District and won with 53% of the vote. When he was District Attorney his Munjoy Hill was shot up with bullets landing by his infant daughter, this led Brennan to support the a ban on assault style weapons in America.
After two terms in the House, Brennan ran for governor again in 1990, losing to
Republican
John McKernan
. He ran again in 1994, losing to Independent
Angus King
, but placing second, ahead of Republican
Susan Collins
. He would face Collins in another statewide election in 1996, running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by
Bill Cohen
, a race which Collins won. In 1999,
President
Bill Clinton
nominated Brennan to serve as a commissioner on the
Federal Maritime Commission
, a small independent agency that regulates shipping between the U.S. and foreign countries. He was renominated (by President
Bush
) and confirmed for a second term at the FMC in 2004.