William J. Green III

William J. Green, III, the son of Congressman William J. Green, Jr., was elected at age 25 to the U.S. Congress in a special election in April, 1964 called upon the death of his father in December, 1963.

Youth

Bill Green was born in Philadelphia, Pa., June 24, 1938; attended St. Joseph’s Prep School; B.A., St. Joseph’s College, 1960; attended Villanova Law School; elected chairman of the Philadelphia County Executive Committee; elected as a Democrat, by special election, April 28, 1964, to the Eighty-eighth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of his father, William Joseph Green, Jr.; reelected to the six succeeding Congresses and served from April 28, 1964, until January 3, 1977; was not a candidate in 1976 for reelection to the Ninety-fifth Congress but was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate against Heinz; elected mayor of Philadelphia in 1979 and served from January 7, 1980, to January 2, 1984; was not a candidate for reelection in 1983 due to his wife becoming pregnant at the start of the primary; resumed the practice of law; became a lobbyist in Washington; and still has a house in Philadelphia, Pa.

Young Bill Green, born in 1938, grew up in an atmosphere mixed the gritty working class surroundings of the his father's base in the Kensington neighborhood's 33rd Ward with his brothers and sisters; Mary, Anne, Michael, Dennis and Patrick. This upbringing gave them extraordinary access to top Democratic leaders. The Harry Truman Library website, for instance, contains a picture of the Green family meeting with Harry Truman in the White House. And the Kennedy record's have frequent mention of the senior Green.

Congressional Career

Upon his election to Congress, Green and his wife Pat moved to Frankford and Green began compiling a record of competence, eloquence, and inspirational leadership that shocked and impressed some of his early opponents, one of whom had derided him as "the student prince." Green was so admired in fact, that the McGraw-Hill book company picked him to write a book about in 1969 for their 'A Week With... Series.' The books, written for Children, profiled a week with people in a variety of different jobs. Green's book was titled 'The Congressman: William Green.'

As a Congressman in Lyndon Johnson's Great Society era, Green took leadership on issues such as meat inspection, rat control, and tax reform. He voted for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the Immigration Reform Act of 1965, and the Medicare Act of 1965, other pieces of President Johnson's sweeping program of domestic reform, and was one of the original Co-Sponsors of the Equal Rights Amendment.

For Green however, the call of Philadelphia politics was strong. He served from December, 1967 through December, 1969 in his father's old post as Democratic City Chairman, resigning after the Democratic City Committee refused to adopt a reform plan he issued after a Republican sweep led by District Attorney and later U.S. Senator Arlen Specter.

An unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for Mayor of Philadelphia in 1971, losing to former Police Commissioner Frank L. Rizzo's "law and order" candidacy, Green was placed in the same district as Congressman James A. Byrne, in office since 1952, in the 1972 Congressional redistricting. This redistricting was a clear attempt from his opponents to get rid of Green who voted in the interest of those in his district rather than the party line; the newly merged district had voted heavily for Rizzo in the mayoral election, had been represented mainly by Byrne, for whom Rizzo campaigned actively. But Green's dynamism and grass-roots organization from his mayoral campaign enabled him to win decisively. He was then easily re-elected in 1974.

Appointed to the powerful Ways and Means Committee in December, 1967, Green faced a long wait to the top under the seniority system. As it turned out, not until mid-1994 would he have become Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and the Republicans took over Congress in December of that year. Green did not choose to wait and hope.

Senate Campaign

In 1976, Republican U.S. Senator Hugh Scott, then the Republican leader of the Senate, announced his retirement after being tarred in a campaign finance scandal and facing pressure from fellow Republicans Arlen Specter and John Heinz, who each coveted his seat.

Backed by Governor Milton J. Shapp, Green won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator, defeating State Senator Jeannette Reibman of Northampton County. But Green's fundraising skills were no match for the millions in the Heinz ketchup-and-pickle fortune that Heinz, after beating Arlen Specter in the Republican Senate primary, was able to spend against him. Heinz's ads blasted Green's votes against defense budgets that Green considered to be too high as votes against American defense, period. Political cartoons of the time show Heiz pouring money from a giant ketchup bottle over Green's head. Even so, Heinz barely beat Green, getting only 52% of the vote.

After his defeat for the Senate, Green won admission to the Pennsylvania bar, and moved out of his district to the Germantown section of Philadelphia -- in the home of his mother-in-law Margaret Sharpless Kirk -- with his wife and children: Bill, Kate, and Anne. Shortly thereafter, he moved to the neighborhood of Chestnut Hill, and practiced law with the leading Philadelphia law firm of Wolf, Block, and Schorr.

As Mayor

He declined a bid to run for Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania in 1978, and won the Democratic nomination for Mayor of Philadelphia in 1979, defeating runner-up Charles Bowser, a former Deputy Mayor and the strongest African-American candidate the city had up to that point. Other candidates for the nomination, former City Controller William Klenk and former Commerce Director Al Gaudiosi, withdrew near the end of the primary.

In the general election, Green defeated former U.S. Attorney David Marston, the Republican, and former City Councilman Lucien Blackwell, a future U.S. Congressman and the Consumer Party nominee, to win election as mayor.

Green's term as mayor was stymied by his efforts to balance the city budget which caused numerous disputes with municipal labor unions, open battles with City Council, quiet disputes with campaign contributors, and an adversarial relationship with the mass media. "Reporters are the type of people who tore the wings off flies when they were young," he said. His efforts at balancing the budget were successful however, and for the first time in years new business was coming to Philadelphia.

Green decided to withdraw for re-election during the Democratic Primary and concentrate on his family when his wife Patricia became pregnant. Pat Green was in her 40's and Green feared for her health and the health of his unborn child if she faced the stress of a political campaign during the pregnancy. After his youngest child, Maura Elizabeth Green, was born near the end of his term at a healthy 10 pounds and 12 ounces Green declared, "I am the winner," of the 1983 mayoral contest, in which he was not a candidate.

Materials in Mayor Green's City Archives files include correspondence, reports, and other materials relating to the various city departments, boards, commissions, and other city offices. Information is also available on the General Business Tax, the Mayor's Tax Committee, the Mayor's Scholarship Program of 1979-1980, cable TV, Century IV celebration, CETA, the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution, Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, energy, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers Strike of 1981, the Educational Nomination Panel of 1981-1982, Mayor's and Cabinet members' schedules for 1980-1982, Conversation Hall renovations which were started by Green, council legislation, Freedom Festival, among many other topics. These records can be found in the City Archives, 3101 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

Post-Mayoral Career

After his term as Mayor expired, Green practiced law, opened two restaurants in the emerging Manayunk section of Philadelphia, and passed up opportunities to run for the U.S. Senate in 1986 and 1991. He established himself as a Washington, D.C. lobbyist, and purchased a home in suburban Virginia.

(Congressman Robert Edgar of Delaware County and Auditor General and former Congressman Don Bailey of Westmoreland County also wanted to seek the Democratic nomination against Arlen Specter in 1986. Edgar eventually defeated Bailey in the Democratic primary, but lost to Specter in the general election. In 1991, after Senator Heinz's death, Governor Robert P. Casey had conducted a long public search for a replacement for Heinz, offering the post to Green after others, including Lee Iacocca, had declined, and publicly demanding that Green refuse any of the considerable severance pay from his employer that he was legally entitled to as a condition of his appointment. Casey ultimately settled upon his Secretary of Labor and Industry Harris Wofford, whose upset of former U.S. Attorney General and Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh helped launch political consultants James Carville and Paul Begala on the national political scene.)

In the late 1980's, 1990's and early 21st Century, Green pursued a successful career Vice President of Government Relations for MacAndrews & Forbes, Ronald Perlman's Holding company for ~ 50 coorporations including Revlon. Always a man of rigid integrity and moral character (one of the targets in the ABSCAM scandal urged FBI agents posing as Arab shieks not to seek to bribe Green because "he's a boy scout"), Green was not involved when President Bill Clinton sought a job with Revlon though Revlon board member Vernon Jordan for Monica Lewinsky.

Around 2003, Green retired from MacAndrews & Forbes and returned with his wife to Philadelphia, where he has kept a low political profile. Ironically, some of his associates while he was mayor have dominated Republican mayoral politics in the decades since he has left office, but none has won election in an overwhelmingly Democratic city.