Элтон Галлегли: Биография американского политика

American politician (born 1944)

Elton William Gallegly (born March 7, 1944) is a former U. S. Representative from California. A Republican, he last represented He previously represented the 23rd and 21st Districts, and served from 1987 to 2013. He did not seek re election in 2012. Gallegly is the longest serving Congressional representative in Ventura County history.

Born in Huntington Park, California on March 7, 1944, Gallegly attended California State University, Los Angeles but did not graduate. He worked as a real estate broker before entering politics. Gallegly is a former member of the Simi Valley, California City Council. He became Simi Valley's first elected mayor in 1982.

Gallegly's activism has focused on the issue of animal rights. Gallegly himself wrote a bill, enacted in 1999, which made it a federal crime to sell videos of dogfights and other depictions of animal violence, which enabled people to profit from animal cruelty. However, on April 20, 2010, the Supreme Court of the United States, in an 8–1 ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts, overturned Gallegly's law on the ground that the law violated the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, and created a "criminal prohibition of alarming breadth." In 2011, Gallegly voted for the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. Gallegly was a supporter of gifted and talented education, having introduced the Gifted and Talented Students Act of 1998 to provide funding for gifted education.

Gallegly is married to the former Janice Shrader and has four children. Gallegly is of partial Swiss descent. A gallery has been named for him at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. The Elton and Janice Gallegly Center for Public Service and Civic Engagement at California Lutheran University is a non partisan center named in honor of Congressman Gallegly.

In January 2012, it was reported that Gallegly received so called "VIP" or "Friends of Angelo" loans from troubled mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, in which loans were granted at lower rates than were available to the public. Gallegly and names of other legislators were forwarded to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which begun an investigation into the issue. Gallegly denied knowing that he was part of Countrywide Financial's special loan program.