Maxine Waters
Maxine Waters currently works as the U.S. Representative for California's 43rd congressional district. She has been working for Congress since 1991. She is considered by many to be one of the most powerful women in American politics at present.
As a member of the Democratic Party, Waters is the most senior of the 12 black women presently working in the United States Congress. She is also a member and ex-chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Regarding her personal life, she is married twice and has two children.
Early life And Education Of Maxine Waters
Maxine Waters was born Maxine Moore Waters on 15 August 1938 in St.Louis, Missouri. She was born to Remus Moore and Velma Lee Carr Moore. She is the fifth child of thirteen children. She was raised by her mother alone after her father left them when she was only two years old.
As per her bio-data, Waters finished her high school at Vashon High School based in St. Louis, Missouri before shifting with her family to Los Angeles, California in 1961.
Waters worked at a garment factory and also worked as a telephone operator in her early days. She worked as an a s sistant teacher with the Head Start program at Watts in 1996.
Later, Waters joined Los Angeles State College where he received a bachelor's degree in sociology.
Maxine Waters' Career
Early Political Career
In 1973, Maxine Waters served as a chief deputy to City Councilman David S. Cunningham, Jr. She entered the California State Assembly in 1976.
During her time at the a s sembly, Waters served for the divestment of state pension funds from any business activities in South Africa, then operated under the policy of apartheid.
Waters also helped pa s s legislation within the guidelines of the divestment campaign's Sullivan Principles. She mounted to the position of Democratic Caucus Chair for the Assembly.
U.S. House Of Representatives
Elections
Following the retirement of Augustus F. Hawkins in 1990, Maxine Waters was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for California's 29th congressional district with maximum votes over 79%.
Waters has been re-elected consistently from California, renumbered as the 35th District in 1992 and as 43rd in 2012.
Tenure
Maxine Waters gained public attention when she interrupted a speech by Peter King on 29 July 1994. The presiding officer, Carrie Meek, cla s sed her activity as ''unruly and turbulent'', and threatened to have the Sergeant at Arms present her with the Mace of the House of Representatives.
As of 2017, Maxine Waters was suspended from the house for the rest of the day. It was the most recent instance of the mace working in a disciplinary sense.
The clash with King stemmed from the first day when they both were present at a House Banking Committee hearing on the Whitewater controversy.
Maxine Waters was chair of the Congressional Black Caucus from 1997-1998. In 2005, she testified at the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearings on 'Enforcement of Federal Anti-Fraud Laws in For-Profit Education'', highlighting the American College of Medical Technology.
In 2006, Waters was involved in a debate over King-Drew Medical Center. She also criticized media coverage of the hospital. She asked the Federal Communications Commission to deny a waiver of the cross-ownership ban and license renewal for KTLA-TV in 2006.
In 2012, after the retirement of Barney Frank, Waters became the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee. On 14 July 2013, she voted in favor of Amendment 100 included in H.R. 2397 Department of Defence Appropriations Act of 2014.
Rodney King Verdict And The Los Angeles Riots
Maxine Waters gained national attention when she helped to deliver relief supplies when south-central Los Angeles erupted in riots in which fifty-eight people were killed after the Rodney King verdict in 1992. She also demanded the resumption of vital services.
She explained the riots as a rebellion, saying,
''If you call it a riot it sounds like it was just a bunch of crazy people who went out and did bad things for no reason. I maintain it was somewhat understandable, if not acceptable.''
CIA
Waters was called for an investigation after the 1996 San Jose Mercury News article alleged the complicity of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Los Angeles crack epidemic of the 1980s. Later, The Los Angeles Times concluded that evidence did not support the charges after its own investigation.
Gary Webb, the author of the original story, was eventually transferred to a different beat and removed from the investigative reporting, before his death in 2004. He was found dead in his apartment with two bullet holes in his head. His death was stated as a suicide.
Maxine Waters read into the Congressional Record a memorandum of understanding following the post-publication investigations. In the memorandum, ex-President Ronald Reagan's CIA director rejected any duty by the CIA to report illegal narcotics supplying into the Department of Justice.
Allegations Of Corruption
As per the writing in the Los Angeles Times in 2004, of Chuck Neubauer and Ted Rohrlich, Waters' relatives made more than $1 million at the time of the preceding eight years by doing business with candidates, companies, and causes that she had helped.
They claimed that Waters along with her husband a s sisted a company to get a government bond business, and her son Edward Waters, and daughter Karen Waters have profited from her connections.
Waters came under investigation for ethics violations and was accused by a House panel of at least one ethics violation regarding her efforts to help OneUnited Bank receive federal aid. Her husband is a stockholder and former director of OneUnited Bank and the bank's executives were major contributors to her campaigns.
In 2008, Maxine Waters fixed meetings between U.S. Treasury Department officials and OneUnited Bank, so that the bank could plead for federal cash.
Positions
Barack Obama
In 2011 August, Maxine Waters trashed President Barack Obama, stating that he was insufficiently supportive of the black community. She also referred to the high unemployment rate for African-Americans that was hovering 15.9 percent at the time.
In October 2011, Waters took her criticism of Obama to a new level, by confronting the White House with racial issues it had worked hard to avoid.
Castro And Cuba
Maxine Waters visited Fidel Castro a couple of times, and praised democracy, and criticized US efforts to throw him. She also demanded to stop the U.S. trade embargo.
In 1988, Maxine Waters wrote a letter to Castro, citing the 1960s and the following year as a shameful and sad part of the history, and thanked Castro for helping needs.
In 1988, Waters supported a Republican bill to arrest convicted murderer Assata Shakur from Cuba. When Waters found that Shakur was listed by her previous name, Joanne Chesimard, she wrote a letter to Fidel Castro requesting him not to arrest him because many of the Black community considered her conviction as false.
Maxine Waters called on President Bill Clinton to send the six-year-old boy back to Cuba after a woman drowned during an escape from Cuba to the U.S. in 1999 leaving a six-year-old son, Elian Gonzales.
Donald Trump
In 2017, Maxine Waters made her appearance on MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes, she stated President Trump's advisors who have oil or have ties to Russia and have an interest there are a bunch of sc u mbags'.
In Feb 2017, Waters stated that Donald Trump was leading himself to possible impeachments due to his conflicts and they also have many suspicions that Trump was creating 'chaos and division.''
Maxine Waters texted on Twitter for an allegation about Trump White House, '' Trump has made it clear - it is now the White Supremacists' House'', linking President Donald Trump to the violence that erupted at a white nationalist protest rally in Charlottesville Virginia on 12 August 2017.
In October 2017, Maxine Waters claimed the U.S. Congress had sufficient evidence against Donald Trump to 'be moving on impeachment, in reference to Russian collusion allegations at the time of 2016 Presidential election, and that Trump ''has openly obstructed justice in front of our face.''
On April 24, 2018, while attending the Time 100 Gala, Waters urged Trump to resign, "So that I won't have to keep up this fight of your having to be impeached because I don't think you deserve to be there. Just get out."
On June 23, 2018, following an incident in which White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant, Waters urged attendees at a rally in Los Angeles to confront and hara s s Trump administration officials who show up in public places: "...tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere."
In response, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi posted comments on Twitter reported to be a condemnation of Waters' remarks: "Trump's daily lack of civility has provoked responses that are predictable but unacceptable."
George H. W. Bush
Maxine Waters considered President George H. W. Bush' 'a racist' who has 'polarized the races in this country. Maxine Waters also suggested that W. Bush has used race to advance his policies.
Haiti
Maxine Waters criticized U.S. involvement in the 2004 coup d'etat in Haiti and went against it. She led a delegation along with Jamaican member of parliament Sharon Hay-Webster and TransAfrica Forum founder Randall Robinson to meet with Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and take him to Jamaica, where he would stay until May.
International Lending
In August 2008, Maxine Waters introduced HR 6796, or the ''Stop Very Unscrupulous Loan Transfers from Underprivileged countries from Rich Exploitive Funds Act.
Iraq War
Maxine Waters voted against the Iraq War Resolution, the 2002 resolution that found and granted Congressional approval to military action against Saddam Hussain's regime.
Waters has stayed consistent critic of the subsequent war and has a s sisted an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq.
In 2007, Waters a s serted that President George W. Bush was trying to set (Congress) up'' by requesting funds for an 'occupation' that is 'draining' the country of capital, other resources, and soldiers' lives.
Waters argued that the very economic resources being 'wasted' in Iraq were those that might provide universal health care or fully fund President Bush's own ''No Child Left Behind'' education bill.
Maxine Waters' Net Worth
Maxine Waters earns a decent amount of money as the U.S. Representative for California's 43rd congressional district. As of 2017, Maxine Waters earns a salary of $170,000 annually and her net worth is more than $2 million at present as per Celebrity Net Worth. Her net worth was less than $2 million in 2016, as per the online sources.
Waters also owns a mansion in Los Angeles. The house is built on 6000sq ft and is worth $4.3 million. On her most recent wealth disclosure, Maxine listed $1.5 million worth of a s sets and $1.4 million worth of liabilities. Her most valuable a s set is her home which is valued between $1 and $4 million depending on the current real estate market and recent comparable sales.
Maxine Waters' Personal Life
Maxine Waters was married twice in her life. She married Edward Waters in 1956, after graduating from high school. They also share two children together, a daughter Karen Waters and a son Edward Waters. The pair divorced in 1972.
In 1997, Maxine Waters married Sid Williams, a former American football linebacker in the National Football League. Sid has played for teams like the Baltimore Colts, Pittsburgh Steelers, Cleveland Browns, and Washington Redskins. Sid the former U.S. Amba s sador to the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.
In 2017, it was rumored that Waters made an announcement of divorcing her husband after he cheated on her. Her husband, however, denied the allegations and said,
''there were several private investigators looking into it, and that is what is taking place at this place and time and this is what is necessary to pursue this to its proper conclusionary state.''
Since their marriage, the couple is living a happy life together but has no children together. Sid is a stepfather to Waters' children.
In 2018, she receives some serious death threats after she criticized the president of the US, Donald Trump. She said,
''As the President has continued to lie and falsely claim that I encouraged people to a s sault his supporters, while also offering a veiled threat that I should ‘be careful’, even more, individuals are leaving (threatening) messages and sending hostile mail to my office,” she said in a statement, according to CNN.
“There was one very serious death threat made against me on Monday from an individual in Texas which is why my planned speaking engagements in Texas and Alabama were canceled this weekend,” she continued. “This is just one in several very serious threats the United States Capitol Police are investigating in which individuals threatened to shoot, lynch, or cause me serious bodily harm.”
Due to such threats, she canceled two events in Alabaman and Texas.