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A E Neal Biography & Facts

Richard Edmund Neal (born February 14, 1949) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for Massachusetts's 1st congressional district since 1989. The district, numbered as the 2nd district from 1989 to 2013, includes Springfield, West Springfield, Pittsfield, Holyoke, Agawam, Chicopee and Westfield, and is much more rural than the rest of the state. A member of the Democratic Party, Neal has been the dean of Massachusetts's delegation to the United States House of Representatives since 2013, and he is also the dean of the New England House delegations. Neal was president of the Springfield City Council from 1979 to 1983 and mayor of Springfield from 1983 to 1989. He was nearly unopposed when he ran for the House of Representatives in 1988, and took office in 1989. Neal chaired the House Ways and Means Committee from 2019 to 2023 and chaired the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures. He has also dedicated much of his career to U.S.–Ireland relations and maintaining American involvement in the Northern Ireland peace process, for which he has won several acclamations. He has a generally liberal voting record, but is considered a moderate on such issues as abortion and trade. In January 2020, Neal was inducted into the Irish American Hall of Fame. Early life, education, and academic career Richard Edmund Neal was born in 1949, in Worcester, Massachusetts, the oldest of three children of Mary H. (Garvey) and Edmund John Neal. He and his two younger sisters were raised in Springfield by their mother, a housewife, and their father, a custodian at MassMutual. Neal's maternal grandparents were from Northern Ireland and his paternal grandparents were from Ireland and Cornwall, England. Neal's mother died of a heart attack when he was 13, and he was attending Springfield Technical High School when his father, an alcoholic, died. Neal and his two younger sisters moved in with their grandmother and later their aunt, forced to rely on Social Security checks as they grew up. After graduating from high school, Neal attended Holyoke Community College in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and then American International College in Springfield, with the assistance of survivor's benefits. He graduated in 1972 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science. He then attended the University of Hartford's Barney School of Business and Public Administration, where he was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity, graduating in 1976 with a Master of Arts in public administration. Early in his career Neal taught history at Cathedral High School. Local government Neal began his political career as co-chairman of Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern's 1972 election campaign in Western Massachusetts. In 1973 he became an assistant to Springfield Mayor William C. Sullivan. Neal was elected to the Springfield City Council in 1978 and was named President of the City Council in 1979. The following year he was named as a delegate for presidential candidate Ted Kennedy at the 1980 Democratic National Convention. While a city councilor, Neal taught history at Cathedral High School, and gave lectures at Springfield College, American International College, Springfield Technical Community College, and Western New England College. In 1983, Neal made plans to challenge Theodore Dimauro, the Democratic incumbent mayor of Springfield. The pressure led Dimauro to retire and Neal was elected mayor. Neal was reelected in 1985 and 1987. As mayor, Neal oversaw a period of significant economic growth, with over $400 million of development and investment in the city, and a surplus in the city budget. He worked to strengthen Springfield's appearance, pushing to revive and preserve the city's historic homes and initiating a Clean City Campaign to reduce litter. U.S. House of Representatives Elections Neal ran for the United States House of Representatives in Massachusetts's 2nd congressional district in 1988 after 18-term Democratic incumbent Edward Boland retired. Boland had alerted Neal of his impending retirement, giving him a head start on his campaign. Neal raised $200,000 in campaign contributions and collected signatures across the district before the retirement was formally announced. He was unopposed in the Democratic primary, and his only general election opponent was Communist Party candidate Louis R. Godena, whom he defeated with over 80 percent of the vote. Neal has won reelection every two years since. Former Springfield mayor Theodore Dimauro, reflecting sentiments that Neal had an unfair advantage in the previous election, ran as a challenger in the 1990 Democratic primary. Dimauro's campaign was sullied by a false rumor he spread about the Bank of New England's financial situation, and Neal won the primary easily. He was unopposed in the general election, winning 68 percent of the vote. In 1992, his popularity was threatened by the House banking scandal, in which he had made dozens of unpenalized overdrafts at the House Bank. After narrowly defeating two Democratic opponents, he was challenged by Republican Anthony W. Ravosa Jr., and Independent Thomas R. Sheehan. Neal won with 53 percent of the vote. In a Springfield Union-News poll taken in mid-October 1994, Neal was ahead of John Briare by only 6 percentage points. Neal went on to spend nearly $500,000 in the last two weeks of the campaign to defeat Briare. The 1994 general election also featured a third-party candidate, Kate Ross, who received 6% of the vote. With blanks, Neal actually received only 51% of the vote in 1994. Since 1994 Neal has had little electoral opposition. He was challenged by Mark Steele in 1996 and easily dispatched him with 71 percent of the vote and ran unopposed in 1998. In 2000 he won the Democratic primary against Joseph R. Fountain, who challenged Neal's positions as "anti-choice" and "anti-gun". Neal had been unopposed in the general election since 1996, but faced Republican opponent Tom Wesley in the 2010 U.S. congressional elections, which Neal won by a margin of 57% to 43%. For his first 12 terms in Congress, Neal represented a district centered on Springfield and stretching as far east as the southern and western suburbs of Worcester. When Massachusetts lost a congressional district after the 2010 census, the bulk of Neal's territory, including his home in Springfield, was merged with the 1st district, held by fellow Democrat John Olver. While it retained Olver's district number, it was geographically and demographically more Neal's district; it now covered almost all of the Springfield metropolitan area. The prospect of an incumbent vs. incumbent contest was averted when Olver retired. The new 1st was no less Democratic than the old 2nd, and Neal was reelected without much difficulty in 2012, 2014 and 2016. In the 2018 Democratic primary, Neal defeated Springfield attorney Tahirah Amatul-Wadud, 70.7% to 29.3%. In the final days of the campaign Neal had $3.1 million in the bank to Amatu.... Discover the A E Neal popular books. Find the top 100 most popular A E Neal books.