Tony Coelho

Anthony Lee "Tony" Coelho (June 15, 1942 -- ) was a United States Congressman from California. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the Majority Whip until he resigned amidst a scandal.

Coelho was born in rural Los Banos, California, and attended public schools in Dos Palos, California. While a teenager, he suffered a head injury that led to him developing epilepsy.

He graduated from Loyola Marymount University in 1964. He worked for a time as an aide to the entertainer Bob Hope, who mentored him and recommended him to Congressman Bernie Sisk. Coelho worked as a staff member for Bernie Sisk from 1965 until 1978 rising to the position of chief of staff.

Coelho ran for Congress himself in 1978, when Bernie Sisk retired. He was elected to represent Merced, California. Coelho served in Congress for ten years. He introduced legislation that led to the Americans with Disabilities Act, and rose in the party leadership to the position of Majority Whip.

Coelho resigned from office in 1989 amidst allegations that he had received special treatment in the purchase of junk bonds. Although he was investigated, he was never charged with a crime.

After resigning from Congress, Coelho worked for Wertheim Schroder & Company, an investment firm. He started as a managing director, but later rose to the position of President and CEO, from 1990 to 1995. He left to start ETC w/tci, an education and training technology company in Washington, D.C. He was the chairman and chief executive officer until 1997, when the company was sold.

He also served as a director on the board of several publically-held companies. At times he has served on the boards of CF Kaiser International, Inc., AutoLend Group; Kaleidoscope Network, Inc.; LoanNet, LLC; and Pinnacle Global Group, Inc., Cadiz, Inc.; Cyberonics Inc.; DeFrancesco & Sons, Inc.; Kistler Aerospace Corporation; Ripplewood Holdings, LLC; and Service Corporation International, International Advisory Board of Fleishman Hillard, Inc, Business Advisory Board of Bender Consulting Services, Inc. According to the Las Vegas Sun, Coelho spread himself so thin by serving on multiple corporate boards that the Teamsters Union cited him in a survey as America's "least valuable director." The Teamsters said, "If an investor had put a total of $100 into the seven companies on which Coelho served as a director on Jan. 31, 1996, he would have been left with only $79.80 of that investment a year later -- reflecting a loss of more than 20 percent during a stock market boom."

In the summer of 1994, Coelho was the principal Democratic political strategist during the run-up to the mid-term Congressional elections. Officially, he was Senior Advisor to the Democratic National Committee. Although he was very successful in a similar role ten years earlier, this time he led the Democrats into a historic failure. After the Republican Party landslide victory in the fall congressional elections, Coelho was pilloried in The New Republic as "The Undertaker" in an article entitled "Tony Coelho and the Death of the Democrats."

In 1998, President Bill Clinton appointed Coelho as the U.S. Commissioner General at the 1998 World Expo in Portugal. Then, in 1999, he was made Chairman of Vice President Al Gore's presidential campaign. Coelho's star seemed to be on the rise again until a report of audit by the State Department's Inspector General released in October 1999 cited Coelho for a raft of irregularities during his tenure as Commissioner General. Next, in late March 2000, National Journal broke the news that Coelho was under criminal investigation by the Justice Department for his activities in Portugal. Following up on the National Journal article, Time reported that a Justice Department prosecutor had told witnesses to prepare to testify before a grand jury. Calls mounted for Coelho to resign. On June 10, 2000, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that: "Well-placed figures in the Democratic Party are pressing for Secretary of Commerce William Daley to replace former Rep. Tony Coelho as Al Gore's campaign chairman." Coelho resigned on June 15th, due, he claimed, to ill health. Shortly thereafter, the prosecutor assigned to investigate Coelho was replaced, and the new prosecutor decided against filing charges.

He dropped off the media radar screen until 2004. In September of that year, he publicly criticized John Kerry's presidential campaign, particularly strategist Bob Shrum. Coelho alleged that Shrum was not working well with former Clinton associates brought in after the Republican National Convention. In response, Joe Lockhart, spokesman for the Kerry campaign and former Clinton White House press secretary, dismissed Coelho in these terms: "We get a lot of advice from a lot of quarters. We tend to take it from people who won something."

Coehlo serves on the board of the Epilepsy Foundation of America. Tony and his wife, Phyllis, have two daughters. He lives in Arlington, VA.

References

• Enabling Lives by Brian T McMahon, Linda R Shaw. CRC Press 1989. This book contains a one chapter biography of Coelho.