Page 8 - The Clare Connection_Summer 2018

2 8 CLARE CONNECTION

Resident Profile

Jack Jennings:

Washington Insider Shares Experiences in Education and Politics

GROWING UP and going to school in understand that alliances change, as
Chicago, Clare resident John “Jack” do people’s opinions. He also realized
Jennings wasn’t entirely sure what his all knowledge doesn’t exist in one
future would entail. party, and no group possesses all truth.

Jack attended the Archbishop Quigley “I went from being a very partisan
Preparatory Seminary during his Democrat when I first went to
teenage years, a school administered Washington to believing that
by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese a bipartisan approach was far
of Chicago that was geared toward preferable,” Jack says. “The broader
men considering the priesthood. After the coalition you create with people
deciding this wasn’t the path for him, he with all types of views, the stronger
studied at Loyola University Chicago, the legislation will be.”
where he was involved in the Young Of course, bipartisanship wasn’t
Democrats of America. Throughout always possible. During Jack’s 27
his college years, as well as his time at years on Capitol Hill, there were times
the Northwestern University School of when bipartisanship simply wasn’t on
Law, he networked with congressmen the table. Still, there were far more
and also served as a precinct captain Jack Jennings major successes than losses.
in the city’s 41st ward.
on Education and Labor. He dealt with “No major education bill went through
At the age of 24, Jack graduated with three different committee chairmen, that I wasn’t at the table negotiating,”
a law degree, and he didn’t know set up hearings, drafted legislation Jack says. “And in my 27 years there,
what he was going to do. So when and led negotiations. He helped to we didn’t lose any major bill that we
the late Congressman Roman Pucinski expand funding for the schools, to sponsored.”
offered Jack a job as subcommittee improve education opportunities for
staff director for the U.S. House children with disabilities and to forbid Founding a Think Tank
of Representatives’ Committee on discrimination in education against By the end of 1994, Jack was ready to
Education and Labor, he agreed. move on from Congress. He fielded job
females through Title IX. offers from law firms, universities and
“It was not pre planned,” he says. “Like “I never liked politics just for the other organizations, but he decided
for many people, it was happenstance.”
mechanics of it,” Jack says. “I liked it instead he wanted to launch his own
So the day after he was sworn into the because I could do something to help think tank.
bar, in 1967, he headed to Washington, people. In Congress, I was handling “I had always been bothered that
D.C. And that was the beginning of bills that were helping people to people couldn’t agree on basic facts,”
a 50-plus-year career in politics and help themselves by getting more Jack says.
education policy. education.”
And so the Center on Education
Working on Capitol Hill Early on, Jack learned the importance Policy was born in 1995, a nonpartisan,
Over the course of 27 years, Jack of bipartisanship in getting bills nonprofit education research
advanced from a subcommittee staff passed, and he refused to hold organization. It was tough going from
director to general counsel for the U.S. meetings unless both Democrats and the start, as both the budget and the
House of Representatives’ Committee Republicans were present. He came to staff were quite small.