Gary Schiff
| Gary Schiff | |
|---|---|
Schiff announcing his candidacy for Minneapolis mayor in 2013
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| Member of the Minneapolis City Council from the 9th Ward | |
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In office December 17, 2001 – January 6, 2014 |
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| Preceded by | Kathy Thurber |
| Succeeded by | Alondra Cano |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Gary J. Schiffhauer February 3, 1972 Youngstown, New York |
| Political party | Democratic-Farmer-Labor |
| Residence | Corcoran, Minneapolis |
| Alma mater | University of Minnesota (B.A.) |
| Occupation | Activist |
Gary Schiff (born February 3, 1972, as Gary J. Schiffhauer) is an American politician and activist who represented Ward 9 on the Minneapolis City Council. A member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), he was first elected in 2001 and re-elected in 2005 and 2009. Prior to his political career, Schiff was involved with a variety of activist groups and causes ranging from human rights with the Human Rights Campaign, to historic preservation with Save Our Shubert.
During his city council tenure, Schiff worked to ease ordinances prohibitive to small businesses, especially microbreweries, and strongly advocated against a publicly funded stadium for the Minnesota Vikings. In January 2013, Schiff began a campaign for mayor of Minneapolis in the 2013 election but after an unsuccessful DFL endorsement convention, dropped out of the race and backed an opponent (the eventual winner) in mid-June. His third and final term on the City Council ended in January 2014.
Schiff took over as president of the Council on Crime and Justice the following July. He was replaced at the organization a year later, and it closed abruptly shortly after his departure. A federal audit identified misused grant funds in a grant program that was frozen during Schiff's tenure. In January 2017, he announced his candidacy for Minneapolis's 9th Ward City Council seat in the 2017 municipal elections.
Schiff was born Gary J. Schiffhauer on February 3, 1972, and grew up the youngest of six children in Western New York State. In 1990, the American Civil Liberties Union represented Schiff after he graduated from Lewiston-Porter High School in his hometown of Youngstown, New York. According to The Buffalo News, Schiff had painted a mural along the school's stairwell that referenced "drugs, safe sex, AIDS and racism" in the style of artist Keith Haring. In September of that year, the school's superintendent, Walter S. Polka, decided that parts of the mural's text were objectionable. The American Civil Liberties Union became involved in an extended legal fight over the constitutionality of Polka's censorship, and a New York Supreme Court Justice sided with the Lewiston-Porter School Board. In 1991, the school board voted 5-1 to paint over the mural. The board cited Schiff's involvement in a recent ACT-UP demonstration at the school—where demonstrators gave condoms and safe sex literature to students—as a major influence on their decision.
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