Early years Involved in politics since the age of 13, at the age of 14, McClintock was appointed by President
Richard Nixon as delegate to the
White House Conference on Youth held from April 18–21, 1971. In 1978, President
Jimmy Carter appointed him to the
National Advisory Committee for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. In 1979 McClintock served as the first president of the
Puerto Rico Statehood Students Association, which he cofounded with
Luis Fortuño, then a Georgetown University undergrad.
1980s In 1984, the
Jaycees honored him with the Outstanding Young Man of the Year in Journalism Award for his weekly columns in the now-defunct
El Mundo daily newspaper. He was the executive director of the
U.S. Democratic Party, chapter of Puerto Rico, from 1984 to 1988 and attended all eleven
Democratic Party conventions from 1976 to 2016 as a
delegate, a
superdelegate or as a staffer. A Democratic National Committeeman since 2000, he was reelected in 2016 to his fourth term, resigning the post in 2017 after 17 years of service. In 1988 he ran unsuccessfully as the
New Progressive Party (NPP) candidate in House District 5.
1990s He was a Municipal Councilman for San Juan from 1990 to 1992 and during his tenure was the author of the municipal ordinance that raised the salaries of Municipal Guards beyond $1,000 a month for the first time in
Puerto Rican history. In 1992, he was elected the youngest
Senator-at-Large for the 12th
Legislature. In November 1996 he was the top vote getter among all NPP and PDP senatorial candidates. During his fourth term, he was nominated by his
New Progressive Party caucus as Senate President on November 4, 2004, and formally elected and sworn in for a four-year term as the Senate's 13th President on January 10, 2005. In 1996, President
Bill Clinton appointed McClintock as an at-large member of the
Democratic Platform Committee, where he was a drafter of the platform plank on Puerto Rico. In the 1990s he fought for Puerto Rico's inclusion in the proposed World War II Memorial on the
National Mall after only two territories (Hawaii and Alaska) had been included in the first memorial design and all other U.S. territories (
Philippines,
Puerto Rico,
Guam,
American Samoa and the
United States Virgin Islands), several of which were actually invaded by Japan, had been excluded. His efforts included the approval of a
Concurrent Resolution by the legislature and lobbying in Washington. During 1999, he served as the 62nd Chairman of the
Council of State Governments, the youngest and first
Hispanic in that organization's 75-year history. During his terms in CSG leadership, the organization strengthened its international ties, admitting several Canadian provinces as international member jurisdictions, co-sponsoring the foundation of the
Parliamentary Conference of the Americas, and co-chairing with CSG President and Wisconsin's then-Governor
Tommy Thompson a mission to the People's Republic of China, in which he met with Premier
Zhū Róngjī. As chairman, McClintock increased the presence of Hispanics in CSG committees and task forces and helped organize CSG's best attended Annual Meeting ever, held at the
Chateau Frontenac in
Quebec City, Canada. He also was part of the official delegation that attended the December 14, 1999, ceremonies commemorating the final turnover on December 31, 1999, of the
Panama Canal to the Panamanian authorities. He authored over 1,200 legislative measures during his 16 years in the Senate, of which over 200 became law. He served as the second president of the
Parliamentary Conference of the Americas from 1999 to 2000, a forum that brings together the parliamentary assemblies of the unitary, federal and federated states, regional parliaments and interparliamentary organizations of the Americas. The Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico hosted the General Assembly of COPA in July 2000. He serves on the board of trustees of
The Washington Center, a Washington, D.C.–based non-profit organization and on the board of Episcopal Health Services, which owns several health-related entities in Puerto Rico, including the
St. Luke Episcopal Medical Center in
Ponce.
2000s In 2000, he was elected as Puerto Rico's Democratic National Committeeman, a position to which he was reelected in 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016. Prior to his election as Senate President, he served as Senate Minority Leader from 2001 to 2004 and he chaired the Senate's Committee on Government and Federal Affairs, as well as the Joint Committee for the
Córdova-Fernós Congressional Internships Program from 1993 to 2000. As Senate committee chairman, he produced reports that served to make radical changes in public policy. The report on the conditions of the companies availed to the tax benefits of the now-defunct Section 936 of the
Federal Internal Revenue Code earned him an interview in
ABC's Prime Time Live program and
Univision Network. He has testified in diverse hearings of the Congressional Committees, and has been the guest speaker in several universities throughout the United States. He has been interviewed in ABC's
Good Morning America, has debated on
Fox News Network and has appeared on
BBC news programs, as well as on
C-SPAN's
Washington Journal. His efforts to promote economic equality to Puerto Rico's consumers by stateside corporations were profiled in a
Business Week article in 1998. In 1996, along with Fortuño, he was appointed by Governor
Pedro Rosselló as co-chair of the NPP's Platform Committee, a position to which he was reappointed by the party's 2000 gubernatorial candidate
Carlos I. Pesquera. In 2004, he chaired the
New Progressive Party's Senate Campaign Committee and flipped his party's nine-member minority, of which he served as Minority Leader from 2001 to 2004, into a nearly two-thirds majority in the new Senate in 2005, even though the NPP gubernatorial candidate narrowly lost the election. In 2008, along with
Roberto Prats, he co-chaired Sen. Clinton's successful campaign for Puerto Rico's presidential primary, which she won 68% to 32%, the second highest vote margin (after West Virginia) in that year's election cycle. In 2012, he was elected by the Puerto Rico Democratic State Convention to a fourth consecutive four-year term as the territory's Democratic National Committeeman, remaining the territory's most senior Democrat. In September 2009, he was elected to a four-year term as chairman of the DNC's Northeast Hispanic Caucus. In September 2012, he attended his tenth consecutive Democratic National Convention in
Charlotte, North Carolina. He attended his eleventh consecutive convention in
Philadelphia in July 2016 and has already been certified a super delegate to the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Election as President of the Senate From January 10, 2005 to December 31, 2008, McClintock presided over the
Senate of Puerto Rico. His presidency was in jeopardy during most of that year, as former Governor Pedro Rosselló was sworn in as a member of the Senate on February 13, 2005, and sought the Presidency for the remainder of the term. McClintock was elected to the Puerto Rico Senate Presidency with 23 votes, including 14 of the 17 NPP senators (McClintock abstained, one seat was vacant and Sen.
Norma Burgos abstained in protest for the manner in which the NPP caucus allegedly elected the Senate leadership), and the entire nine-member minority delegation of the Popular Democratic Party, while the Puerto Rico Independence Party senator followed party tradition in abstaining from leadership votes). Since 2001, Senate rules require a unanimous vote to change the presidency. During his presidency, he backed many nominations and some public policy positions of Governor
Aníbal Acevedo Vilá. Some nominations failed to obtain the Senate's consent, two through rejection, others through inaction or withdrawal by the governor following the Senate president's "advice" to do so. He participated in the multilateral negotiations between the governor, the Speaker, McClintock, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Juan, the Episcopal bishop for the Diocese of Puerto Rico and several Protestant leaders, in breaking the logjam that led to the end of a two-week-long government shutdown in May 2006. For close to three years, of the seventeen senators that were elected under the NPP in the 2004 General Elections, six remained loyal to McClintock's presidency, thus denying his opponents the unanimity required by Senate Rules II and VI to declare the presidency vacant. As McClintock stripped eight of the ten senators who supported Rosselló's claim for the Presidency of the chairmanships of Senate committees, leaving a total of ten committees under the leadership of the five NPP senators who still backed him and two, the Ethics and the Public Safety committees remained under the leadership of senators supporting Rosselló. Many Capitol insiders had claimed that this had the effect of overflowing committees with work and slowing down the process of bills becoming laws. However, when that issue was raised on the floor of the Senate, McClintock ordered an investigation on legislative productivity that he stated statistically demonstrated that committee output was higher during the third legislative session (after committee and chairmanship consolidations) than during the first. One senator who supported him and came to the NPP expelled in the past term from the PDP, former Senate Majority Leader
Jorge De Castro Font was expelled from the New Progressive Party for being McClintock's ally to remain Senate President. This sanction was endorsed in a Party state assembly in 2005, for allegedly insulting high officials of the NPP (including its president, Pedro Rosselló), rejecting to comply with majority decisions of the party's state assembly (including support for Rossello's Senate presidency bid), and allegedly making political alliances with the PDP delegation in the Senate. Senator McClintock and four of the other senators who supported him were relieved of party positions for the same reasons. The party's directorate recommended expelling Sen. McClintock as well as Senate Vice President
Orlando Parga on February 13, 2006. On August 20, 2006, however, the party's General Assembly failed to ratify their expulsion, approving instead a generic censure, reportedly reflecting the discomfort that the proposed expulsion created among many party members. As a result of his refusal to yield his leadership position in the Senate, he was seen without any political future by those who supported Sen. Rossello's bid, including a number of NPP voters who also supported Rossello. On January 16, 2007, the NPP Senate Caucus imposed disciplinary sanctions on two more NPP senators,
José Emilio González, Rosselló's fellow senator from the Arecibo district, and
Carmelo Ríos Santiago of the Bayamón district. The two were the decisive votes to pass a Concurrent Resolution proposing a constitutional amendment that would turn Puerto Rico's bicameral legislature in a unicameral system, an issue not addressed by the party's platform. In total, during the term, the caucus disciplined eight of the 16 members elected to the Senate in 2004. Members of the NPP hardcore rank and file had clearly stated they would never forgive the negotiations they allege took place against the statehood movement by McClintock, and did not acknowledge the Senate President's extensive efforts to lobby in Congress and generate national media coverage for the enactment of legislation to provide self-determination for Puerto Rico, as proposed by President
George W. Bush's
White House Task Force on Puerto Rico's Political Status. Likewise, many political observers, including a number of NPP voters who opposed Rosselló, believed that McClintock's and Parga's removal from party membership rolls would be insignificant within the NPP; since both depended upon the rank and file structure to get elected with the party, while other observers and party leaders had expressed concern that the removals imperil future party victories, by the alienation of tens of thousands of past party supporters. Many party members, however, considered McClintock and his supporters as "traitors". On February 23, 2007, McClintock announced that if the party disciplinary sanctions were not lifted "within a reasonable time" he would file suit to protect "not only the constitutional rights of the senators who have been sanctioned but the rights of party members to freely select the candidates of their choice in the March 2008 primary". That "reasonable time" ended on March 29, 2007, when he, along with four other senators, filed suit in San Juan Superior Court, claiming that NPP leaders violated the due process required by the state elections laws when parties attempt to discipline its members. Judge Oscar Davila Suliveres ruled on April 12 against NPP Secretary
Thomas Rivera Schatz and determined the lawsuit was meritorious and would be decided on the merits within several days. All sanctions against the McClintock Six were nullified by San Juan Superior Court Judge Oscar Dávila Suliveres on May 8, 2007, who determined that they had broken no programmatic or rule-based accord, and that they were free to run in the NPP's 2008 primary. On May 11, the Court reiterated, in a
Nunc Pro Tunc Order, that any attempt by party officials to deny the rights of the McClintock Six would nullify the party primary. The Puerto Rico Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's ruling on June 12, 2007, declaring all sanctions against the senators null and void. On December 27, 2007, the
Supreme Court of Puerto Rico denied the NPP's attempt to deny McClintock's senatorial allies the opportunity to appear on the 2008 NPP primary ballot. In a 4–1 decision, the Court reaffirmed McClintock's right to remain as Senate President unless he voluntarily resigns, dies, or was removed as a member of the Senate. A 2007
El Nuevo Día opinion poll reflected that, in spite of being censured by the New Progressive Party, he had become its third most popular leader, after Resident Commissioner Luis Fortuño and party president Pedro Rosselló, surpassing San Juan Mayor Jorge Santini, former gubernatorial candidate Carlos Pesquera and Bayamón Mayor Ramón Luis Rivera. There were several attempts to unify the New Progressive Party delegation in the Senate, but all of them were sabotaged by some Party leaders, such as then-
Secretary General,
Thomas Rivera Schatz and Party Vice-President
Miriam Ramírez de Ferrer. Upon
Luis Fortuño's decisive victory in the March 9, 2008, NPP primaries, McClintock and his (mostly renominated) stalwarts were welcomed back into the party, reinstated to their leadership positions and McClintock appointed five of the eleven former Senate defectors to committee chairmanships. On December 31, 2008, after a full term as Senate President, McClintock ended his 16-year career as a legislator, as he prepared to assume the duties of Secretary of State of Puerto Rico, for which he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, including many senators who had withdrawn their political support for him in the past.
Work as President of the Senate in the presence of (L – R) House Speaker Jose F. Aponte and MG Felix Santoni (Ret.) in the State Capitol on Memorial Day 2008 Ambassadors
David Manning, then-British ambassador to the United States, visited his office, and met with People's Republic of China Premier
Zhu Rongji in 1999,
Costa Rica Presidents
José María Figueres and
Oscar Arias Sánchez, Canadian Prime Minister
Jean Chrétien, Panama's President
Martin Torrijos, well as U.S. Presidents
Jimmy Carter,
George H. W. Bush,
Bill Clinton and
George W. Bush. He also championed improving school-level physical and health education, the theme of his
World Health Day 2006 address before the
Panamerican Health Organization in Washington, D.C.. McClintock was a frequent speaker at stateside universities, where he addressed Puerto Rico's political status issue. In September, 2007 he began a media campaign to oust
Panama National Assembly president
Pedro Miguel González Pinzón, who stands accused in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia of murdering Puerto Rican-born
U.S. Army Sgt. Zak Hernández, bolstered by the approval by 25 of the 27 members of the
Senate of Puerto Rico of a resolution he authored expressing the legislative body's "profound preoccupation'' with the Panamanian leader's election. González Pinzón was subsequently denied reelection.'' In 2007, McClintock convened a meeting in
Honolulu, Hawaii, of Senate presidents from Alaska, Hawaii,
Guam, the
Northern Marianas Islands and
Puerto Rico to establish the
Outlying Areas Senate Presidents Caucus to discuss issues common to the nation's outlying areas and devise common strategies to deal with such issues. One outcome of his efforts was
Federal Communications Commission chairman
Kevin Martin's support of the XM/Sirius satellite radio merger after Sirius committed to extending service to Puerto Rico. On April 7, 2008, McClintock and House Speaker Aponte joined former President Bill Clinton for the unveiling of a statue depicting former President
Franklin D. Roosevelt (one of only two in a wheelchair), now a part of the "Paseo de los Presidentes", or President's Walk, exhibiting on the south side of the Capitol statues of the nine presidents who have visited the U.S. territory while in office.. On May 26, McClintock presided over the yearly Memorial Day ceremony and concert that has become one of the trademarks of his presidency. A special recognition by McClintock and Resident Commissioner Fortuño of Antonio Santiago (
Tony (The Marine) Santiago) was followed by a keynote address by then-Sen. Clinton in the presence of her husband and daughter. At the end of the ceremony, the names of several men and women were unveiled on Puerto Rico's Memorial Wall, which honors Puerto Ricans who gave their life in military service. Several of the names on the wall have been placed as a result of Santiago's military history research. McClintock's presidency began to draw to a close when on June 30, 2008, he gaveled the Senate out of the seventh and last regular session of the term. He remained as president until December 31, 2008, a day after he called the Senate into a final special session, when he turned over the gavel to Senate Secretary
Manuel A. Torres, who served as Acting President until the fourteenth Senate President,
Thomas Rivera Schatz was officially elected on January 12, 2009. On September 11, 2008, McClintock presided over the first joint meeting of the Puerto Rico Legislative Assembly outside the Capitol ever, held at the
Roberto Clemente Coliseum in
San Juan, Puerto Rico, to commemorate the 7th anniversary of the terrorist attacks against the United States and present the Military Medal of the Puerto Rico Legislative Assembly to those residents of Puerto Rico who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over 1,000 of the 9,000 eligible were present for the ceremony, accompanied by over 1,500 family members.
Puerto Rico Independence Party legislators boycotted the event.
2008 transition On November 7, 2008, the NPP's senators-elect chose Rivera Schatz to succeed McClintock as of January 12, 2009, as the Fourteenth President of the Senate in its 91-year history. McClintock was appointed by
Governor-Elect Luis Fortuño, to serve as chairman of the
Incoming Committee on Government Transition. During the first twelve days of the new year, outgoing Senate Secretary
Manuel A. Torres served as Acting President of the legislative body.
Secretary of State of Puerto Rico On November 11, 2008, Governor-Elect
Luis Fortuño appointed McClintock as Secretary of State of Puerto Rico. McClintock was sworn in, under a recess appointment, as the 22nd Secretary of State of Puerto Rico on the morning of January 2, 2009 by Puerto Rico Supreme Court Chief Justice
Federico Hernández Denton in the court's chambers minutes after he privately swore in Gov. Fortuño, who later took the oath of office in a public ceremony that afternoon. On January 15, 2009, he was confirmed unanimously by the
Senate of Puerto Rico and with only two votes in opposition in the 53-seat
Puerto Rico House of Representatives. Having been confirmed, he was sworn in on January 17, 2009, by Bayamón Superior Court Judge Angel Manuel Candelas in a private ceremony in the neighborhood where McClintock was raised and lived for many years. In September 2009, he led Puerto Rico's four-member component of the United States' delegation, headed by
United States Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke to the III Americas Competitiveness Forum in
Santiago, Chile, participated in 2010 in the fourth Forum, held in
Atlanta and in the fifth Forum in
Santo Domingo in 2011. McClintock was designated by Fortuño to lead the Puerto Rico governments efforts to facilitate the islands' transition to
digital television. He has also been designated as chairman of the government's efforts to assist in the
2010 census, as well as the five-member Executive Branch Reorganization and Modernization Committee that produced 13 reorganization plans, eleven of which became law. He also chaired a five-member Legislative Reform Committee that made recommendations in October 2009 regarding a revamping of Puerto Rico's legislature. In 2010, Gov. Fortuño delegated him all gubernatorial powers regarding the approval of public-private partnership (P3) contracts under Puerto Rico's Public Private Partnership Law. Domestically, McClintock frequently participates as a speaker at activities throughout the states, Puerto Rico and foreign countries. In 2009, he spoke before the
National Puerto Rican Coalition in Washington, D.C., served as the
commencement speaker at the
Universidad del Este (UNE) in Puerto Rico and joined
Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray at a recognition ceremony of the
65th Infantry Regiment in
Worcester, Massachusetts, on June 20. In 2011, he was the keynote speaker at Hispanic Heritage activities in
Cleveland, Ohio While Secretary of State, McClintock met
Republic of China President
Ma Ying-jeou. On January 12, 2010, as acting governor, McClintock was placed in charge of Puerto Rico's Haitian relief efforts by Governor Fortuño, which included a $4.5 million Telethon benefitting the
Red Cross and collecting millions of pounds of aid, reportedly the largest shipment of non-governmental aid sent during the first two weeks of the relief effort. On January 20, McClintock made a 4-hour visit to
Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where, along with Puerto Rico journalist
Carmen Jovet, he met with President Préval and Prime Minister Bellerive to coordinate Puerto Rico's relief efforts. He subsequently met with Preval in San Juan and was appointed by Secretary Hillary Clinton as part of the United States delegation to a meeting in
Martinique in March 2010 to plan the multi-nation redevelopment of Haiti. He also helped coordinate Puerto Rico's initial response to the massive February 27, 2010, earthquake in Chile. In September 2010, he headed the Puerto Rico delegation to the International Book Fair (LIBER 2010), dedicated to Puerto Rico and held in
Barcelona, Spain. In addition to his other duties, he participated in organizing President Obama's June 14, 2011, historic visit to Puerto Rico. In July, 2011, he was selected as co-chair of the
National Association of Secretaries of State's International Relations Committee at its 2011 summer meeting in
Daniels, West Virginia. McClintock subsequently hosted NASS' 2012 summer meeting in San Juan. In the summer of 2011, along with United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Brenda Sprague, he announced that Secretary of State Clinton has authorized the opening in 2012 of a U.S. Department of State Passport Office in San Juan, to serve Puerto Rico and the
United States Virgin Islands, the first such office in the Caribbean ever. Due to the temporary closure of the Roberto Sánchez Vilella Government Center's North Tower by the EPA in 2012, the ribbon-cutting ceremony was pushed back beyond McClintock's incumbency as secretary of state. Until 1985, the federal agency authorized the Puerto Rico State Department to issue United States passports, but since then had only allowed it to operate a passport acceptance agency.
Foreign travel as Secretary of State Secretary McClintock visited eleven countries, including being a member of United States delegations, traveling to coordinate disaster relief, represent Gov. Fortuño or promote foreign trade and the Caribbean Energy Grid proposal. Reflecting McClintock's international activities, the countries in three continents visited include: •
Bahamas •
Barbados •
Canada •
Chile •
People's Republic of China •
Dominican Republic •
Grand Cayman •
Haiti •
Martinique Meetings with major religious leaders During his term as secretary of state and previously during his service in the Senate, McClintock met with numerous religious leaders, including the Papal Nuncio in the Dominican Republic, who has ecclesiastical authority over the Roman Catholic Church in Puerto Rico, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church
Katharine Jefferts Schori and the chief abbot of the Buddhist
Shaolin Temple in
Henan,
Shi Yongxin.
Other international activities Prior to serving as secretary of state, his official foreign travels in four continents, which set the stage for his level of international activity, included: •
Austria •
Belgium •
Brazil •
Canada •
Costa Rica •
Guatemala •
Mexico •
Panama •
People's Republic of China •
Spain •
Turkey •
United Kingdom On July 1, 2000, McClintock led COPA's Mission of Electoral Observers during Mexico's presidential elections which the nation's ruling party for decades lost to
Vicente Fox, who became President of Mexico later that year. Three six-year presidential terms later, another Puerto Rican,
Eduardo Bhatia led another COPA delegation for the same purpose.
Current and former heads of state hosted as Secretary of State During Secretary McClintock's service as secretary of state, the following eleven current and former heads of state or governments have visited Puerto Rico: •
Álvaro Uribe, former
President of Colombia •
Leonel Fernández,
President of the Dominican Republic •
Constantine II, former
King of Greece •
René Préval,
President of Haiti •
Felipe Calderón,
President of Mexico •
Vicente Fox, former
president of Mexico •
Martín Torrijos, former
president of
Panama •
José María Aznar, former
prime minister of Spain •
Barack Obama, former
president of the United States •
Bill Clinton, former
president of the United States •
Ricardo Martinelli,
President of Panama He has also hosted ministerial- and ambassadorial-level diplomats, such as Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, the ambassadors of
Spain,
Israel and the
Czech Republic, ss well as members of royal families such as
Haya bint Hussein, Princess of Jordan and president of the
International Federation for Equestrian Sports, among other notable figures, such as then-businessman
Donald Trump, later elected
President of the United States and former
Vice President of the United States Al Gore..
Caribbean Energy Grid During his term as secretary of state, McClintock promoted the Fortuño administration's proposal to develop a Caribbean Energy Grid in which all Caribbean and Central American islands and nations would interconnect via an underwater electric transmission cable in order to generate electric cost reductions to consumers throughout the region, contribute to renewable energy development and reduced dependence on oil, the fuel most used to generate electricity in Caribbean islands today. On December 1, 2009, McClintock first spoke of the Fortuño administration proposal, during the 33rd
Miami Conference on the Caribbean & Central America, that a Caribbean Basin electric grid be developed to reduce the region's "addiction to oil", as he called it. By April 2010, Energy Secretary
Steven Chu and Secretary of State Clinton were speaking positively and publicly about the Caribbean Energy Grid proposal at an energy ministerial meeting of the Americas held in Washington, D.C.. McClintock has spoken extensively about this Fortuño administration proposal at numerous conferences, including some specifically organized to discuss the proposed grid, since he first proposed it in December 2009. The first concrete steps in developing the proposal announced by McClintock in December 2009 are already being taken. In 2010, the United States Congress approved a $475,000 earmark supported by Reps.
Donna Christensen (D-VI) and
Pedro Pierluisi (D-PR) to fund a study on the viability of interconnecting Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands power systems. Siemens AG completed the study in July 2011. The government of Spain financed a
World Bank pre-feasibility study on the possible interconnection of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic's power systems, which would be an integral part of the proposed Caribbean Energy Grid.
Final days as Secretary of State After the election of Sen.
Alejandro García Padilla as the 10th elected Governor of Puerto Rico on November 6, 2012, McClintock became the statutory chairman of Governor Fortuño's
Outgoing Committee on Government Transition, the first and so far only to have chaired both the
Incoming and Outgoing Committee on Transition since the approval of the Government Transition Law of 2004. On January 2, 2013, following long-standing tradition, he opened the Governor-elect's Inaugural Ceremony, minutes before completing this last stage of his public service career. Having served a full four-year term, McClintock tied with Secretary Fernando Chardón as the third longest-serving Secretary of State. Only Secretaries Sánchez-Vilella and Burgos served longer terms.
Post-governmental life After a public career that spanned 39 years, McClintock accepted a full pension from the Government Retirement System in June 2013. He was recruited by the
Interamerican University of Puerto Rico to teach American Government and Government Management courses and a Legislative Procedure seminar at its Metro campus in San Juan. He worked for Politank*, a Puerto Rico-based bipartisan government affairs firm from 2013 to 2017 as its Senior Public Policy Advisor and was frequently asked to speak at legislative hearings, public ceremonies or in the media. From January 2017 to April 2018, he served as the senior advisor to Senate President
Thomas Rivera Schatz before returning to the private sector.
Directorships For over two decades, McClintock has been a member of the board of directors of
The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars (TWC), a Washington, DC-based non-profit. In August 2017,
Rafael Morales-Maldonado, Diocesan Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Puerto Rico appointed him as a member of the board of directors of Episcopal Health Services of Puerto Rico, which operates
St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in
Ponce, a hospice and a home care health service. He also serves as a member of the board of St. Luke's and of the
Episcopal Seminary of St. Peter and St. Paul. McClintock, a lifelong Episcopalian baptized in London's St. George's Anglican Church in Notting Hill, also serves as Bishop Morales' parliamentary advisor, and previously served as a member of the diocese's Stewardship Committee during the incumbency of
Wilfrido Ramos-Orench as provisional bishop of the Puerto Rico diocese.
Legacies Among the long-lasting legacies of McClintock's public life are the Córdova-Fernós Congressional Internship Program, which has been replicated in 19 states and territories, the most recent being the
United States Virgin Islands, where Gov.
John deJongh signed a bill establishing a similar program after McClintock testified in favor of passage in the V.I. Legislature. Some of the more significant laws authored by McClintock during his 16-year senatorial career include: • The Córdova-Fernós Congressional Internship Act of 1993 • Puerto Rico's 911 Act of 1993 • The Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music Act • The 1996 Puerto Rico Casino Act • Net-Metering Act • Puerto Rico's Light-Pollution Control Act On June 12, 2015, acting Governor
David Bernier hosted the unveiling of McClintock's official portrait at the State Department in the presence of former Governor Fortuño.
Publications During the 1980s, McClintock was a regular columnist for the now-defunct
El Mundo newspaper, and has published over 100 essays and speeches in his Facebook page. He is known to continue historical research activities which he has publicly said may result in future books and publications. He has co-authored one book with Puerto Rico Democratic Party State Chair
Roberto Prats: •
Te Quiero Puerto Rico – Primaria Presidencial Demócrata 2008, Co-author with
Roberto Prats, published by Aguilar, a subsidiary of Editorial Santillana, First edition in Spanish (200pp), 2010, In 2016 he was a coauthor of: •
Puerto Rico y su Gobierno, edited by
Héctor Luis Acevedo and published by the
Inter-American University. McClintock authored two of its 22 chapters.
Honors and recognitions In his autobiography, the late Senator
Paul Simon described "State Senator Ken McClintock, (as) a capable and aggressive young leader" who favors "statehood and I hope it happens". For over a quarter century McClintock has been a member of the board of directors of TWC, a non-profit based in Washington, D.C. In 2010 he was the keynote speaker at the Universidad del Este commencement in Puerto Rico. On October 31, 2011, in a ceremony at
La Fortaleza also honoring Gov. Fortuño and Puerto Rico Senate Majority Whip
Lucy Arce, the United States
Selective Service director
Lawrence Romo awarded McClintock its Meritorious Service Award and medal On September 6, 2012, late in the September 5 session of the 2012 Democratic National Convention, McClintock participated in the Roll Call of the States to record Puerto Rico's vote in the nomination of President Barack Obama for a second term in office. An oil portrait by Cuban-Venezuelan Estrella Díaz depicting him, unveiled by Senate President
Thomas Rivera Schatz hangs at the Capitol Building's Hall of Presidents, while a photographic portrait hangs in the wall of Secretaries of State in Puerto Rico's State Department. ==Notes==