Hugh Rodham

Hugh Edwin Rodham (born May 26, 1950) is an American lawyer and former Democratic Party politician who is the only surviving brother of Hillary Rodham Clinton. In 1989, Rodham became Assistant Public Defender for the Miami Drug Court. Rodham made one run for political office, winning the 1994 Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat from Florida, but losing the general election to incumbent Senator Connie Mack III. During the Clinton administration, some of his actions came under public scrutiny. Since then he has been in private practice as a lawyer.

Early life Rodham was raised in a United Methodist family in suburban Park Ridge, Illinois. He managed a successful small business in the textile industry. Hugh has an older sister, Hillary, and younger brother, Tony. He graduated from Maine South High School in 1968, playing on the football, wrestling, and baseball teams.

Like his father, Rodham attended Pennsylvania State University, graduating in 1972 with a Bachelor of Science degree from the College of Health and Human Development. While attending Penn State he was backup quarterback on the Penn State Nittany Lions football team. Rodham was also an active member of the Sigma Triton charge of Theta Delta Chi fraternity at Penn State.

He served in the Peace Corps in Colombia He then gained advanced degrees in education (M.A.) and law (J.D.) at the University of Arkansas, For a while there he shared a condominium with his brother Tony. She graduated from the University of Miami School of Law in 1989 and subsequently became an established real estate lawyer. She has given both Bill and Hillary Clinton advice on Cuba matters and an immediate connection to the Cuban exile community in Miami. In this work Rodham was praised by local officials for effective, tireless work for long hours at low wages;

In 1993, Hugh Rodham and his brother Tony ignited a small controversy when they tried to solicit corporate donations for Clinton's inaugural parties; they dropped the effort after a public outcry. Once the Clintons entered the White House, Rodham became a sometime golfing buddy of the President and he and Maria often joined family get-togethers at Camp David. When Clinton was having trouble with his cabinet nominations, Rodham recommended Reno to the president for appointment as U.S. Attorney General.

Run for U.S. Senate

Rodham left the public defenders office to run for the United States Senate in Florida in 1994. He had some basic problems as a candidate, including having to explain why he had never registered to vote in the state until 1992. In addition, his campaign manager left the campaign after not getting paid for weeks when told there was no money but discovered that funds were in the account he actually set up.

The second-place finisher and other entrant in the runoff was Mike Wiley, a talk radio personality and advocate of UFO conspiracy theories. In the presence of Rodham at a press conference, Rubin leveled the accusation that Wiley was hiding his Jewish faith by changing his name from his birth name, Michael Schreiber, In one case late in the race, Bill Clinton flew to Miami to speak at a rally for Rodham but only 200 people were in the audience due to poor advance work by the campaign.

In November 1994, Rodham lost to Mack by 1,684,623 votes.

Rodham then had some involvement in Broward County politics, supporting a candidate for the County Commission who lost. After initial resistance, extending the American tradition of troublesome presidential siblings to the brother-in-law category; While legal experts said that Rodham may well not have done anything wrong, the appearance of possible impropriety certainly existed. By the mid-2010s, he was still working at Rodham & Fine. But generally he kept a low profile during the campaign and declined to speak to the press.