Peter F. Flaherty

Peter " Pete " Francis Flaherty ( born June 25, 1924 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, † April 18, 2005 in Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania ) was an American politician of the Democratic Party and a lawyer who is not only mayor of Pittsburgh, but a short time also Deputy U.S. Attorney General was. Flaherty applied beyond twice unsuccessfully for a seat in the U.S. Senate and another time for the Office of the Governor of Pennsylvania.

Life

Flaherty, who performed his military service in the U.S. Army during the Second World War, first attended the Carlow University, before he studied law at the Law School of the University of Notre Dame and this graduated in 1951. After his subsequent attorney's approval in the state of Pennsylvania, he worked as a lawyer and in the meantime from 1957 to 1964 as Deputy District Attorney of Allegheny County.

His political career in the Democratic Party, he began in 1966 when he was elected a member of the City Council of Pittsburgh and this remained until 1970. In 1970 he was elected mayor of Pittsburgh. During his term of office lasting until 1977 he completed a postgraduate degree in public administration at the University of Pittsburgh and completed this in 1971 with a Master of Public Administration (MPA ).

In 1974 he ran for the Democrats for the first time for a Senate seat for Pennsylvania, but was defeated by Republican incumbent Richard Schweiker with 45.9 percent of the vote to 53 percent.

After the election of Jimmy Carter as U.S. president, he enters 1977 as the U.S. Deputy Attorney General in the government service and was in this capacity until 1978, thus Deputy Minister of Justice. In 1978 he resigned from this post in order to run for the Democrats as the successor of Milton Shapp for the Office of the Governor of Pennsylvania. In the election, however, he was defeated by Republican candidate Dick Thornburgh.

In 1980 he ran again for the second Senate seat in Pennsylvania (Class 3), but lost again against his Republican opponent, this time against former District Attorney Arlen Specter, who received 50.48 percent, while accounted for 48.04 percent of the vote to Flaherty.

After working some time back as a lawyer, he was most recently 1984-1996 Commissioner of Allegheny County, and thus head of the administration.