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| Affiliation | Democratic |
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| Name | Elliott Harris Levitas |
| Address |
Atlanta, Georgia , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
December 26, 1930 |
| Died |
December 16, 2022
(91 years) |
| Contributor | eddy 9_99 |
| Last Modifed | IndyGeorgia
Dec 18, 2022 04:32pm |
| Tags |
Air Force - Judaism -
|
| Info | Elliott Harris Levitas, represented Georgia's 4th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives from 1975 to 1985. Prior to that, he had been an active practicing attorney for 18 years. He has been a partner in the Atlanta law firm of Kilpatrick Stockton LLP (successor to Kilpatrick & Cody) since 1985. He also was a Representative from DeKalb County in the Georgia General Assembly from 1966 to 1975.
Levitas earned a B.A. from Emory University and a J.D. from Emory Law School where he graduated first in his class and was on the Law Review. A Rhodes Scholar, he received an M.A. from Oxford University and did further study in law at the University of Michigan where he was also on the Law Review. He served in the 8th Air Force, Strategic Air Command, and was a Captain in the Air Force Reserve.
A practicing attorney since 1955, Mr. Levitas is admitted to practice in all State and Federal Courts in Georgia and the District of Columbia and before the Supreme Court of the United States. He serves as an Adjunct Professor at Emory Law School. He is a member of the Atlanta, DeKalb, Georgia and American Bar Associations, the Lawyer's Club of Atlanta, and the Atlanta Commerce Club. He is past president of the Emory Law Alumni Association and currently serves on the Emory Law School Council.
In May, 1991, Mr. Levitas was appointed to serve as one of eight commissioners of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement, which was created by an Act of Congress in 1990 to investigate the savings and loan debacle and recommend remediation and legislation.
Also in 1991, Governor Zell Miller of Georgia appointed Mr. Levitas to Chair the Georgia Hazardous Waste Management Authority. Mr. Levitas was chosen by Georgia Trend as one of Georgia's "100 Most Influential" people for 1991, and was honored by Emory Law School in 1994 as a Distinguished Alumni.
Mr. Levitas served as an Official Election Observer in the parliamentary elections in Mongolia in July 1996. He also attended and was a speaker at a conference held at the Technical University of Freiberg, Freiberg, Saxony, Germany, co-sponsored by the Southern Center for International Studies and Atlantik-Brucke on the topic Confronting the 21st Century: Europe and the United States in a New Competitive Environment; Fears, Lessons and Visions. In September, 1997, Mr. Levitas participated on behalf of the United States in an International Symposium on Strengthening Emerging Democracies co-sponsored by USIS held in Istanbul, Turkey, under the auspices of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), an arm of the Congressionally-created National Endowment for Democracy. In January, 1998, the National Democratic Institute once again invited Mr. Levitas to participate in an NDI program held in Tbilisi, Georgia. This program was a mid-term assessment of the Georgian Legislature and Mr. Levitas' participation contributed to efforts to strengthen the Georgian Parliament and to promote its role in building democracy in Georgia.
Mr. Levitas is a member of the Board of Directors of The Chatham House Foundation, Inc., headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Chatham House Foundation was established to increase American participation in and the support for the Royal Institute of International Affairs located at Chatham House in London, and to make the work of the Royal Institute more accessible to Americans.
Mr. Levitas is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Environmental Law Institute, and a past member of the Board of Trustees and the Executive Committee of the Georgia Conservancy. Levitas also serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Building Museum which was created by Congress in 1980 and is mandated to communicate and encourage the American building arts. Levitas is an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. In addition, Levitas is a board member of the Anti-Defamation League, S.E. Region, and Chairman of the Civil Rights Commission, S.E. Region.
Elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965, Mr. Levitas spent five consecutive terms in the Georgia General Assembly and, at the end of each term, was named "One of the Ten Most Effective Members" by his colleagues. He was on the Judiciary, Education and Banking Committees and was Chairman of the Committee on State Planning and Community Affairs and of the Joint Committee on Mass Transit.
Congressional Service
Mr. Levitas served on the Committee on Public Works and Transportation where he worked in the area of mass transit, air transportation and safety, highways and water pollution abatement. He was Chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations and oversight, and was the first ranking member on the Subcommittee on Aviation. He was also a member of the Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds and was its Chairman for two years.
In addition, he was a member of the Government Operations Committee and three of its Subcommittees: Commerce, Consumer & Monetary Affairs; Legislation and National Security; and Intergovernmental Relations and Human Resources.
Mr. Levitas was one of the leading figures in the fight for regulatory reform. He introduced a comprehensive regulatory reform bill which contained general regulatory reform provisions including procedures for conducting cost-benefit analysis on proposed regulations, judicial review procedures and a legislative veto provision. While the comprehensive legislation was not fully enacted, many provisions were adopted in various laws, regulations and executive orders.
As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, Mr. Levitas had oversight responsibilities into every facet of the Public Works and Transportation Committee's jurisdiction. The subcommittee had major impact during the 97th and 98th Congress in developing and redirecting policies and legislation in the areas of aviation operations, aviation safety, international aviation, highway construction and safety, mass transportation, water resources and environmental issues.
Mr. Levitas' efforts to address the problems of waste, fraud and abuse led to direct inquiries into the Environmental Protection Agency's multi-billion dollar municipal wastewater treatment facility Construction Grants Program and the industrial wastewater treatment program. His subcommittee completed comprehensive reviews of those programs during 1981. The results led to changes in federal law to ensure that needless treatment facilities are not built at corporate or taxpayers' expense, and that those that are constructed are run properly.
Mr. Levitas' subcommittee also focused on the effectiveness of environmental legislation in cleaning up and preventing the occurrence of future hazardous waste dump sites. His investigations highlighted the implementation of the Superfund Law, risk assessment, response options and victims compensation. The actions of the subcommittee led to the historic citing of the EPA Administrator for contempt of Congress, and eventually to the resignation of many top EPA officials.
Mr. Levitas was a "watchdog" over airline passenger safety and practices by the FAA, the airlines and manufacturers. Both before and after the August 3, 1981 strike of the air traffic controllers, the subcommittee kept a constant surveillance of the system, and held a number of hearings to identify problems and ensure that the safety of the air traffic control system would not be impaired. He was a co-sponsor and principal author of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, a bill which was signed into law on October 24, 1978, and which deregulated the American airline industry.
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