Kenneth Davison McClintock-Hernández (born January 19, 1957) is a politician who served as the twenty-second Secretary of State of Puerto Rico, one of the four longest serving in that post. McClintock served as co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s National Hispanic Leadership Council in 2008, he co-chaired her successful Puerto Rico primary campaign that year and served as the Thirteenth President of the Senate of Puerto Rico until December 31, 2008. He chaired Luis Fortuño’s Incoming Committee on Government Transition in 2008 and the Outgoing Committee on Government Transition in 2012, the first Puerto Rican to serve in both capacities. He was sworn into office as secretary of state on January 2, 2009, by Chief Justice Federico Hernández Denton, fulfilling the role of lieutenant governor (first-in-line of succession) in the islands.
He was appointed by Governor Pedro Pierluisi as a member of the Civil Rights Commission (Puerto Rico) on February 8, 2024, a nomination pending Senate confirmation.
McClintock was born in London, on January 19, 1957. His father, George Davison McClintock (1925–2001), a Scottish-American architect born in Texas City, Texas and educated at the University of Texas at Austin, was working for the United States Air Force at the time. McClintock's mother, Nívea Mercedes Hernández (1931–2000), born in Puerto Rico, was a university professor, also educated at the University of Texas at Austin, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Puerto Rico. Kenneth, along with his brother Steven George and sister Elaine Mercedes, were raised and educated in Puerto Rico.
He graduated from University High School (UHS) in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, in 1974, where he served as student council president, studied from 1974 to 1977 at the UPRRP College of Business Administration, and in 1980 obtained his Juris Doctor from Tulane University Law School. While in college, McClintock, along with Puerto Rico's former governor Luis Fortuño, founded the Puerto Rico Statehood Students Association, a student organization that promoted absentee voting in favor of the reelection of Governor Carlos Romero Barceló in 1980. McClintock never applied for admission to the bar, neither in Louisiana nor in Puerto Rico, as his intention was not to practice law but to be a public servant. He began that public service before law school, as the 19-year old staff director for the Puerto Rico House of Representatives Consumer Affairs Committee. He subsequently served as a legislative assistant to the New Party for Progress House delegation.
McClintock has spent most of his adult life working in the Puerto Rico Legislative Assembly, first as a full-time staffer and subsequently as a legislator, before serving as secretary of state and lieutenant governor. While in college, he was an Amway independent distributor, learning how to run a small private business and earning enough money to support himself. After retiring from government service, he joined Politank*, a government affairs firm as Senior Public Policy Advisor, except for a brief period from 2017 to 2018 when Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz recruited him as his senior advisor.
He was married in 1994, to Maria Elena Batista, who served from 2001 to 2013 as director of Sports and Recreation for the municipality of San Juan and a former 1988 Olympic swimmer. After separating on February 18, 2011, they divorced in 2012 after 18 years of marriage. The two have a son, Kevin Davison McClintock-Batista, born in 1995, a Georgetown University graduate, an aspiring actor, a past National President of the Puerto Rico Statehood Students Association, a post his father held in 1979–80, and a former president of the Young Democrats of America (YDA) Hispanic Caucus, and a daughter, Dr. Stephanie Marie McClintock-Batista, born in 1997, and a University of Notre Dame BA and Ponce Health Services University MD graduate currently a radiology resident at the University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences campus and practicing medicine in Puerto Rico. He lives in San Juan where he is an active member of the Puerto Rican Episcopal Church.
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.
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.
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.