FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who shocked Washington with news of his resignation on Tuesday, will leave the agency at the end of this month with a track record of activism and regulatory actions.

FDA leaders have typically focused much of their attention on a handful of medical topics, but Gottlieb has been active and aggressive on many issues as commissioner without hewing to a strictly conservative or liberal ideology. It’s an approach that’s won him praise from many in the health sector, while garnering criticism from several of the targeted businesses like tobacco companies and the fast-growing e-cigarette industries.

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“He was able to do something very rare: He never got embroiled in a scandal, never got labeled with a toxic administration brush and had a great relationship with the President all at the same time,” said one former White House official.

Still, his independent streak sometimes stoked tension with others in the administration. Gottlieb pushed regulatory issues under a mandate from a president that pushed deregulation as one of his core goals. He was also outspoken on Twitter during the 35-day government shutdown and hesitated to lead the charge on drug importation, a pet policy proposal of President Donald Trump. A drug importation working group that HHS asked FDA to start last year moved back into the parent agency months later because Gottlieb did not want to lead the group, according to former agency officials.

He also did not embrace the original Right-To-Try proposals, and worked on modifying that legislation to allow people access to experimental medicines. Here’s a roundup of notable policies from his tenure:

Worked to both speed new gene and cell therapies to market. Gottlieb worked to advance cell and gene therapies, a promising new area of medicine. Under his leadership, the FDA put out a framework for regenerative medicines, designed to accelerate the approval of the most promising gene therapies. At the same time, Gottlieb balanced promoting legitimate new treatments with crackdowns on bad actors who were taking advantage of patients by marketing unapproved, unproven and potentially dangerous treatments.

Spoke out on drug prices. Even mentioning the costs of medicines has for years been seen as taboo for FDA chiefs, because FDA has no authority over drug costs and is not supposed to consider cost in its decisions. More than six months before HHS formally proposed to overhaul the drug-payment system by changing how pharmaceutical companies and payers negotiate rebates for medicines, Gottlieb suggested the government reexamine regulations that shield rebates from antitrust scrutiny. He was also critical of brand drug makers using rebates to block cheaper competition from from generic-like medicines known as biosimilars.

Pushed for generic competition. Gottlieb was vocal about increasing drug competition to bring prices down. While some of that momentum — like record high approvals in 2018 — came from Obama-era legislation boosting FDA generic drug staff, Gottlieb led efforts to name and shame brand drugmakers that were making generic development harder. He also sped the review of generic drugs that would be the first to compete with a branded product.

Led attack on tobacco and e-cigarettes. Gottlieb launched a sweeping strategy last year to tackle what he labeled an “epidemic” of teen vaping with plans to push kid-friendly flavors out of retail stores and curb underage sales. He indicated just days ago that more policy changes were in the pipeline, including a controversial plan to ban entirely cigarette and cigar flavors. That earned him the ire of lawmakers like Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who is from a leading tobacco-producing state. The commissioner also publicly said that he would back raising the purchase age to 21, which conservative lawmakers also opposed.

Laid groundwork to modernize medical devices. Just as media scrutiny called into question the safety of some medical devices, Gottlieb announced plans to overhaul their review process so manufacturers would test their potential products against more modern technology. He also acknowledged problems with women’s products like breast implants and long-term birth control and set out plans to actively monitor issues with those products.

Drew attention to cybersecurity threats. Gottlieb pushed FDA to examine software’s role in health care, especially with cybersecurity and hacking issues that could arise with new technologies. FDA moved to boost tech security requirements for medical devices, by issuing guidance about what considerations manufacturers needed to take into account in getting devices approved or cleared by FDA. The stance was cheered by hospitals and IT groups seeking more robust regulatory protections.

Raised profile of nutrition policy. Gottlieb surprised many in the public health sector by focusing on nutrition policy, something that’s been a lesser priority for previous FDA commissioners. During his tenure, the agency continued much of the Obama administration’s agenda on food, such as by mandating menu labeling and banning trans fat. He also launched a wide-ranging new nutrition strategy to try to tackle diet-related disease, although much of those plans have not yet been implemented.

Preserved Michelle Obama’s sugars labeling. FDA resisted calls from some in the food industry to scrap a new mandate to disclose “added sugars” on Nutrition Facts labels, a change that had been championed by former first lady Michelle Obama.

Pressed for FDA role in cell-based meat. FDA was unusually aggressive in asserting it had jurisdiction over the budding cell-based meat sector, which grows meat tissue from cells to make sausages, chicken nuggets and other products. After a strangely public turf battle with USDA, the Trump administration ultimately decided that FDA and USDA will share oversight over the products.

Darius Tahir contributed to this report.

The co-chair of Miami’s effort to land the 2020 Democratic convention criticized what he called unwarranted delays by the Democratic National Committee as it selects a site — delays that could hamstring the eventual hosts of the party confab.

“Everybody should have a concern over this massive delay and how it affects the planning and funding of a convention,” said Philip Levine, the co-chair of the convention effort and Miami Beach’s former mayor. “We were told this would happen in January, and it’s March and we still don’t know where the convention is going to be.”

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The longer the delay, the longer it takes to raise the needed money to secure sponsors and line up vendors for the convention, Levine said. He said Miami wanted to raise between $8 million and $10 million in the first quarter of the year, “but the first quarter is two-thirds over.”

A DNC spokesperson said the organization and Chairman Tom Perez, who ultimately makes the decision about where Democrats will nominate their presidential candidate, will make a choice soon. But “we’re still evaluating all three cities” under consideration, the spokesperson said: Miami, Houston and Milwaukee.

Levine, stopping short of criticizing Perez by name, said all three cities should be concerned. Democrats in Milwaukee and Houston have privately shared Levine’s concerns, while others have suggested Levine is “freaking out” and potentially hurting the case for South Florida, given that DNC officials had asked the host committees vying for the convention not to talk to the press.

Either way, the delay has increased pressure and attention on Perez. It could even be the first act in a potentially chaotic spectacle in July 2020, when a crowded Democratic presidential primary could culminate in a brokered convention and multi-round delegate fight.

Levine pointed out that the GOP has already selected its site, Charlotte, N.C., and has had no convention drama.

Miami officials have grown increasingly frustrated with both the pace of the selection process and the sense that Perez favors Milwaukee, where he has family ties. The main attraction to Milwaukee: Democrats want to emphasize the importance of the Midwest, where President Donald Trump won states that Republicans had not carried in decades in 2016.

Democrats also lost the nation’s biggest swing state, Florida, and Miami Democrats say a convention in South Florida would also help avoid a repeat Trump victory.

Said one Miami Democrat involved in discussions about the convention: “The fix is in for Milwaukee. And Perez is just trying to find a way to justify it.”

Another DNC official shared the sentiment, but a third who has spoken repeatedly with Perez told POLITICO that no decision has been made. Perez held a conference call Tuesday with DNC members involved in the convention site selection and reiterated the point.

“Tom said this would take days, not weeks,” the official said. “He said no decision has been made and I believe him. But the belief is Miami is no. 3, despite all the spin. It’s between Milwaukee and Houston.”

Still, the official said, the selection has taken longer than initially anticipated.

Regardless, Levine said that time is money.

“Fundraising is work you have to do over a period of time,” Levine said. “There are bills to pay. There are logistics to plan. It takes time. It takes time to reach donors. It takes time to put packages together to get companies to sponsor events. They don’t do this overnight. They need time. And we’re losing time. And when the time is reduced, all three cities will have a more challenging time.”

Miami last month began a last-ditch convention push amid rumors that Milwaukee was the favored city. The governors of Wisconsin and Illinois have weighed in on behalf of Milwaukee. Neither Miami nor Houston are in states with Democratic governors.

The 2020 convention planning once involved New York Democrat Leah Daughtry, who was hired by Perez to write requests for proposals for the convention cities and was the CEO for the 2008 and 2016 Democratic conventions. She has worked on every convention since 1992.

But Perez decided not to keep her on, which Daughtry said was the chair’s prerogative. She suggested that Milwaukee’s relatively small size and limited hotel capacity could become a challenge if there’s a contested convention and more campaigns are in town.

“I don’t know that a fix is in,” Daughtry said. “And I hope and expect that the chair would be most concerned about a convention site that would accommodate the delegates, the media and the politics that will be present in this most unconventional convention.”

Daughtry said Democrats “are likely to walk into a convention with at least two or three candidates still standing. A city with the capacity to grow – to accommodate these changes, which we may not know until the last minute – is a city that would be most successful. What I’ve seen of the three cities, certainly Houston and Miami have room to grow. Milwaukee would be a tighter fit.”

Milwaukee and Houston boosters note that Miami has a relatively old arena, however.

DNC officials recently asked for more data about accommodations in Milwaukee, but an official involved with the planning there said that wasn’t a problem, nor was the delay.

“No one in Milwaukee is freaking out,” the Democratic official said. “The DNC is asking for more information, and it’s a big decision, so we understand that and we’re happy to give them whatever they need.”

But another top Democrat involved in the selection process said that it appears the “DNC just dove into this and have a level of urgency that probably happened too late.”

Levine said he just wants a decision made. And it feels like it’s getting too late.

“I’m so confused at this point that I just don’t know,” Levine said. “We’re not the only city that feels this way.”

Natasha Korecki, David Siders and Alex Thompson contributed reporting.