28 Facts About Cecil Andrus

Cecil Dale Andrus was an American politician who served 26th and 28th governor of Idaho, for total of fourteen years.

Cecil Andrus is the most recent Democrat to have held the office.

Cecil Andrus argued that environmentalism can and must coexist with positive economic development.

Cecil Andrus graduated from Eugene High School in 1948 at age 16 and attended Oregon State College in Corvallis, where he majored in engineering in his freshman year.

Cecil Andrus had just turned 18, and she was 16 months younger.

Cecil Andrus decided to keep working and not return to college.

In 1960, at age 28, and concerned over the local Republican state senator's stance against needed education improvements in Idaho schools, particularly in rural areas of the state, Cecil Andrus filed as a Democrat to run against him and won, and was re-elected in 1962 and 1964 from Orofino.

Cecil Andrus first ran for governor in 1966, but was narrowly defeated in the Democratic primary by Charles Herndon, an attorney from Salmon.

Cecil Andrus was appointed the nominee to take Herndon's place on the ballot.

Cecil Andrus lost the general election to Republican Don Samuelson of Sandpoint by more than 11,000 votes, earning Andrus the unlikely distinction of losing both the primary and general election races for the same office in the same year.

Cecil Andrus returned to the state senate two years later, easily unseating the Republican incumbent in the and represented Herndon's widow, Lucille, was elected to several local political offices after.

Undaunted by his earlier setback, Cecil Andrus defeated Samuelson by over 10,000 votes in a gubernatorial election rematch in 1970.

In January 1977, Cecil Andrus left his post as governor to serve as Secretary of the Interior for newly inaugurated President Jimmy Carter, whom he had known since both were freshman governors in 1971.

Cecil Andrus became the first Idahoan to serve in a Presidential Cabinet.

Cecil Andrus was succeeded in Idaho by Lieutenant Governor John V Evans, a Democrat who served nearly a decade, winning re-election in 1978 and in 1982.

Cecil Andrus took a leadership role in securing Congressional passage of the Redwood National Park Expansion Act in 1978.

In 1979, when President Carter asked for the resignations of his entire Cabinet during an administration retreat at Camp David, the resignation of Cecil Andrus was not accepted.

Cecil Andrus stayed on as Secretary of the Interior for the remainder of Carter's presidency, and returned to Idaho after Carter's term ended in January 1981.

Cecil Andrus brokered a path-breaking agreement among land use and conservation interests to control water pollution from nonpoint sources to protect riparian and fish habitat in Idaho's rivers and streams.

In September 1989, Cecil Andrus closed off the Idaho border to nuclear waste shipments from the federal government's Rocky Flats site near Denver.

Cecil Andrus initially agreed to open a temporary dump near Idaho Falls to store waste until the federal government agreed to open a site near Carlsbad, New Mexico.

Governor Cecil Andrus called attention to the downstream federal dams operated by the Army Corps of Engineers as the major culprit.

At his death in 2017, he was the eleventh longest-serving governor in Cecil Andrus was succeeded by Phil Batt of Wilder, the first Republican to win a gubernatorial election in Idaho since 1966; he served a single term and did not seek a second in 1998.

In 1995, Cecil Andrus founded the Cecil Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University, and in 1998, published his memoir, Politics Western Style.

Cecil Andrus remained active in the Idaho Democratic Party in the early 21st Century, and continued to campaign on behalf of other Democrats.

In 2006, Cecil Andrus served as campaign treasurer for Idaho Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jerry Brady.

In February 2008, Cecil Andrus endorsed and campaigned actively on behalf of Illinois Senator Barack Obama in Boise.

Cecil Andrus died on August 24,2017, in Boise, just one day before his 86th birthday, of complications from lung cancer.