40 Facts About Larry Pressler

Larry Lee Pressler was born on March 29,1942 and is an American lawyer and politician from South Dakota who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1975 to 1979, and United States Senate from 1979 to 1997, as a Republican.

Larry Pressler remained active in politics following his failed reelection campaign in 1996 and attempted to regain his former seat in 2014 as an independent, but was unsuccessful.

Larry Lee Pressler was born in Humboldt, South Dakota, to Loretta Claussen and Antone Lewis Pressler and was raised on his family's farm.

Larry Pressler graduated from the University of South Dakota in 1964 and was later awarded the Rhodes Scholarship.

Larry Pressler attended St Edmund Hall at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and received a Bachelor of Arts.

Larry Pressler returned to the United States and in 1966 completed his Master of Public Administration degree at Harvard University.

Larry Pressler joined the United States Army and served in the Vietnam War from 1966 until 1968.

Larry Pressler later attended the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Harvard Law School where he graduated in 1971.

In March 1976, Jack Anderson and Les Whitten claimed that multiple articles written by Larry Pressler had been copied in their entirety from The Washington Post and other newspapers.

Larry Pressler denied the charge of plagiarism, but admitted that a January 1976 article had "accidentally" included excerpts from The Washington Post.

Larry Pressler served in the Senate from 1979 to 1997 and was chairman of the Commerce Committee.

Larry Pressler ran for a fourth term in 1996 but lost by three points to Democratic Congressman Tim Johnson.

Larry Pressler briefly sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, campaigning on Vietnam veterans' issues.

Larry Pressler authored and won Congressional and Presidential approval of a sweeping reform of telecommunications legislation through the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

Larry Pressler tells the undercover agents, in effect, to take their sting and stick it.

Larry Pressler, according to law enforcement sources was the one approached member of Congress who flatly refused to consider financial favors in exchange for legislative favors, as suggested by undercover agents posing as Arabs.

Larry Pressler showed a clear awareness of the line between proper and improper conduct, and despite his confessed need for campaign money, and despite the additional attractiveness to him of the payment offered, he nevertheless refused to cross into impropriety.

Larry Pressler subsequently became senior partner of the law firm O'Connor and Hannan, where he served for six years, and then formed his own law firm, The Larry Pressler Group.

Larry Pressler is a member of the New York Bar, the Washington DC Bar, and the Supreme Court Bar.

Larry Pressler has lectured at more than twenty universities in China, India and the US, and has been granted two lifetime Fulbright teaching awards.

In 1998, Larry Pressler considered a bid for Mayor of Washington DC, though he ultimately would not go through with it.

Larry Pressler attempted a political comeback in 2002 by running for South Dakota's open at-large House seat but he essentially discontinued his campaign when Republican governor Bill Janklow unexpectedly entered the race.

Larry Pressler was appointed an official observer of Ukraine's national election in December 2004.

Larry Pressler serves on the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission.

In October 2012, based on veterans' issues, Larry Pressler endorsed Obama for a second term with an article in The Huffington Post and on national television networks.

Larry Pressler campaigned in a bipartisan team for Obama in the fall of 2012, speaking on behalf of the Obama ticket to certain veterans' groups in Virginia.

Larry Pressler taught as a distinguished visiting professor at Sciences Po University, Paris, France, and Reims, France, in the fall of 2012.

In 2013, Pressler was a signatory to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage during the Hollingsworth v Perry case.

Larry Pressler endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election and Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

Larry Pressler continued his public lectures including a speech at Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw, Poland, on June 4,2018, for the 2018 International Security Forum.

Larry Pressler stated that he would only serve for one term, and pledged that he would "never raise a dollar" in campaign funds while in office.

Larry Pressler supported raising taxes on the rich, possibly gradually increasing the retirement age for Social Security.

Larry Pressler said that his top priority was cutting the national deficit.

Larry Pressler supported "much, much stronger" background checks for gun sales for mentally challenged persons.

Larry Pressler ultimately lost the 2014 Senate election to Governor Rounds.

In 1975 Larry Pressler cosponsored a bill that would prohibit the importation of beef and dairy products to improve domestic sales of those products to help farmers and he later asked President Gerald Ford to place a tariff on all imported cheese products.

Larry Pressler later sent a letter to Vern Loen, one of Ford's advisors, stating that Harry S Truman's victory in the 1948 presidential election was due to his support among farmers in swing states.

Larry Pressler stated that in order to gain the vote of farmers that Ford should impose tariffs on dairy products while subsidizing exporting dairy products, removing most favored nation trade status for countries that have restrictions on United States beef, dairy, and pork products, and to give equal priority to agricultural products that industrial products were given at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

In 1975 Larry Pressler supported a bill to create a Missing In Action select committee to investigate the 921 cases of soldiers still missing in action from the Vietnam War.

In 2015, at the age of 73, Larry Pressler converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.