58 Facts About Mark Hatfield

Mark Odom Hatfield was an American politician and educator from the state of Oregon.

Mark Hatfield won election to the Oregon Secretary of State's office at the age of 34 and two years later was elected as the 29th Governor of Oregon.

Mark Hatfield was the youngest person to ever serve in either of those offices, and served two terms as governor before election to the United States Senate.

Mark Hatfield served as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations on two occasions.

Mark Hatfield died in Portland on August 7,2011, after a long illness.

Mark Hatfield's father was from California and his mother from Tennessee.

On June 10,1940, the 17-year-old Mark Hatfield, driving his mother's car, struck and killed a pedestrian, Alice Marie Lane, as she crossed the street.

Mark Hatfield was not held criminally liable for the crash, but was found civilly liable to the family.

Mark Hatfield graduated from Salem High School in 1940 and then enrolled at Willamette University, in Salem.

Mark Hatfield sketched out a political career path beginning with the state legislature and culminating in a spot in the United States Senate, with a blank for any position beyond the Senate.

Mark Hatfield graduated from Willamette in 1943 with a Bachelor of Arts degree after three years at the school.

Mark Hatfield joined the US Navy after graduation, taking part in the World War II battles at Iwo Jima and Okinawa as a landing craft officer where he witnessed the carnage of the war.

Mark Hatfield then enrolled at Stanford University, where he obtained a master's degree in political science in 1948.

Mark Hatfield returned to Salem and Willamette after Stanford and began working as an assistant professor in political science.

In 1950 while teaching political science and serving as dean of students at Willamette, Mark Hatfield began his political career by winning election to the Oregon House of Representatives as a Republican.

Mark Hatfield defeated six others for the seat at a time when state assembly elections were still determined by county-wide votes.

Mark Hatfield served for two terms representing Marion County and Salem in the lower chamber of the Oregon Legislative Assembly.

Mark Hatfield would teach early-morning classes and then walk across the street to the Capitol to legislate.

Mark Hatfield received national attention for his early support for coaxing Dwight D Eisenhower to run for President of the United States as a Republican.

In 1954, Mark Hatfield ran and won a seat in the Oregon State Senate representing Marion County.

Mark Hatfield took office on January 7,1957, and remained until he resigned on January 12,1959.

In July 1958, after the primary election, Mark Hatfield married Antoinette Kuzmanich, a counselor at Portland State College.

Mark Hatfield continued his campaign for the governor's office after the wedding, but avoided most public appearances with fellow Republican candidates for office and did not mention them during his campaign, despite requests by other Republicans for joint appearances.

Mark Hatfield was the youngest governor in the history of Oregon at that point in time at the age of 36.

In 1962 Mark Hatfield had been considered a possible candidate to run against Morse for his Senate seat, but Mark Hatfield instead ran for re-election.

Mark Hatfield gave the keynote speech at the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco that nominated Barry Goldwater and served as temporary chairman of the party during the convention.

Mark Hatfield advocated a moderate approach for the party and opposed the extreme conservatism associated with Goldwater and his supporters.

Mark Hatfield was the only governor to vote against a resolution by the National Governors' Conference supporting the Johnson Administration's policy on the Vietnam War, as Hatfield opposed the war, but pledged "unqualified and complete support" for the troops.

Mark Hatfield preferred the use of economic sanctions to end the war.

Mark Hatfield was a popular Governor who supported Oregon's traditional industries of timber and agriculture, but felt that in the postwar era expansion of industry and funding for transportation and education needed to be priorities.

In lieu of the standard portrait for former governors, Mark Hatfield is represented by a marble bust at the Oregon State Capitol.

Limited to two terms as governor, Mark Hatfield announced his candidacy in the 1966 US Senate election for the seat vacated by the retiring Maurine Neuberger.

Mark Hatfield won the primary election with 178,782 votes compared to a combined 56,760 votes for three opponents.

Mark Hatfield then defeated Democratic Congressman Robert Duncan in the election.

In 1968, Mark Hatfield was on Richard Nixon's short list for vice president, and received the strong backing of his friend, the Rev Billy Graham.

Mark Hatfield was considered too liberal by many conservatives and Southern moderates, and Nixon chose the more centrist Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew.

On December 14,1967, Hatfield appeared on William F Buckley's talk show Firing Line.

Mark Hatfield voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, as well as to override President Reagan's veto, for the nomination of Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court and the bill establishing Martin Luther King Jr.

Mark Hatfield voted against the Supreme Court nominations of Clement Haynsworth and George Harrold Carswell, but voted in favor of the nominations of William Rehnquist, Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.

Mark Hatfield was the only Senator who voted for both Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas.

Mark Hatfield explained that his long-term goal was to have all social services provided at the neighborhood level.

Mark Hatfield appeared alongside Frank Church, Charles Goodell, Harold Hughes, and George McGovern on a bipartisan broadcast concerning the Vietnam War on May 12,1970.

In 1981, Mark Hatfield served as the chairman of the Congressional Joint Committee on Presidential Inaugurations, overseeing the first inauguration of Ronald Reagan in January of that year.

On December 2,1981, Hatfield was one of four senators to vote against an amendment to President Reagan's MX missiles proposal that would divert the silo system by $334 million as well as earmark further research for other methods that would allow giant missiles to be based.

Mark Hatfield advocated for the closure of the N-Reactor at the Hanford Nuclear Site in the 1980s, though he was a supporter of nuclear fusion programs.

Mark Hatfield frequently broke with his party on issues of national defense and foreign policy in support for non-interventionism, such as military spending and the ban on travel to Cuba, while often siding with them on environmental and conservation issues.

Mark Hatfield was the lone Republican to vote against the 1981 fiscal year's appropriations bill for the Department of Defense.

Mark Hatfield was rated as the sixth most respected senator in a 1987 survey by fellow senators.

In 1991, Mark Hatfield voted against authorizing military action against Iraq in the Gulf War, one of only two members of his party to do so in the Senate.

Mark Hatfield compared the balanced budget amendment to President Reagan's tax cuts, claiming that both were examples of "imagery versus substance".

In 1991, it was revealed that Hatfield had failed to report a number of expensive gifts from the president of the University of South Carolina, James B Holderman.

Mark Hatfield received another rebuke from the Senate after the Ethics Committee investigated two gifts that he had received in the form of forgiven loans from a former congressman and a California businessman.

Mark Hatfield, who had typically stayed above the fray of negative campaigning, was forced to respond in kind with attack ads of his own.

Mark Hatfield defeated the Democrat with 590,095 votes to 507,743 votes.

In 1995, Mark Hatfield was the only Republican in the Senate to vote against the proposed balanced budget amendment, and was the deciding vote that prevented the passage of the bill.

Mark Hatfield retired in 1996, having never lost an election in 46 years and 11 campaigns as an elected official.

Senator Mark Hatfield merited his own chapter in Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation.

Mark Hatfield died at a care facility in Portland on August 7,2011, after several years of illness.