22 Facts About Vance Hartke

Rupert Vance Hartke was an American politician who served as a Democratic United States Senator from Indiana from 1959 until 1977.

Vance Hartke ran for president in the 1972 Democratic primaries but withdrew after the first set of primaries.

Vance Hartke left the Senate after losing his 1976 reelection campaign to Richard Lugar.

Vance Hartke was born on May 31,1919, in Stendal, Indiana, the son of Ida Mary, an organist, and Hugo Leonard Vance Hartke, a teacher.

Vance Hartke graduated from Evansville College in 1940, and served in the United States Navy and United States Coast Guard from 1942 to 1946, rising from seaman to lieutenant.

Vance Hartke graduated from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law in 1948.

Vance Hartke worked as deputy prosecuting attorney of Vanderburgh County and mayor of Evansville, integrating the city swimming pools, before being elected to the United States Senate in 1958 and reelected in 1964 and 1970.

Vance Hartke fell out with President Lyndon Johnson when he became one of the Vietnam War's first opponents.

Vance Hartke was elected to the Senate in 1958 at age 39, defeating Republican Governor Harold Handley.

Vance Hartke became known as a hard-working, liberal Democrat with a strong relationship with Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson.

Vance Hartke was reelected over state Senator Russell Bontrager in 1964, becoming only the third Indiana Democrat, after Benjamin Franklin Shively in 1914 and Frederick Van Nuys in 1938, to be popularly elected to a second Senate term.

Vance Hartke helped create student loan programs and new veterans' benefits during his second term.

Vance Hartke helped to establish Amtrak as chair of the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation.

Vance Hartke was instrumental in creating the International Executive Service Corps, an organization modeled after the Peace Corps that sent retired US businessmen to poor countries to help turn small businesses into larger ones.

Vance Hartke was credited with important roles in passing measures that created or supported student loan programs, veterans' benefits, and the Head Start Program.

Vance Hartke introduced a bill to create the George Washington Peace Academy and a Department of Peace.

Vance Hartke was praised for winning passage of a measure making kidney dialysis more widely available.

In 1970, after a very bitter and tight race against Republican Congressman Richard L Roudebush and a ballot recount, Hartke won a third term by 4,283 votes.

In 1976, after narrowly surviving a primary challenge by freshman Eighth District Congressman Philip Hayes, Vance Hartke lost the general Senate election to Indianapolis Mayor Richard Lugar in a landslide.

Until Joe Donnelly was elected in 2012, Vance Hartke was the most recent Indiana Democrat, aside from a member of the Bayh family, to be elected to and serve in the Senate.

In 1994, Vance Hartke pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor election fraud charge in southeastern Indiana's Dearborn County.

Vance Hartke died at a hospital in Fairfax, Virginia on July 27,2003, aged 84.