John Bayard Anderson (February 15, 1922 – December 3, 2017) was an American lawyer and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1961 to 1981, representing Illinois's 16th congressional district. Initially a member of the Republican Party, he also served as the Chairman of the House Republican Conference from 1969 until 1979. In 1980, he ran an independent presidential campaign, receiving 6.6% of the popular vote.
Born in Rockford, Illinois, Anderson practiced law after serving in the Army during World War II. After a stint in the United States Foreign Service, he won election as the State's Attorney for Winnebago County, Illinois. He won election to the House of Representatives in 1960 in a strongly Republican district in Illinois, and served ten terms in the House until he resigned in 1980. Initially one of the most conservative members of the House, Anderson's views moderated during the 1960s, particularly regarding social issues. During his tenure in the House, he became chairman of the House Republican Conference in 1969 and remained in that position until 1979. He strongly criticized the Vietnam War as well as President Richard Nixon's actions during the Watergate scandal.
Anderson entered the 1980 Republican presidential primaries, introducing his signature campaign proposal of raising the gas tax while cutting Social Security taxes. Anderson established himself as a contender for the nomination in the early primaries but eventually dropped out of the Republican race, choosing to pursue an independent campaign for president. In the election, he finished third behind Republican nominee Ronald Reagan and Democratic President Jimmy Carter. He won support among Democrats who became disillusioned with Carter, as well as Rockefeller Republicans, independents, liberal intellectuals, and college students.
After the 1980 election, he resumed his legal career and helped found FairVote, an organization that advocates electoral reform, including an instant-runoff voting system. He also won a lawsuit against the state of Ohio, Anderson v. Celebrezze, in which the Supreme Court struck down early filing deadlines for independent candidates. Anderson served as a visiting professor at numerous universities and was on the boards of several organizations. He died at the age of 95 in December 2017.
Early life and career
John Bayard Anderson was born in Rockford, Illinois, where he grew up, the son of Mabel Edna (née Ring) and Ernest Albin Anderson. His father was a Swedish immigrant, as were his maternal grandparents. His father was born in 1885 in Eriksberg parish, Västergötland.
In his youth, he worked in his family's grocery store. He graduated as the valedictorian of his class (1939) at Rockford Central High School. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1942, and started law school; his education was interrupted by World War II. He enlisted in the Army in 1943, and served as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Field Artillery in France and Germany until the end of the war, receiving four service stars. After the war, Anderson returned to complete his education, earning a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Illinois College of Law in 1946.
Anderson was admitted to the Illinois bar the same year, and practiced law in Rockford. Soon after, he moved east to attend Harvard Law School, obtaining a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in 1949. His LL.M. thesis was entitled, "A historical prologue to federal jurisdiction." While at Harvard, he served on the faculty of Northeastern University School of Law in Boston. In another brief return to Rockford, Anderson practiced at the law firm Large, Reno & Zahm (now Reno & Zahm LLP). Thereafter, Anderson joined the Foreign Service. From 1952 to 1955, he served in Berlin, as the Economic Reporting Officer in the Eastern Affairs Division, as an adviser on the staff of the United States High Commissioner for Germany. At the end of his tour, he left the foreign service and once again returned to the practice of law in Rockford.
Early political career
Soon after his return, Anderson was approached about running for public office. In 1956, Anderson was elected State's Attorney in Winnebago County, Illinois, first winning a four-person race in the April primary by 1,330 votes and then the general election in November by 11,456 votes. After serving for one term, he was ready to leave that office when the local congressman, 28-year incumbent Leo E. Allen, announced his retirement. Anderson joined the Republican primary for Allen's 16th District seat—the real contest in this then-solidly Republican district based in Rockford and stretching across the state's northwest corner. He won a five-way primary in April (by 5,900 votes) in April and then the general election in November (by 45,000 votes). He served in the United States House of Representatives for ten terms, from 1961 to 1981.
Initially, Anderson was among the most conservative members of the Republican caucus. Three times (in 1961, 1963, and 1965) in his early terms as a Congressman, Anderson introduced a constitutional amendment to attempt to "recognize the law and authority of Jesus Christ" over the United States. The bills died quietly but later came back to haunt Anderson in his presidential candidacy. Anderson voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, as well as the Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Initially supportive of Barry Goldwater's candidacy for president in 1964 and believing Goldwater to be an "honest, sincere man", Anderson came to believe that most of his ideas would not work on a national scale, and described Lyndon B. Johnson's victory over Goldwater in the 1964 election as a vote for moderation, believing that the Republican Party needed to go in a moderate direction. Other factors such as attending the funerals of Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney, as well as the street riots happening in America at that point, led to Anderson shift from the right to the left on social issues, although his fiscal positions largely remained conservative. The riots led Anderson to vote in favor of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968.No Holding Back: The 1980 John B. Anderson Presidential Campaign
In 1964, Anderson won appointment to a seat on the powerful Rules Committee. In 1969, he became Chairman of the House Republican Conference, the number three position in the House Republican hierarchy in what was (at that time) the minority party. Anderson increasingly found himself at odds with conservatives in his home district and other members of the House. He was not always a faithful supporter of the Republican agenda, despite his high rank in the Republican caucus. He was very critical of the Vietnam War, and was a very controversial critic of Richard Nixon during Watergate. In 1974, despite his criticism of Nixon, the strong anti-Republican tide in that year's election held him to 55% of the vote, what would be the lowest percentage of his career. Anderson described Nixon as a "man of great duplicity".
His spot as the chairman of the House Republican Committee was challenged three times after his election and, when Gerald Ford was defeated in the 1976 presidential campaign, Anderson lost a key ally in Washington. In 1970 and 1972, Anderson had a Democratic challenger in Rockford Professor John E. Devine. In both years, Anderson defeated Devine by a wide margin. In late 1977, a fundamentalist television minister from Rockford, Don Lyon, announced that he would challenge Anderson in the Republican primary. It was a contentious campaign, where Lyon, with his experience before the camera, proved to be a formidable candidate.Ira Teinowitz, "Anderson–Lyon Race is Top Attraction", Rockford Morning Star, February 26, 1978. Lyon raised a great deal of money, won backing from many conservatives in the community and party, and put quite a scare into the Anderson team. Though Anderson was a leader in the House and the campaign commanded national attention, Anderson won the primary by 16% of the vote. Anderson was aided in this campaign by strong newspaper endorsements and crossover support from independents and Democrats.
1980 presidential campaign
Early campaign
In 1978, Anderson formed a presidential campaign exploratory committee,Campaign Jon Moore, ed., The Campaign for President: 1980 in Retrospect (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1981), p. 5 finding little public or media interest. In late April 1979, Anderson made the decision to enter the Republican primary, joining a field that included Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, John Connally, Howard Baker, George H. W. Bush, and the perennial candidate Harold Stassen. Within the last weeks of 1979, Anderson introduced his signature campaign proposal, advocating that a 50-cent a gallon gas tax be enacted with a corresponding 50% reduction in Social Security taxes.CBS Evening News, December 10, 1979; NBC Nightly News, December 13, 1979. Anderson built state campaigns in four targeted states—New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Wisconsin. He won some political support among Republicans, picking up endorsements along the way that helped legitimize him in the race. He began to build support among media elites, who appreciated his articulateness, straightforward manner, moderate positions, and his refusal to walk down the conservative path that all of the other Republicans were traveling.
Anderson often referred to his candidacy as "a campaign of ideas". He supported tax credits for businesses' research-and-development budgets, which he believed would increase American productivity; he also supported increasing funding for research at universities. He supported lowering interest rates, antitrust action, conservation, environmental protection and limiting oil companies from absorbing small businesses through legislation. He opposed Ronald Reagan's proposal to cut taxes broadly, which he feared would increase the national debt and the inflation rate (which was very high at the time of the campaign), believing it to be "Coolidge-era economics". He also supported a tax on gasoline to reduce dependence on foreign oil. He proposed a one-year corporate surtax and a 10% tariff on oil imports, opposed wage and price controls, and was supportive of a health care plan for insurance against catastrophic illness. He supported the Equal Rights Amendment, gay rights and abortion rights generally; he also touted his perfect record of having supported all civil rights legislation since 1960. He opposed the requirement for registration for the military draft, which Jimmy Carter had reinstated. This made him appealing to many liberal college students who were dissatisfied with Carter.A Campaign of Ideas: The 1980 Anderson/Lucey Platform (Contributions in American Studies) by Clifford W Brown Jr. (Author), Robert J. Walker (Author) However, he also voiced support for a strong, flexible military and support for NATO against the USSR, as well as several other positions associated with Republicans, including deregulation of some industries such as natural gas and oil prices, and a balanced budget to be achieved mainly by reductions in government spending.
Republican primary