Charles Mathias
Charles McCurdy Mathias Jr. was an American politician and attorney from the U.S. state of Maryland. A member of the Republican Party, he served in both chambers of the United States Congress as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1961 to 1969 and as a member of the United States Senate from 1969 to 1987. He was also a member of the Maryland House of Delegates from 1959 to 1961.
After studying law and serving in the United States Navy during World War II, Mathias worked as a lawyer and was elected to the state legislature in 1958. In 1960, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Western Maryland. He was re-elected three times, serving in the House for eight years, where he aligned himself with the then-influential liberal wing of the Republican Party.
Mathias was elected to the Senate in 1968, unseating the incumbent Democrat, Daniel Brewster, who twenty years earlier had been his roommate while attending the University of Maryland School of Law. He continued his record as a liberal Republican in the Senate, and frequently clashed with the conservative wing of his party. For a few months in late 1975 and early 1976, Mathias considered running an insurgent presidential campaign in an attempt to stave off the increasing influence of conservative Republicans led by Ronald Reagan.
His confrontations with conservatives cost him several leadership positions in the Senate, including chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee. Despite isolation from his conservative colleagues, Mathias played an influential role in fostering African American civil rights, ending the Vietnam War, preserving the Chesapeake Bay, and constructing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He retired from the Senate in 1987, having served in Congress for twenty-six years., he remains the last Republican to have served as a U.S. Senator from Maryland.
Early life and career
Mathias was born in Frederick, Maryland, the son of Theresa and Charles McCurdy Mathias. His father was politically active, and he was a descendant of several Maryland legislators, including Charles Edward Trail. After graduating from Frederick High School, Mathias graduated from Haverford College in Pennsylvania in 1944. He went on to attend Yale University and received a law degree from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1949.In 1942, during World War II, Mathias enlisted in the United States Navy and served at the rank of seaman apprentice. He was promoted to ensign in 1944 and served sea duty in the Pacific Ocean, including the recently devastated Hiroshima, from 1944 until he was released from active duty in 1946. Following the war, Mathias rose to the rank of captain in the United States Naval Reserve.
Mathias briefly served as assistant Attorney General of Maryland from 1953 to 1954. From 1954 to 1959, he worked as the City Attorney of Frederick, where he supported civil rights for African Americans. He played a role in desegregating the local Opera House movie theater, which restricted African American seating to the back of the theater. Mathias also worked to relocate the Frederick post office and helped protect a park in the city. In 1958, he was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates, serving from 1959 to 1960. As a delegate, he voted in favor of Maryland ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which secured African American rights following the American Civil War. With his support, the legislature ratified the amendment in 1959, nearly 100 years after it was first introduced.
In 1958, Mathias married Ann Bradford, whom he met at a birthday party for his law school roommate Daniel Brewster. Ann Bradford was the daughter of former Massachusetts governor Robert F. Bradford. Their children included sons Robert and Charles.
U.S. House of Representatives
On January 4, 1960, Mathias declared his candidacy for the House seat of. He officially began his campaign in March, establishing public education and controls on government spending as two of his priorities should he be elected. In the primary elections of May 1960, Mathias handily defeated his two rivals, garnering a 3–1 margin of victory.Mathias' opponent in the general election was John R. Foley, a former judge who had unseated DeWitt Hyde in a Democratic landslide in the state two years prior. Both candidates attacked each other's voting records, with Foley accusing Mathias of skipping more than 500 votes in the House of Delegates and having the "worst Republican record in Annapolis". Mathias previously accused Foley of voting "present" in the House too often, and argued Foley's inaction led to inflation and higher taxes. Mathias prevailed over Foley on election day in November 1960, unseating the one-term incumbent and becoming the first representative from Frederick County since Milton Urner in 1883.
During his eight-year career in the House, Mathias established himself as a member of the liberal wing of the Republican Party, which was the most influential at the time. Mathias voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He was the author of the "Mathias Amendment" to the unsuccessful 1966 civil rights bill on open housing, which would have excluded dwellings of four or fewer families from the proposed open housing law. Concerning environmental issues, Mathias sponsored legislation to make the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal a national park, and supported other conservation initiatives along the Potomac River. He also served on the Judiciary Committee and the Committee on the District of Columbia. As a member of the D.C. Committee, Mathias was a proponent of establishing home rule in the District of Columbia.
U.S. Senate
Election of 1968: unseating Brewster
Leading up to the United States Senate elections of 1968, Mathias' name was frequently mentioned as a potential challenger to Democratic incumbent Daniel Brewster, his college roommate. Fellow Republican Congressman Rogers Morton of was also considering a run at Brewster's seat, but was dissuaded by Republican party leaders in the state in favor of a Mathias candidacy. Their decision was largely due to the geography of Mathias' seat. As representative of the 6th district, he already had established name recognition in both the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., metropolitan areas, the more densely populated and liberal areas of the state. Morton's seat was anchored in the more rural Eastern Shore. Mathias' seat was also more likely to stay in Republican hands. While Morton's seat had been in Republican hands for all but four years since 1947 due to its socially conservative bent, it still voted for Democrats downballot. Mathias had also established a more liberal voting record, which was argued to serve him better in a state with a 3-1 Democratic advantage in registered voters.Mathias officially declared his candidacy for the Senate on February 10, 1968, calling for troop reductions in the Vietnam War, and identifying urban blight, racial discrimination, welfare reform, and improving public schools as major issues. As the campaign drew on, the two primary issues became the war and crime. Mathias argued that the extensive bombing campaigns in North Vietnam should be reduced, while Brewster had argued for increasing bombardment. Brewster adopted a hard line stance on law and order, while Mathias advocated addressing the precipitating causes of poverty and the low standard of living in urban ghettos. Campaign finances were also an issue, with controversy erupting over Brewster's receipt of $15,000 in campaign contributions from his Senate staff and their families. On November 5, 1968, Mathias was elected, garnering 48% of the vote to Brewster's 39% and perennial candidate George P. Mahoney's 13%.
First term (1969–1975): conflict with Nixon
Mathias began his first term in the Senate in January 1969 and laid out his legislative agenda soon thereafter. He was appointed to the District of Columbia committee, where he argued in favor of home rule in the district and providing D.C. residents full representation in both chambers of Congress. Both were positions he carried over from his career in the House. In December 1970 he finally gained passage of legislation creating the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park. He also served as chair of the Special Committee on Termination of the National Emergency from 1971 to 1977, which produced Senate Report 93-549.Over the course of his first term, Mathias was frequently at odds with his conservative colleagues in the Senate and the Richard Nixon administration. In June 1969, Mathias joined with fellow liberal Republican Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania in threatening a "rebellion" unless the Nixon administration worked harder to protect African American civil rights. He also warned against Republicans using the "Southern strategy" of attracting conservative George Wallace voters at the expense of moderate or liberal voters. Mathias voted against two controversial Nixon Supreme Court nominees, Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell, neither of whom was confirmed. Mathias was also an early advocate for setting a timetable for withdrawal of troops from Vietnam, and was against the bombing campaigns Nixon launched into Laos. In October 1972, Mathias became the first Republican on Ted Kennedy's Judiciary subcommittee and one of only a few in the nation to support investigation of the Watergate Scandal, which was still in its early stages.
Mathias' disagreements with the administration became well-known, causing columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak to name him the "new supervillain... in President Nixon's doghouse". Evans and Novak also commented that "not since
In early 1974, the group Americans for Democratic Action rated Mathias the most liberal member of the GOP in the Senate based on twenty key votes in the 1973 legislative session. At 90 percent, his score was higher than most Democrats in the Senate, and was fourth highest amongst all members. Issues considered when rating senators included their positions on civil rights, mass transit, D.C. home rule, tax reform, and reducing overseas troop levels. The League of Women Voters gave Mathias a 100% on issues important to them, and the AFL-CIO agreed with Mathias on 32 out of 45 key labor votes. Conversely, the conservative group Americans for Constitutional Action stated Mathias agreed with their positions only 16% of the time.