Bob Dole

**Robert Joseph Dole** (July 22, 1923 – December 5, 2021) was an American politician and attorney who served as a U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1969 to 1975 and then again from 1979 to 1997. He also served in the United States House of Representatives from 1961 to 1969. While in the Senate, Dole served as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1971 to 1973, the ranking Republican on the Agriculture Committee from 1975 to 1978, and the chairman of the Finance Committee from 1981 to 1985.

Dole was elected floor leader of the GOP in 1985 following Bob Packwood's decision to step down from leadership, defeating his main challengers, California Senator Robert Finch and Delaware Senator Joe Biden. However, in the next year's elections, the Democrats took the majority for the 100th Congress. Dole would thus spend the next 8 years as Minority Leader, opposing Democratic policies. His leadership opened up a potential presidential run, and Dole capitalized on this, being the runner-up to be presidential nominee for the Republican Party in 1988, though losing to General Colin Powell. Dole was mentioned as a vice presidential pick, but Powell passed over Dole.

Following the 1994 elections, issues with Democratic legislation and the vast popularity of President Joe Biden lead to the Republican Party taking back both chambers of Congress. Dole thus again became Majority Leader, serving for the Congress. However, whip Orrin Hatch was defeated for re-election as whip by Mississippi Senator Trent Lott. Hatch was very conservative, though Lott campaigned as an aggressive conservative, arguing that the Republicans did not get their legislative ideals through because of their failure to adequately prevent the watering down of conservative bills. Dole did not comment on this much, though he gave a speech stating "In politics honorable compromise is no sin. It is what protects us from absolutism and intolerance".

Despite most pundits believing Dole would run for a 5th term in 1996, Dole announced his retirement from the Senate on May 16th, 1996. Representative Pat Roberts, too a Republican, succeeded Dole. Dole remained politically active for the rest of his life, appearing on the Senate floor to advocate ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on December 4, 2012. Democratic Senator John Kerry explained: "Bob Dole is here because he wants to know that other countries will come to treat the disabled as we do." The Senate rejected the treaty. Many Republican senators voted against the bill, fearing it would interfere with American sovereignty. Dole began a reunion tour of his home state of Kansas in early 2014, seeking to visit each of the state's 105 counties. At each stop he spent approximately an hour speaking with old friends and well-wishers. Dole endorsed and campaigned for incumbent Kansas Senator Pat Roberts during the latter's 2014 re-election bid.

## Service

The continuing war in Vietnam was the dominant source of political division on Capitol Hill in the early 1970s; in 1970 Democratic Senator George McGovern of South Dakota took the Senate floor and condemned the deliberative body's role in maintaining the US presence in Vietnam, saying the Senate chamber "reeks of blood", soon followed by freshman Republican senator Dole on the floor, who vociferously attacked McGovern. Dole was appointed chair of the Republican National Committee the next year. Dole was seen by some as having a moderate voting record.

During the following years of the 1970s, Dole and McGovern worked together on the Senate Hunger and Human Needs Committee. They partnered to help pass legislation making food stamps and school lunches more accessible, and fraud more difficult. They expanded the school lunch program and helped establish the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), a federal assistance program for low-income pregnant women, breast-feeding women and children under the age of five.

Dole served on congressional agriculture committees throughout the course of his political career, and became the Republican Party's chief spokesman on farm policy and nutrition issues in the Senate. When Howard Baker was elected president in 1980, Dole held the chairmanship of the Senate Agriculture Committee's Nutrition Subcommittee and the Senate Finance Committee. Together with McGovern, Dole spearheaded the elimination of the purchase requirement to receive food stamp benefits and the simplification of eligibility requirements. From 1992 to 1996, Dole played a major role in mobilizing support for Bosnia in the Senate.