Paul Simon (politician)
Paul Martin Simon (
November 29,
1928 â€"
December 9,
2003) was an
American politician from
Illinois. He served in the
United States House of Representatives from
1974 to
1985 and
United States Senate from 1985 to
1997. He was a member of the
Democratic Party. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic
presidential nomination in
1988. During the campaign, he briefly captured the national attention and was considered a major candidate. This led to an appearance on the popular television show
Saturday Night Live, co-hosting with celebrated singer
Paul Simon.
He later served as director of the
Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at
Southern Illinois University Carbondale in
Carbondale, starting in
1997. There, he taught classes on politics, history and journalism.
Simon was noted for his distinctive professorial appearance that included a
bow-tie and heavy-rimmed
glasses.
An avowed social liberal, Simon spent his career denouncing racism, supporting women's rights, and encouraging equality for racial and ethnic minorities. He was a fiscal
conservative who described himself as "a pay-as-you-go Democrat." As a senator, he overhauled the college student loan program to allow students and their families to borrow directly from the federal government, thus saving money by not using private banks to disperse the loans. He fiercely took a stand against obscenity and violence in the media in the 1990s.
In foreign affairs, he promoted the military response to
Somalia during the presidency of
George H.W. Bush, and he was an outspoken critic of
President Bill Clinton's timid response to the
1994 Rwandan genocide, which resulted in the deaths of up to one million people. Simon believed America should have acted faster, and Clinton later said his belated response was the biggest mistake of his presidency. He is, together with
Jim Jeffords, credited by Canadian Lieutenant-General
Roméo Dallaire, Force Commander of the
United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) from 1993 to 1994, for actively lobbying the US administration into mounting a humanitarian mission to
Rwanda during the
Rwandan Genocide. According to Dallaires book
Shake Hands with the Devil, he "owe(s) a great debt of gratitude" to both senators.
Simon, the son of a
Lutheran minister who was a missionary to
China, was born in
Eugene, Oregon shortly after his parents were forced back to America following a controversy about what the appropriate Chinese term for
God should be. He attended the
University of Oregon and
Dana College in
Blair, Nebraska, but never graduated. He worked as a
newspaper editor and publisher of the weekly
Troy Tribune in
Troy,
Madison County, Illinois, eventually building a chain of fourteen weeklies. His activism against gambling, prostitution, and government corruption while at the Troy Tribune forced the newly-elected governor,
Adlai Stevenson, to take a stand on these issues, creating national exposure for Simon that later resulted in his testifying before the
Kefauver Commission.
Simon served in the
United States Army during the
Korean War from
1951 to
1953, becoming an intelligence officer. Upon his discharge, he began his political career, serving in the
Illinois House of Representatives from
1955 to
1963. As a state legislator, he worked to achieve fiscal responsibility and to expand public utilities in rural parts of the state that did not yet have them. He was also active in promoting
Civil Rights, and once hosted an event attended by former First Lady
Eleanor Roosevelt. He did many notable things to promote himself and his causes during these years, including wearing his trademark bow-tie, and successfully proposing that the
cardinal be adopted as the state bird.
He was one of the youngest elected state legislators in Illinois history (at 26 he was only a year older than
Abraham Lincoln had been when he entered the state legislature). When he married
Jeanne Hurley Simon on April 21, 1960, she was a member of the state legislature (1957-1961) and it was the first time in Illinois history that two sitting members of the General Assembly were married to each other. She later became a successful lawyer and author, and they had two children together, Sheila and Martin. She died in February of 2000 of brain cancer. In 2001, Simon married
Patricia Derge.
He moved to the
Illinois State Senate in
1963, serving there until
1968. He was elected
Lieutenant Governor of Illinois in 1968 and served from
1969 to
1973. As a Democrat, he served with
Republican Governor
Richard B. Ogilvie. His bipartisan teamwork with Ogilvie produced the state's first income tax and paved the way for the state's constitutional convention in 1969, which created Illinois's fourth (and current) constitution. The Olgivie-Simon administration was the first and will be the last time in Illinois history for the state to have a governor and lieutenant governor of opposing political parties. (This is because the new state consitution, ratified in 1970, forces the governor and lieutentant governor to run and be elected together on a joint ticket.)
His 1972 campaign to win the Democratic nomination for governor was upset by
Dan Walker, who went on to win in the general election.
Following his defeat, Simon became a professor at
Sangamon State University in
Springfield, Illinois in 1973 and then at
Harvard University's
John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1973.
Simon was a prolific author, he came to national prominence in the 1960s, in part, due to his well-researched book,
Lincoln's Preparation for Greatness: The Illinois Legislative Years. Despite being published 100 years after Lincoln's death, it was the first book to exhaustively cite original source documents from Lincoln's eight years in the General Assembly. He later went on to write more than 20 books on a wide range of topics, including interfaith marriages (he was a Lutheran and his wife, Jeanne, was a
Catholic), global water shortages,
United States Supreme Court nomination battles that focused heavily on his personal experiences with
Robert Bork and
Clarence Thomas (he was on the Senate Judiciary Committee during these hearings), his autobiography, and even a well-received book on slain Illinois preacher
Elijah Lovejoy. His last book,
Our Culture of Pandering, was published in October
2003.
He resumed his political career and was elected as a Democrat to the Ninety-fourth Congress in
1974 and was reelected to the four succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1975-January 3, 1985). He then ran and was elected to the United States Senate in 1984 and was reelected in
1990. While serving in the Senate, he co-authored the
Balanced Budget Amendment with
Republican Senator
Orrin Hatch of
Utah.
Canadian Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) from 1993 to 1994, credits Paul Simon together with
Jim Jeffords for persuading the US administration to approve a humanitarian mission to
Rwanda during the
Rwandan Genocide. According to Dallaires book Shake Hands with the Devil, he "owe(s) a great debt of gratitude" to both senators.
After his retirement from politics, he continued to play a role in public life by writing books, and through the SIU Public Policy Institute, which was named for him after his death.
Simon lived for many years in the small town of
Makanda, south of Carbondale, where he was a professor and director of the SIU Public Policy Institute. While there, he tried to foster the Institute into becoming a think tank that could advance the lives of all people. Activities included going to
Liberia and
Croatia to oversee their elections, bringing major speakers to campus, denouncing the
death penalty, trying to end trade restrictions with communist
Cuba, fostering political courage among his students, and promoting amendments to the
Constitution to end the
Electoral College and to limit the president to a single six-year term of office. Concerning the Electoral College during the controversial
Election 2000 fiasco, Simon said, "I think if somebody gets the majority vote, they should be president. But, I don't think the system is going to be changed."
Simon believed modern presidents practice "followship," rather than leadership, saying, "We have been more and more leaning on polls to decide what we're going to do, and you don't get leadership from polls... and not just at the presidential level. It's happening with senators, House members and even state legislators sometimes [when they] conduct polls to find out where people stand on something."
Simon died in
Springfield, Illinois following
heart surgery at the age of 75 in 2003. Just four days before, despite being hospitalized and awaiting surgery, he had endorsed
Howard Dean's 2004 presidential bid in a telephone
conference call he conducted from his hospital bed. He was also an early supporter of current Illinois Senator
Barack Obama, having made a television commercial that later aired in downstate Illinois after his death. His endorsement was used effectively and was considered a major reason for Obama's surprise victory in the Democratic primary.
In July
2005, the
Paul Simon Historical Museum was opened in Troy, Illinois, where Simon lived for 25 years. It includes memorabilia throughout his life, including the desk and camera from his days as a young editor of the Troy Tribune, items from his presidential campaign, and his lieutenant governor license plates. The museum is open to the public.
Paul Simon made a brief cameo appearance as himself in the 1993 political drama film,
Dave.
*
Paul Simon Public Policy Institute*
CNN obituary*
Paul Simon Tribute in Daily Egyptian*
Our Culture of Pandering, ISBN 0-8093-2529-2
