Birch Bayh

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Birch Bayh

Birch Evans Bayh II (* 22. January 1928 in Terre Haute , Indiana ; † 14. March 2019 in Easton , Maryland ) was an American politician of the Democratic Party . He was US Senator for the state of Indiana from 1963 to 1981 and ran in his party's primary election for the office of US President in 1976 , but was defeated by Jimmy Carter . Birch Bayh was the father of the politician Evan Bayh .

Career

After military service, Bayh attended the School of Agriculture at Purdue University , where he became a member of Alpha Tau Omega and received his PhD in 1951. One of his fellow students at the time was Wayne Townsend , who belonged to both houses of the Indiana General Assembly and was elected governor in 1984 . Bayh later attended the Indiana State University and the Law School of Indiana University in Bloomington .

From 1954 to 1962 he was a member of the Indiana House of Representatives , whose speaker he became in 1958. In the 1962 election , he was elected to the United States Senate against incumbent Homer E. Capehart for Indiana . In 1964 he crashed with his wife, Senator Edward Kennedy from Massachusetts and Parliamentary Assistant Edward Moss in a small plane in heavy fog. Bayh and his wife got away without major injuries, while Kennedy had to be rescued from the plane by him, seriously injured. Moss and the pilot were killed.

As a senator, Bayh campaigned for equal rights for women; he was instrumental in the legislation of Title IX of the Education Amendments 1972, which prohibited any discrimination against women in sport. He also initiated two constitutional amendments: The 25th amendment regulates the case of disability and succession of the president in the event of death, the 26th amendment lowered the voting age to 18 years. He was also the initiator of the Equal Rights Amendment , which, however, was rejected.

In the last few years as a senator, he dealt primarily with the abolition of the conventional electoral method (the Electoral College ) and its replacement by a referendum . Proposals in this direction were also rejected by the Senate. In 2006 Bayh became a member of the National Popular Vote Inc. community , which campaigns for absolute equality among voters under the motto Every Vote Equal .

In 1972, cancer in his wife prevented Bayh from running for election for US President. Until her death in 1979, she remained one of the leading, popular fighters against the disease. In 1976, Bayh ran in the Democratic presidential election, but had an organizational disadvantage because of his late decision. After several third places in individual primaries, he closed his candidacy after a disappointing seventh place in Massachusetts. In the Senate election in 1980 he was defeated by his Republican opponent Dan Quayle with 46 percent of the vote after personal attacks by his Republican candidate , whereupon he resigned from Congress on January 3, 1981 .

Bayh was later a partner in the Washington law firm Venable LLP .

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Commons : Birch Bayh  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Bayh, Birch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bayh, Birch Evans II (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Democratic Party politician, Senator for Indiana
DATE OF BIRTH January 22, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Terre Haute , Indiana
DATE OF DEATH March 14, 2019
Place of death Easton , Maryland