James Abdnor

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
James Abdnor

Ellis James Abdnor (* 13. February 1923 in Kennebec , Lyman County , South Dakota ; † 16th May 2012 in Sioux Falls , South Dakota) was an American politician of the Republican Party . He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1973 and of the United States Senate from 1981 to 1987 .

Family, education and work

James Abdnor, who had a brother and a sister, was the son of Samuel J. Abdnor and his wife Mary Wehby, who immigrated from Lebanon. His father, like his father Sam Abdelnour, who immigrated to the United States from the Lebanese town of Ain al-Arab in 1899 and settled in Lyman County in 1904, was a door-to-door seller and later a merchant in Kennebec. Abdnor began his studies at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln after attending local schools , which he interrupted to serve in the United States Army from 1942 to 1943. In 1945 he graduated with a bachelor's degree in business administration . He then worked as a teacher and sports coach at the high school in Presho near Kennebec . He was particularly committed to basketball, which played an important role in the society of small-town South Dakota. He later became a grain farmer and cattle breeder on the family business in Kennebec, which has almost 300 residents and where he spent most of his life, and saw himself primarily as such.

Political career

After serving as Republican Chief Staff member in the South Dakota House of Representatives and leading his party's youth organization in the state from 1953 to 1955, he was elected to the South Dakota Senate in 1956 , to which he was a member until 1968. That year, Abdnor was elected lieutenant governor of the state and held the office from 1969 to 1971.

In the 1972 election , Abdnor was elected to the 93rd Congress for the Republicans and was a member of the US House of Representatives from January 3, 1973 . Abdnor cultivated the image of the farmer who came straight to Washington from the tractor and removed more dirt from his ears than any other member of Congress. After three re-elections, he ran not again for the House of Representatives in 1980, but for the US Senate and defeated the Democratic mandate holder George McGovern with 58 to 39 percent of the vote in the November 1980 election. Abdnor had portrayed the left-liberal McGovern, who had been a Democratic candidate in the 1972 presidential election , as aloof and removed from his state; While both agreed on the subject of agriculture, the conservative Abdnor otherwise exposed major ideological differences, for example in his rejection of the Equal Rights Amendment and abortions, and in his support for armament and deregulation. McGovern had spent twice as much as Abdnor in the campaign.

Abdnor took office on January 3, 1981, leasing his 4,000 acre ranch for the duration of his Senate tenure. There he was a member of the powerful grant committee and particularly campaigned for the farmers and the rural electricity and water supply in South Dakota. He supported the government's tax cuts ( Reagonomics ). In the subsequent Senate election in 1986 , he was challenged in the party primary by then- governor of the state, Bill Janklow , who described Abdnor as a weak candidate and speaker. Abdnor narrowly won the costly primary, but the dispute with Janklow - referred to by the Washington Post as a blood feud - lasted for years. Abdnor, who was harmed by President Ronald Reagan's unpopular spending-reducing policy towards farmers in the midst of an agricultural crisis , was defeated by Democrat Tom Daschle with 48 to 52 percent in the main election in November and left the Senate on January 3, 1987.

In 1987 he was appointed head of the Small Business Administration , which he remained until 1989. When he was nominated, then President of the Republicans in the Senate, Bob Dole, declared : "Jim's commitment and understanding of small-town America, of small businesses, its special needs and concerns, that makes his nomination so right." Ameria and small businesses and their needs and concerns make his nomination so right).

According to politics

After returning from Washington, Abdnor lived alternately in his hometown of Kennebec and Rapid Falls and in the winter in Fort Myers ( Florida ) and moved to a retirement home in Sioux Falls in 2003 . In 1993 he gave the documents of his time in Congress to the South Dakota Archives. Abdnor, who is characterized as friendly and humble and who found it difficult to appear in public, had no national significance as a politician. But even after his active time, he remained a supporter of young people who managed to get into politics through him and in some cases rose to high positions, in particular of John Thune , who won back Abdnor's previous Senate mandate from Daschle in the 2004 election . In May 2012, Thune gave the funeral speech for Abdnor, who was buried in the Kennebec cemetery.

literature

  • Larry Pressler : James Abdnor. In: ders .: US Senators from the Prairie. Dakota Press, Vermillion, SD 1982, pp. 181-187.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ US Senator E. James Abdnor: A Life. In: Worldnow.com (PDF) ( Memento of the original from September 5, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ftpcontent.worldnow.com
  2. ^ Jon K. Lauck: Daschle Vs. Thune: Anatomy of a High-Plains Senate Race. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 2007, p. 28.
  3. ^ Robert D. McFadden: James Abdnor, Former South Dakota Senator, Dies at 89. In: The New York Times , May 16, 2012 (English). Sen. James Abdnor on the ideological orientation in general . In: Govtrack.us.
  4. ^ Joseph Bottum: James Abdnor, 1923–2012. In: The Weekly Standard , June 11, 2012.
  5. ^ Iver Peterson: Two Top South Dakota Republicans Face Off Over Senate Nomination. In: The New York Times , June 1, 1986.
  6. ^ Jon K. Lauck: Daschle Vs. Thune: Anatomy of a High-Plains Senate Race. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 2007, pp. 15, 25 ; Sandy Johnson: Abdnor-Daschle Race Reflection of Farm Crisis. In: Associated Press , October 14, 1986.
  7. ↑ See Daniel F. Cuff: Senator Abdnor Is SBA Nominee. In: The New York Times , December 24, 1986.
  8. ↑ Chet Brokaw: Jim Abdnor: Former US senator from SD dies at 89. In: Tributes.com , May 16, 2012 (English).
  9. ^ Joseph Bottum: James Abdnor, 1923–2012. In: The Weekly Standard , June 11, 2012; Jonathan Ellis: SDSU grad, former Abdnor staffer, nominated to powerful Ag post. In: Argus Leader , USA Today , July 17, 2017.
  10. ↑ Kevin Woster: Former US senator Jim Abdnor is 'home for good'. In: Rapid City Journal , May 20, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME Abdnor, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Kennebec , South Dakota
DATE OF DEATH May 16, 2012
Place of death Sioux Falls , South Dakota