Daniel F. Steck - After The Senate

After The Senate

In 1931, Steck was considered the favorite for appointment by President Herbert Hoover to a seat reserved for a Democrat on the Tariff Commission. However, due to the opposition of Brookhart, Dickinson, and other Iowans, Hoover did not nominate Steck, but instead selected Ira Orburn of Connecticut.

In April 1932 Steck announced his candidacy for Brookhart's Senate seat, in an already-crowded Democratic primary. He finished second to Louis Murphy of Dubuque, who went on to win the general election.

In 1933 Steck was named by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to a board to hear appeals of Iowa veterans challenging adverse determinations regarding disability claims. However, he could not accept that appointment because U.S. Attorney General Homer Stille Cummings appointed him as a special assistant attorney general to take charge of condemnation of property needed for the expansion of the upper Mississippi River channel. Steck served in that position until 1947.

In November 1935, Steck was jokingly appointed by Iowa Governor Clyde Herring as one of his counsel, along with Minnesota Governor Floyd B. Olson, to defend him against a citizen's criminal complaint filed against Herring for unlawful gambling. The prize in the bet in question was a pig - soon named Floyd of Rosedale, and depicted in bronze after its death as a travelling trophy - wagered over the outcome of the 1935 football game between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Minnesota Gophers. The criminal charge was dismissed on jurisdictional reasons, and Steck accompanied the pig to St. Paul to deliver it to Olson.

Steck died in Ottumwa on December 31, 1950, and was interred in Ottumwa Cemetery.