U.S. Senate
In 1958, Moss ran for the U.S. Senate against two-term incumbent Arthur V. Watkins, a close ally of both the Eisenhower administration and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (see also Mormon), and also against J. Bracken Lee, a non-Mormon and former two-term Utah governor (1949–57), who was running as an independent after losing to Watkins in the Republican primary. The Republican vote was split in the general election, largely over local dissatisfaction with Watkins's having chaired the committee that censured Senator Joseph McCarthy, and Moss won election with less than 40 percent of the vote.
Moss was an original sponsor of laws to create Medicaid, a program to cover health care for low income people.
Moss was elected to a second term in 1964, defeating Brigham Young University President Ernest L. Wilkinson. He was elected to a third term in 1970 defeating four-term Congressman Laurence J. Burton. He gained national prominence with regard to environmental, consumer, and health care issues. Moss became an expert on water issues and wrote The Water Crisis in 1967. He worked to secure additional national parks for Utah and started important investigations into the care of the elderly in nursing and retirement homes, and into physicians' abuses of the federal Medicaid program. In 1974, Moss joined Senator Frank Church D-Idaho to sponsor the first legislation to provide federal funding for hospice care programs. The bill did not have widespread support and was not brought to a vote. Congress finally included a Hospice benefit in Medicare in 1982.
Moss chaired the Consumer Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee where he sponsored a measure requiring detailed labeling on cigarette packages noting the health hazards of smoking and banning tobacco advertising on radio and television. He also sponsored the Consumer Product Warranty and Guarantee Act (Magnuson-Moss Act), the Toy Safety Act, the Product Safety Act, and the Poison Prevention Packaging Act. He was also Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences from 1973 to 1977.
Moss ran for a fourth term unsuccessfully in 1976 against Orrin Hatch, afterwards returning to the practice of law in Washington, D.C. and Salt Lake City. To date, Moss is the last Democrat to represent Utah in the U.S. Senate.
He died in 2003 of eye cancer.
Read more about this topic: Frank Moss (politician)
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