John W. Bricker - Public Service

Public Service

During World War I, Bricker served as first lieutenant and chaplain in the United States Army in 1917 and 1918. He subsequently served as solicitor for Grandview Heights, Ohio from 1920 to 1928, Assistant Attorney General of Ohio from 1923 to 1927, a member of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio from 1929 to 1932 and Attorney General of Ohio from 1933 to 1937.

He was elected Governor of Ohio for three two-year terms, serving from 1939 to 1945, each time winning with a greater margin of victory. Bricker espoused a stance against centralized government, preferring to increase involvement in state and local governments, and made this known in his inaugural address as Governor:

There must be a revitalization of state and local governments throughout the nation. The individual citizen must again be conscious of his responsibility to his government and alert to the preservation of his rights as a citizen under it. That cannot be done by taking government further away, but by keeping it at home.

— John W. Bricker, inaugural gubernatorial address, January 9, 1939.

Bricker was the Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States in 1944, sharing the unsuccessful ticket with Presidential nominee Thomas Dewey, which lost to Franklin Roosevelt. He was then elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1946 and re-elected in 1952, serving from January 3, 1947, to January 3, 1959.

Dewey was again the Republican presidential nominee in 1948 but Bricker was not again his running mate. Dewey chose instead California Governor Earl Warren in the hope that the 1948 ticket would carry California which the Dewey-Bricker ticket had failed to do in 1944. In the event the Dewey-Warren ticket not only failed to carry California but the absence of Bricker on the ticket may have been a factor in Dewey not carrying Bricker's home state of Ohio again but Dewey carrying both California and Ohio would not have been enough to make him President.

His Senate service is best remembered for his attempts to amend the United States Constitution to limit the President's treaty-making powers (the Bricker Amendment). He was the chairman of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce during the 83rd Congress.

On July 12, 1947, a former Capitol police officer fired shots at Bricker as he boarded the underground trolley from the Senate office building to the Capitol. The two shots, fired as close range, narrowly missed Bricker.

In 1958, Stephen Young ran for the Senate against the incumbent Bricker. Bricker seemed invincible, but Young capitalized on widespread public opposition to the proposed "right to work" amendment to Ohio's constitution, which Bricker had endorsed. Few thought that Young, 70 at the time, could win; even members of his own party had doubts, particularly Ohio's other senator, Democrat Frank J. Lausche. In an upset, Young defeated Bricker by 52% to 48%, who then retired from public life.