Vance Hartke - Senate Service and Later Life

Senate Service and Later Life

In the Senate, Hartke was best known for his opposition to the Vietnam War and his chairmanship of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. Hartke had a fallout with President Lyndon Johnson when he became one of the first opponents of the Vietnam War.

Hartke was elected to the Senate in 1958 at age 39 as a hard-working, liberal Democrat with a strong relationship with Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson. In his first term, Hartke was a member of the Finance and Commerce committees. During his first term, Hartke lobbied for programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Hartke was reelected in 1964, becoming only the third Indiana Democrat to be popularly elected to a second term in the Senate. He helped create student loan programs and new veterans benefits during his second term. He ordered automakers to equip cars with seat belts. He helped to establish Amtrak as chairman of the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation. Hartke used his chairmanship of Commerce Transportation Subcommittee to make automakers equip cars with seat belts and other safety equipment. He also was instrumental in creating the International Executive Service Corps, an organization, modeled after the Peace Corps that sent retired U.S. businessmen to poor countries to help turn small businesses into large ones.

Hartke was credited with important roles in the passage of measures that created or supported student loan programs, veterans' benefits and the Head Start Program. He also developed an organization modeled on the Peace Corps that helped small overseas businesses. Senator Hartke introduced a bill to create the George Washington Peace Academy and a Department of Peace. The concept became known as the first cornerstone for the campaign that led to the creation of the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Hartke was praised for winning passage of a measure making kidney dialysis more widely available. A statement entered into the Congressional Record in honor of his 80th birthday credited the measure with saving 500,000 lives.

Hartke's opposition to the Vietnam War was not popular in Indiana. However, in 1970, after a tight race against Republican Congressman Richard L. Roudebush and a ballot recount, Hartke won a third term by 4,200 votes. In 1972, Hartke was also an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1972 against fellow Senators Edmund Muskie and George McGovern. Hartke was defeated for reelection in 1976 by Indianapolis Mayor Richard Lugar in a landslide; he only carried one county, Lake County. He is the most recent state Democrat, aside from a member of the Bayh family, to have won and served in the Senate.

In 1994, Hartke was indicted "on misdemeanor charges of buying lunch for election workers, dancing, playing the piano and handing out souvenirs at polling places while working for a casino company during a riverboat casino referendum last November." http://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/09/us/ex-senator-indicted-in-polling-place-incidents.html

Hartke wrote two books — The American Crisis in Vietnam and You and Your Senator.

Hartke died in Falls Church, Virginia on July 27, 2003, at age 84, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Hartke left behind his wife, Martha, and his seven children: Sandra, Jan, Wayne, Keith, Paul, Anita, and Nadine as well as thirteen grandchildren: Angela, Vance, Jason, Jessica, Travis, Melody, Chelsea, Hanna, Ryan, Tyler, Dean, Zachary, and Wyatt, and two great grand children: Colby and Jackson.

Hartke's daughter, Anita Hartke, was the 2008 Democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives from the 7th congressional district of Virginia. She lost to the Republican incumbent, Eric Cantor.