Richard Schweiker

In 1960, Schweiker was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 13th congressional district.[5] At the time, the Montgomery County-based district included Schweiker's home town of Norristown and several affluent suburban communities in the Philadelphia Main Line. A moderate to liberal Republican, he defeated conservative incumbent John A. Lafore, Jr., in the Republican primary.[8] In the general election, he defeated Democrat Warren Ballard, a law professor at Temple University, 62%–38%.[9] He was elected to three more terms, never receiving less than 59% of the vote.[5]

During his tenure in the House, Schweiker served on the Armed Services Committee and the Government Operations Committee.[1] He sponsored legislation, signed into law in 1965, that provided cash awards to United States Armed Forces personnel for cost-cutting ideas. Schweiker voted for the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968[10][11] and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.[12] He also supported the creation of Medicare, increases in Social Security, and federal rent subsidies.[4] He considered running for governor of Pennsylvania in 1966, but state Republican leaders persuaded him not to in favor of then-Lieutenant Governor Raymond P. Shafer.[4]

In 1968, Schweiker was elected to the U.S. Senate, defeating two-term Democratic incumbent Joseph S. Clark, Jr., by more than 280,000 votes.[13] He was the only successful Republican statewide candidate in an election that saw Hubert Humphrey win Pennsylvania by over 170,000 votes.[8] Continuing his progressive reputation in the Senate, Schweiker opposed the Vietnam War and President Richard Nixon's nominations of Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell to the U.S. Supreme Court, and had an 89% rating from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action.[8] But he also supported school prayer and opposed stronger widespread gun control.[8]

During his tenure in the Senate, Schweiker served as the ranking member on both the Labor and Human Resources Committee and the Labor, Health, and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee.[1] He was a pioneer in increasing government spending on diabetes mellitus research, authoring and sponsoring of the National Diabetes Mellitus Research and Education Act. This legislation, passed by Congress in 1974, established the National Commission on Diabetes to create a long-term plan to fight the disease.

Schweiker was reelected in 1974, defeating his Democratic opponent, Pittsburgh mayor Peter F. Flaherty, in a year when many Republican incumbents lost due to political fallout from the Watergate scandal. He won 53% of the vote, the highest of any senator from Pennsylvania since 1946.[14] He was the first Republican senator ever endorsed by the Pennsylvania AFL–CIO, and received 49% of the vote in heavily Democratic Philadelphia.

From 1975 to 1976, Schweiker was a member of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, headed by Idaho Senator Frank Church, investigating illegal domestic activities of the United States government's intelligence agencies.[15] The "Church Committee" found that allegations of CIA plots to assassinate Cuban Premier Fidel Castro during John F. Kennedy's presidency went unreported to the Warren Commission even though CIA director Allen Dulles was a member of the Commission.[15] These findings led Schweiker to call for a reinvestigation of Kennedy's assassination.[15] Church appointed Schweiker and Colorado Senator Gary Hart to be a two-person subcommittee to look into the "performance or non-performance" of intelligence agencies during the initial investigation of the assassination.[16] In October 1975, Schweiker said at a press conference that the subcommittee had developed "significant leads" and was investigating three conspiracy theories,[17] adding, "I think the Warren Commission is like a house of cards. It's going to collapse."[17] In its final report, the Church Committee called the initial investigation deficient and criticized the response of CIA and FBI, but stated that it had "not uncovered any evidence sufficient to justify a conclusion that there was a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy."[16]

On May 14, 1976, Schweiker told CBS Morning News that he believed the CIA and FBI had lied to the Warren Commission.[18] On June 27, 1976, he appeared on CBS's Face the Nation and said that the Commission made a "fatal mistake" by relying on the CIA and FBI instead of its own investigators.[19] Schweiker also said that he felt it was possible that the White House was involved in a cover-up.[20]

In 1976, Ronald Reagan made a serious challenge against President Gerald Ford in the 1976 Republican Party presidential primaries. Immediately before the opening of the 1976 Republican National Convention, Reagan attempted to attract moderate delegates by promising to name Schweiker, who had a moderate voting record in the Senate, as his running mate. This was unusual because the tradition was for a nominee to name a running mate only after winning the nomination. In response, conservative Republicans, including U.S. Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, encouraged a movement to draft Conservative Party U.S. Senator James L. Buckley of New York as the G.O.P. nominee.[21] Ford won the nomination on the first ballot by a razor-thin margin and selected Bob Dole for vice president.[22]

Reagan's naming him as his running mate came as a surprise to Schweiker, as the two did not know each other. Schweiker subsequently adopted a much more conservative voting record; his rating from the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action dropped to 15% in 1977.[8]

In 1980, Schweiker announced he would not seek reelection to the Senate.[5] Reagan won the presidential nomination in 1980 but chose George H. W. Bush, not Schweiker, as his running mate, and won the election.