Richard Lugar

Early life, education, and early career

Richard Lugar was born on April 4, 1932 in Indianapolis, Indiana, the son of Bertha (née Green) and Marvin Lugar. He is of part German descent. Lugar attended the Indianapolis Public School. During this time he attained the Boy Scouts' highest rank: Eagle Scout. Later, he became a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. He graduated first in his class at Shortridge High School in 1950 and from Denison University in 1954 where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi. He went on to attend Pembroke College, Oxford, England, as a Rhodes Scholar, and received a second bachelor's degree and a master's degree in 1956. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1956 to 1960; one of his assignments was as an intelligence briefer for Admiral Arleigh Burke. He achieved the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade.

Lugar manages his family's 604-acre (244 ha) Marion County corn, soybean and tree farm. Before entering public life, he helped his brother Tom manage the family's food machinery manufacturing business in Indianapolis.

Indianapolis politics and mayorship

Lugar served on the Indianapolis Board of School Commissioners from 1964 to 1967. At the age of 35, he was elected mayor of Indianapolis in 1967, defeating incumbent Democrat John J. Barton, and began serving the first of two mayoral terms in 1968 (A political cartoon of the time questioned how an Eagle Scout could survive in the world of politics). He is closely associated with the adoption of Unigov in 1970, which unified the governments of Indianapolis and Marion County. The Unigov plan helped trigger Indianapolis's economic growth and earned Lugar the post of president of the National League of Cities in 1971. In 1972 Lugar was the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention. During this time he became known as "Richard Nixon's favorite mayor" owing to his support for devolving federal powers to local communities.

Elections

Lugar ran for the U.S. Senate in 1974 U.S. Senate election and lost to incumbent Democrat U.S. senator Birch Bayh (51%-46%).

Two years later, he ran against Indiana's other U.S. senator, Democrat Vance Hartke, defeating him by a massive landslide, 59%-40%, a 19-point margin.

Lugar won reelection to a second term, defeating Democrat U.S. Congressman Floyd Fithian (54%-46%).

Lugar won reelection to a third term, defeating Democrat Jack Wickes (68%-32%).

Lugar won reelection to a fourth term, defeating Democratic former U.S. Congressman Jim Jontz (67%-31%). He became the first Indiana U.S. senator elected to a fourth term.

Lugar won reelection to a fifth term, defeating Democrat David Johnson (67%-32%).

Lugar won reelection to a sixth term, defeating Libertarian Steve Osborn (87%-13%). The Democratic Party did not field a candidate. His was the highest-percentage win of the 2006 Senate elections despite a Democratic takeover of Washington.

Lugar ran for reelection to a seventh term but was defeated in the Republican primary by State Treasurer Richard Mourdock (61%-39%), who went on to lose the general election to Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly. The only two counties that Lugar carried were Boone and Marion. Lugar was the first six-term U.S. senator to lose his seat in a primary election since Kenneth McKellar in 1952.

Tenure

Future Governor of Indiana Mitch Daniels served as his chief of staff from 1977 to 1982. During the 1980 Republican National Convention, Lugar was rumored as a potential Vice Presidential nominee for Presidential nominee Ronald Reagan.

During the August recess of 2005, Lugar and then-freshman Senator Barack Obama of neighboring Illinois visited Russia, Azerbaijan, and Ukraine to inspect nuclear facilities there. He was detained for three hours at an airport in the city of Perm, near the Ural Mountains, where they were scheduled to depart for a meeting with the President and the Speaker of the House of Ukraine. He was released after a brief dialogue between U.S. and Russian officials, and the Russians later apologized for this incident. In January 2007, President Bush signed into law the Lugar-Obama Proliferation and Threat Reduction Initiative, which furthered Lugar's work with Senator Sam Nunn in deactivating weapons in the former Soviet Union. The Lugar-Obama program focuses on terrorists and their use of multiple types of weapons.

In April 2006, Time magazine selected Lugar as one of America's 10 Best Senators.

Although Lugar's party was in the minority in the Senate, he had good relationships with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. Lugar was named an honorary co-chairman of their inauguration. On the day of the final 2008 presidential debate, Lugar gave a speech at the National Defense University praising Obama's foreign policy approach and warning against the isolationist, reactive policies espoused by John McCain. At that debate, Obama also listed Lugar as among the individuals "who have shaped my ideas and who will be surrounding me in the White House". There were rumors that either Obama or McCain would select Lugar to be Secretary of State, but that he preferred to keep his Senate seat.

On March 18, 2009, Lugar cast his 12,000th Senate vote, putting him in 13th place for most votes. During his 32 years as senator, he had a 98% attendance record.

Committee assignments

1996 presidential campaign

Lugar ran for the Republican nomination for President in 1996. He declared his candidacy on 19 April 1995 in Indianapolis. The primaries and caucuses began in January 1996. He ran on a campaign slogan of "nuclear security and fiscal sanity", but his campaign failed to gain traction. He came in 7th in the Iowa caucuses on 12 February with 4%, and 4th in the New Hampshire primary on 20 February with 5%. In the Delaware primary on 24 February he also won 5%, and in the Arizona and North Dakota primaries on 27 February he came in last with 1%. He was on the ballot in seven of the nine contests on Super Tuesday on 5 March, winning 1% in Colorado, Connecticut and Maryland, 2% in Massachusetts, 3% in Maine and Rhode Island and 14% in Vermont, which was the best result he managed, though he still only came in 4th. He quit the race on the next day, 6 March. Lugar's fellow senator, and eventual Republican nominee, Bob Dole, had won all nine contests and Lugar endorsed him.

He remained on the ballot in a number of states, winning 2% of the vote in Florida, then 1% each in Oregon, Illinois, Ohio and California, 5% in Pennsylvania and 1% in North Carolina and West Virginia. He finished sixth overall, with 127,111 votes, or 0.83%, though he did not win any contests or delegates. In retrospective, David Corn of Mother Jones called his presidential campaign "ludicrous".

Abortion

Lugar's 2007 rating from NARAL was 40%. His 2007–2008 rating from the National Right to Life Committee was 85%.

Agricultural reform

As Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Lugar built bipartisan support for 1996 federal farm program reforms, ending 1930s-era federal production controls. He worked to initiate a biofuels research program to help increase U.S. utilization of ethanol and combustion fuels, and led initiatives to streamline the U.S. Department of Agriculture, reform the food stamp program, and preserve the federal school lunch program.

Bipartisan Governance

Although nominally Republican, Lugar often worked across the aisle, working alongside Democrats on many initiatives. For this reason, he commonly broke with traditional Republican lines, especially on non-domestic issues. Lugar's most well-known piece of legislation, the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Agreement, was co-sponsored with Sam Nunn, a Democratic Senator from Georgia. Lugar's bipartisan efforts earned him 24th place of 227 Senators' lifetime scores from 1993-2014 according to the Lugar Bipartisan Index, with a score of .668. Lugar continues to support bipartisan solutions and initiatives as one of the policy focus areas of The Lugar Center.

Climate Change

Lugar is a firm believer in pragmatic, scientific solutions to climate change issues. In 2006, he co-sponsored Senate Resolution 312 with then-Senator Joe Biden, which encouraged American participation in international negotiations regarding mitigation agreements. He continues to support multilateral initiatives for the deployment of innovative clean technology around the world.

Cuba

Lugar believes that the U.S. sanctions on Cuba have failed and wrote to President Obama that "additional measures are needed...to recast a policy that has not only failed to promote human rights and democracy, but also undermines our broader security and political interests". He supports the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act (S.428), which would lift the restrictions on U.S. citizens visiting Cuba that have been in place since the early 1960s.

Economy

Lugar takes a conservative approach to economics. He voted for Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. He voted against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Gun control

Lugar is also a supporter of gun control, and has supported a number of gun legislations and weapons bans. Lugar has an F rating from the National Rifle Association of America. He has an F rating from Gun Owners of America and a 53% positive rating from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence.

Health care reform

Lugar opposed President Barack Obama's health reform legislation, voted against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in December 2009, and voted against the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.

Immigration

Lugar has a generally liberal stance on immigration, supporting the DREAM Act during the Obama administration and the McCain–Kennedy Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill under the Bush administration, both of which died in Congress. Both were described by critics as "amnesty".

Iraq War

On June 25, 2007, Lugar, who had been "a reliable vote for President Bush on the war", said that "Bush's Iraq strategy [is] not working and... the United States should downsize the military's role".

Lugar's blunt assessment has been viewed as significant because it showed the growing impatience and dissatisfaction with President Bush's strategy in Iraq. After Lugar finished his remarks, Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-IL), a sharp critic of the war, praised Lugar's "thoughtful, sincere and honest" speech, which Durbin said was in "finest tradition of the U.S. Senate". Durbin urged his Senate colleagues to take a copy of Lugar's speech home over the Fourth of July break and study it before returning to work. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, in reaction to Lugar's speech: "When this war comes to an end, and it will come to an end, and the history books are written, and they will be written, I believe that Sen. Lugar's words yesterday could be remembered as a turning point in this intractable civil war in Iraq".

Two days later, on June 27, 2007, Lugar said that Congressional measures aimed at curtailing U.S. military involvement in Iraq – including "so-called timetables, benchmarks" – have "no particular legal consequence", are "very partisan", and "will not work".

Judicial nominees

Lugar believes that judicial confirmation decisions should not be purely partisan. His view is if an appointee is properly qualified for the position by their education, integrity, and other similar factors, that they should be confirmed by the Senate. Lugar introduced President George W. Bush's appointee, now Chief Justice John Roberts, to the Senate at the beginning of Roberts' confirmation process and was instrumental in securing votes to confirm Roberts for the Supreme Court. Lugar was the first Republican senator to announce his support for President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nominee United States Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor and also voted in favor of his second Supreme Court nominee Solicitor General Elena Kagan.

LGBT issues

Lugar holds a socially conservative approach on the LGBT issue. He voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment, limiting the definition of marriage to one man and one woman. However, he has also voted in favor of the Matthew Shepard Act, which expanded the federal hate crime statutes to include sexual orientation and gender identity. In October 2010, Lugar voted against repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy—which prevented gays and lesbians from serving openly in the armed forces. Although Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut announced on November 18, 2010, that Lugar promised to vote to repeal the policy the next time it comes up for a vote, Lugar voted against DADT repeal in both the cloture and final votes on December 18, 2010.

Nuclear stockpile

Lugar has been influential in gaining Senate ratification of treaties to reduce the world's use, production and stockpiling of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and has spearheaded many bipartisan nonproliferation initiatives. In 1991 he initiated a partnership with then-Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn aiming to eliminate latent weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. To date, the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program has deactivated more than 7,500 nuclear warheads. In 2004, Lugar and Nunn were jointly awarded the Heinz Awards Chairman's Medal for their efforts. He was an integral figure in the passing of the New START Treaty (which passed 71-26).

Pakistan

In October 2008 Lugar and Joe Biden, his partner in the Committee on Foreign Relations, received the Hilal-i-Pakistan (Crescent of Pakistan) Award from the government of Pakistan for their continued support of the country. In July 2008 Lugar and Biden introduced a plan that would give $1.5 billion in aid per year to support economic development in Pakistan.

Other international policy achievements

Senator Lugar supported Nelson Mandela's fight against South African apartheid. Lugar was integral to spurring American support for Mandela.

Lugar was also instrumental to the fall of the dictatorial Marcos regime in the Philippines and overseeing the 1985 presidential election there, urging intervention from the Reagan administration.

In addition, Lugar coauthored the Cardin-Lugar Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act, which required all U.S.-listed oil and mining companies to report their payments to governments. Nearly identical pro-transparency measures, aimed at curbing natural resource-related corruption in the developing world, were subsequently adopted by the European Union and Canada, making extractive industry payment disclosure a global standard.

Awards and honors

Lugar has received numerous awards, including Guardian of Small Business, the Spirit of Enterprise, Watchdog of the Treasury, and 46 honorary doctorate degrees. In 2001 Lugar received the Democracy Service Medal of the National Endowment for Democracy. In June 2012 he was conferred with the Order of Lakandula by President Benigno S. Aquino III for his contributions to the enhancement of the Philippine-US alliance and friendship.

On August 8, 2013, President Barack Obama named Lugar as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The citation in the press release read as follows:

Richard Lugar represented Indiana in the United States Senate for more than 30 years. An internationally respected statesman, he is best known for his bipartisan leadership and decades-long commitment to reducing the threat of nuclear weapons. Prior to serving in Congress, Lugar was a Rhodes Scholar and Mayor of Indianapolis from 1968 to 1975. He currently serves as President of the Lugar Center.

Lugar was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for his efforts to reduce Weapons of Mass Destruction and supporting NATO. Lugar was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit, from Germany, in 2013 for his work on fostering transatlantic cooperation. In 2014, Lugar received the Golden Laurel Branch award, the highest honor given by the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Lugar was recognized for his contributions to Bulgaria's accession to NATO.

In August 2016 President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine awarded Richard Lugar with the highest award for foreigners - Order of Liberty.

In November 2016 he was awarded the 2016 J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding

The Lugar Center

Following his service in the Senate, Lugar established The Lugar Center, a nonprofit public policy institution located in Washington DC.

Under the leadership of Lugar, the Lugar Center seeks to become a prominent voice in many of the global issues that defined the Senator's work in Congress. Among these are four "focus areas": Global Food Security, WMD Nonproliferation, Foreign Aid Effectiveness, and Bipartisan Governance. Since its inception in January 2013, the Lugar Center has served as a source of education and awareness on these pertinent issues.

The Center's initiatives include the following: working in conjunction with the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University to establish the Bipartisan Index, partnering with the Arms Control Association to establish the Bipartisan Nuclear and WMD Policy Dialogue Project, and compiling a comprehensive selection of bibliographical resources for researchers and policymakers interested in global food security. In addition, the Lugar Diplomacy Series brings together American policy- and opinion-makers and the Washington diplomatic community. Guests have included Elena Kagan, David Patraeus, and Howard Buffett.

In addition, the Lugar Center was awarded a grant by the Delegation of the European Union to conduct policy research regarding transatlantic cooperation. The grant permitted the Center to partner with the German Marshall Fund of the United States to work on bolstering trans-Atlantic energy security and economic cooperation, particularly in relation to the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

Other outside activities

Lugar is a member the Indiana Society of the Sons of the American Revolution as well as a member of the Society of Indiana Pioneers, based on his descent from very early settlers in the state.

He joined the Rotary Club of Indianapolis in 1957 and spoke at the club annually during his time in the U.S. Senate. He remains an active Rotarian. On February 16, 2013, Lugar was named the Rotarian of the Century.

He served on the Board of Directors of the National Endowment for Democracy from 1992 to 2001.

Lugar is a member of the board of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, an organization involved in international elections.

Lugar is a member of the board of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI).

Lugar is on the Board of Selectors of Jefferson Awards for Public Service.

Richard G. Lugar Center for Public Health Research

A biological research facility in Tbilisi, Georgia, is named for Lugar in honor of his efforts to reduce nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons around the world. The Richard G. Lugar Center for Public Health Research is a Georgian biological research facility established with technical assistance from the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to contain and house dangerous pathogens and support international research efforts. This and other upgraded bio-threat reduction facilities in the region are designed to stop diseases like plague and African swine fever from spreading globally.

Lugar, utilizing the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CTR) which helped former Soviet Union states dismantle weapons of mass destruction after the Cold War, worked with the country of Georgia on biosafety, biosecurity and biosurveillance efforts through CTR’s Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP). The main goal was to improve the biosafety, biosecurity, disease surveillance, and establish the Central Public Health Reference Laboratory.

In 2012 Georgian authorities renamed the facility the Richard G. Lugar Center for Public Health Research; it belongs to and is run by the Georgian National Center for Disease Control and Public Health (NCDC). In 2014, then-U.S. Ambassador to Georgia at the time, Richard Norland, signed an agreement with then-Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili to transfer custody of the Center to the NCDC during the 2014 World Congress on Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Science & Consequence Management. At the invitation of the Georgian government, a contingent of U.S. scientists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Global Disease Detection Program, and the U.S. Walter Reed Army Institute of Research are co-located in the facility. They work collaboratively alongside their Georgian counterparts.

Personal life

Lugar married Charlene Smeltzer on September 8, 1956. The couple have four sons and thirteen grandchildren.

He is a member of the United Methodist Church.