Dale Bumpers

The Honorable Dale Bumpers
United States Senator from Arkansas
In office January 3, 1975 – January 3, 1999
Preceded by	William Fulbright
Succeeded by	Blanche L. Lincoln
38th Governor of Arkansas
In office January 12, 1971 – January 3, 1975
Lieutenant	Bob C. Riley
Preceded by	Winthrop Rockefeller
Succeeded by	Bob C. Riley as Acting Governor
Personal details
Born	Dale Leon Bumpers (1925-08-12)August 12, 1925 Charleston, Arkansas, U.S.
Died	January 1, 2016(2016-01-01) (aged 90) Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Betty Flanagan Bumpers
Alma mater	University of Arkansas (B.A.) Northwestern University (J.D.)
Military service
Allegiance	United States of America
Branch/service	United States Marine Corps
Years of service	1943-1946

Dale Leon Bumpers (August 12, 1925 – January 1, 2016) was an American politician who served as the 38th Governor of Arkansas from 1971 to 1975; and then in the United States Senate from 1975 until his retirement in January 1999. He was a member of the Democratic Party. Senator Bumpers was most recently counsel at the Washington, D.C. office of law firm Arent Fox LLP, where his clients included Riceland Foods and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Background

Dale Bumpers was born in Charleston in Franklin County, in west central Arkansas, near Fort Smith, the son of Lattie (Jones) and William Rufus Bumpers. He attended public schools and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He served in the United States Marine Corps from 1943 to 1946 during World War II. Bumpers graduated from Northwestern University Law School in Evanston, Illinois, in 1951. From his time in Illinois, he became a great admirer of Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956. Bumpers was admitted to the Arkansas bar in 1952. He started practicing law in his hometown in that same year and served as Charleston city attorney from 1952 to 1970. He served as special justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court in 1968.

Governor of Arkansas

Bumpers was virtually unknown when he announced his campaign for governor in 1970. Despite his lack of name recognition, his oratorical skills, personal charm, and outsider image put him in a runoff election for the Democratic nomination with former Governor Orval Faubus. Two other serious candidates were Attorney General Joe Purcell of Benton in Saline County and the outgoing Speaker of the Arkansas House, Hayes McClerkin of Texarkana. Bumpers barely edged out Purcell for the runoff berth but then easily defeated Faubus. In the general election, he swamped the incumbent moderate Republican Governor Winthrop Rockefeller. It was a Democratic year nationally, and the tide benefited Bumpers. Like Jimmy Carter of Georgia, Reubin O. Askew in Florida and John C. West of South Carolina, Bumpers was often described as a new kind of Southern Democrat who would bring reform to his state and the Democratic Party. His victory over Rockefeller ushered in a new era of youthful reform-minded governors, including two of his successors, David Pryor (later a three-term U. S. Senator) and future U.S. President Bill Clinton.

In the 1972 Democratic primary, Bumpers easily defeated two opponents, including the highly regarded State Senator Q. Byrum Hurst of Hot Springs. In the general election, he swamped the Republican Len E. Blaylock of Perry County even as Richard M. Nixon was handily winning Arkansas in the presidential race.

U.S. Senate elections

Bumpers was elected to the United States Senate in 1974. He unseated the incumbent James William Fulbright in the Democratic primary by a wide margin and then overwhelmed the Republican lawyer and banker John Harris Jones (born 1922) of Pine Bluff. Jones had run earlier as a Democrat for the United States House of Representatives from Arkansas's 4th congressional district in 1956 against Representative William F. Norrell, in 1961 against Norrell's widow, Representative Catherine Dorris Norrell, and in 1966 for the open seat vacated by the resignation of Oren Harris, when he challenged fellow Democrat David Hampton Pryor of Camden and Republican A. Lynn Lowe of Texarkana.

In the 1974 Senate race, Jones accused Bumpers of excessive spending as governor, citing the construction of a $186 million state office complex. Bumpers not only ignored Jones but instead campaigned mostly for the young Democrat Bill Clinton, who failed in that heavily Democratic year to unseat Republican U.S. Representative John Paul Hammerschmidt in Arkansas's 3rd congressional district. Bumpers polled 461,056 votes (84.9 percent) to Jones's 82,026 (15.1) percent, the weakest Republican showing since the insurance executive Victor M. Wade of Batesville lost to Fulbright in 1944.

Time magazine wrote that "many to their sorrow have had trouble taking Bumpers seriously ... Dandy Dale, the man with one speech, a shoeshine, and a smile."

In 1980, Bumpers comfortably survived the Ronald W. Reagan victory in Arkansas by defeating a Democrat-turned-Republican, William "Bill" Clark. Bill Clinton, however, lost in the Reagan landslide, temporarily unseated by the Republican Frank D. White. In 1986, Bumpers defeated later U.S. Representative Asa Hutchinson, the Republican nominee. In 1992, after besting state Auditor Julia Hughes Jones with 64% of the vote in the Democratic Primary, he defeated future Governor Mike Huckabee in the general election. The next year, Jones switched to the GOP and unsuccessfully ran for Secretary of State in 1994. In 1998, when Bumpers retired, the Democratic choice, former Congresswoman Blanche Lambert Lincoln comfortably defeated the Republican nominee, Fay Boozman, a state Senator who was later the Arkansas Department of Health director under Governor Huckabee. In 2010, Lincoln was soundly defeated for reelection by Congressman John Boozman, the brother of the man she defeated in 1998.

Senate tenure

Bumpers was elected to the Senate four times, beginning with his huge victory over Fulbright, the veteran chairman of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Bumpers chaired the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship from 1987 until 1995, when the Republican Party took control of the Senate for a dozen years following the 1994 elections. Bumpers served as ranking minority member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources from 1997 until his retirement. In the Senate, Bumpers was known for his oratorical skills and for his prodigious respect for the Constitution of the United States. Bumpers never supported any constitutional amendment.

Bumpers decided to not seek the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, despite support from many colleagues, including Senator Paul Simon of Illinois, who ultimately also contested the 1988 nomination. Initially named as one of Walter Mondale's top potential choices for his vice presidential running mate in '84, he took his name out of the running early in the process.

Bumpers stated that his main reason for not running was fear of "a total disruption of the closeness my family has cherished." Many observers felt that Bumpers perhaps lacked the obsessive ambition required of a presidential candidate, especially one who would have started out the process with low name identification. Another factor often mentioned was Bumpers' key vote in killing labor law reform in 1978, a vote that angered organized labor and had clearly not been forgotten by labor leaders nearly a decade later.

Clinton impeachment

After his retirement from the Senate, Bumpers, a self-declared close friend of President Clinton, acted as defense attorney during Clinton's impeachment trial. He gave an impassioned closing argument during the Senate trial.

Quotes from the closing argument of the White House presentation, January 21, 1999:

H. L. Mencken said one time, "When you hear somebody say, 'This is not about money' – it's about money." And when you hear somebody say, "This is not about sex" – it's about sex.

…

Nobody has suggested that Bill Clinton committed a political crime against the state. So, colleagues, if you honor the Constitution, you must look at the history of the Constitution and how we got to the impeachment clause. And if you do that and you do that honestly according to the oath you took, you cannot – you can censure Bill Clinton, you can hand him over to the prosecutor for him to be prosecuted, but you cannot convict him. And you cannot indulge yourselves the luxury or the right to ignore this history.

…

The American people are now and for some time have been asking to be allowed a good night's sleep. They're asking for an end to this nightmare. It is a legitimate request.

Honors

In 1995, the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville founded the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences in his honor.

In 2014, the White River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas was renamed "Dale Bumpers White River National Wildlife Refuge". At a dedication ceremony, Daniel M. Ashe, Director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, said:

The Service is proud to recognize the many contributions Senator Bumpers has made to give many future generations the same opportunity to enjoy Arkansas’ natural beauty as we have had. He is a giant among conservationists and a visionary who followed an unconventional path to set aside some of Arkansas’ last wild places. It is fitting that he will be forever linked with the White River.

Causes

Bumpers and his wife Betty were both known for their dedication to the cause of childhood immunization. The Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center (VRC) at the National Institutes of Health was established by former President Clinton to facilitate research in vaccine development.

Early in his legal career, the Charleston School Board asked his advice on how it should respond to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, which found the segregation of public schools on the basis of race to be unconstitutional. Bumpers advised the school board to comply with the decision immediately. In July 1954, the board voted to desegregate its schools, and on August 23, 1954, the school year began with eleven African-American children attending schools in Charleston. This prompt action to desegregate public schools was rare: The Charleston School District was the first in the eleven states that comprised the former Confederacy to integrate their public schools following the Supreme Court decision.

Death

After a period of failing health, Bumpers died on January 1, 2016 at his home in Little Rock, Arkansas at the age of 90. He had Alzheimer's disease and had sustained a broken hip shortly before his death.

Bumpers in fiction

In Jeffrey Archer's 1977 novel Shall We Tell the President?, Bumpers was elected as the Vice President of the United States in a ticket headed by Ted Kennedy, defeating Ronald Reagan during the 1984 election. In the 1986 revised edition of the novel, Archer replaced Kennedy with the fictional character of Florentyna Kane, and Bumpers with the real-life Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey.

See also

• List of Governors of Arkansas

References

• Clinton, Bill (2005). My Life. Vintage. ISBN 1-4000-3003-X.
• Complete text and audio and video of Dale Bumpers' Closing Defense Arguments at the Impeachment Trial of William Jefferson Clinton
• United States Congress. "Dale Bumpers (id: B001057)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved April 22, 2007.
• Defense Who's Who", Washington Post, January 19, 1999 [1]
• Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture entry: Dale Leon Bumpers
• Transcript: Former Senator Dale Bumpers – Senate Floor January 21, 1999

Further reading

• Bumpers, Dale. The Best Lawyer in a One-Lawyer Town: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 2003.
• Oral History Interview with Dale Bumpers from Oral Histories of the American South