Former Arkansas Senator, Governor Dale Bumpers dies at age 90 (Updated)

Editor’s note: Story updated with a video at the end of the report.

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Arkansas has lost a political legend. Dale Leon Bumpers, a four-term U.S. Senator and two-term governor, has passed away at the age of 90 after a long illness, multiple sources have confirmed.

Bumpers, a self-described small-town lawyer from Charleston, Ark., rose to political prominence as a long-shot candidate for governor in the 1970 campaign defeating the Faubus political machine and ushering in an era of sweeping governmental and tax reforms. In the U.S. Senate, he defeated powerful incumbent U.S. Sen. J. William Fulbright, one of the most influential voices in 20th century American international relations.

A charming and gifted orator with a huge personal affability, Bumpers became an endearing and persuasive political figure during his life in elected politics, flirting with Presidential runs and ultimately delivering the argument against impeachment of Pres. Bill Clinton in his 1999 trial.

Bumpers is survived by his wife, Betty, and three children. A memorial service will be held at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, January 10 at First United Methodist Church at 723 Center St. in Little Rock.

The family released a short statement:

“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our father and husband, Senator Dale Bumpers. He passed away Friday night, January 1, in his home surrounded by our family. We want to thank his many friends and colleagues who have supported him and us over the years. While most people knew him as a great governor, senator and public servant, we remember him best as a loving father and husband who gave us unconditional love and support and whose life provided wonderful guidance on how to be a compassionate and productive person. Arrangements for his memorial service are being handled by Roller Funeral Homes.”

A BIOGRAPHY
Born Aug. 12, 1925, in Charleston (Franklin County), Bumpers grew up in the Depression. His father served a term in the state House of Representatives and encouraged his sons to attend local political events, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

“My father always taught us that politics was a noble profession,” Bumpers often said.

Bumpers briefly attended the University of Arkansas before joining the Marines in 1943. After serving in the Pacific theater during World War II, he graduated with a degree in political science from the University of Arkansas and then earned a law degree from Northwestern University in Illinois in 1951. In 1949, he married his Charleston classmate, Betty Lou Flanagan.

With his new law degree in hand, Bumpers returned to Charleston, where he practiced law, managed his late father’s Charleston Hardware and Furniture Company, and later operated a 350-acre cattle ranch. Years later, he titled his autobiography “The Best Lawyer in a One-Lawyer Town.”

In 1954, he advised the Charleston School Board to immediately desegregate its schools in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision, making Charleston the first school district in the former Confederate states to desegregate.

POLITICAL LIFE
Bumpers lost his first race for elective office when he ran for a House seat in 1962, but he would never lose again. In 1970, he entered a crowded field of Democratic candidates for Governor aiming to take on two-term incumbent Winthrop Rockefeller, a Republican. A fresh face on the scene with a winning smile and huge personal appeal, Bumpers won a Democratic run-off against former Gov. Orval Faubus, defeated Rockefeller in the general election and began his statewide political career.

During his two two-year terms as governor, Bumpers persuaded the Legislature to reduce the number of agencies reporting to the governor and to raise income taxes and make the rates more progressive while increasing teachers’ salaries. Under his leadership, a state-supported kindergarten program was created, textbooks were provided to high school seniors, community colleges received more state payments, cities were given more power, and state parks were expanded, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

After two terms as governor, Bumpers challenged five-term U.S. Sen. J. William Fulbright in the Democratic primary in 1974, winning with 65% of the vote and then winning the general election. He served four Senate terms defeating GOP newcomer Mike Huckabee, who would later become governor, in his final re-election bid in 1992.

During Bumpers’ Senate career, he was a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and was chairman and senior minority member of the Committee on Small Business. He supported efforts to reduce the national debt and often opposed increased military spending, including President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, also known as “Star Wars.” He voted against 30 proposed efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution.

In his book, “The Best Lawyer in a One-Lawyer Town,” Bumpers said the most politically volatile vote during his 24 years in the U.S. Senate was the vote on the Panama Canal treaties, with a yes vote turning over the important canal to the Panamanian government.

“For three weeks prior to the vote, my office received three thousand calls and letters a day, 99 percent of which were in opposition to the treaties. That was ten times more calls and mail than I ever received on any issue before or after,” Bumpers wrote.

Bumpers would eventually vote for the treaties.

“My pollster said my vote cost me 10 percent of the vote in my race in 1980, 5 percent in 1986, and 3 percent in 1992,” Bumpers wrote.

Bumpers was often mentioned as a potential presidential candidate and considered running in 1976, 1984 and 1988 – each time deciding not to do so.

Instead, Bumpers was called upon to defend another president from Arkansas during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. After leaving the Senate, Bumpers was asked by Clinton to speak to the Senate, which he did on January 21, 1999, in an almost one-hour speech that received wide acclaim.

“We’re here today because the president suffered a terrible moral lapse, a marital infidelity, not a breach of the public trust, not a crime against society. … It is a sex scandal,” he said.

Famously, Bumpers quoted writer H.L. Mencken who said, “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.”

In his post-Senate career, Bumpers became director of the Center for Defense Information, a think tank concerned with military spending, and he joined the Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn law firm, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. He retired at the end of 2008 and moved to Little Rock.