President Clinton and a group of Congress members, including Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton (fifth from left) confer aboard Air Force One, while flying to the Summit of the Americas in Chile on April 15, 1998. Later that year, Congress was embroiled in proceedings to impeach the president on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury related to a sexual harassment case and Clinton’s sexual relationship with a White House intern. Courtesy Indiana University Archives
President Clinton and a group of Congress members, including Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton (fifth from left) confer aboard Air Force One, while flying to the Summit of the Americas in Chile on April 15, 1998. Later that year, Congress was embroiled in proceedings to impeach the president on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury related to a sexual harassment case and Clinton’s sexual relationship with a White House intern. Courtesy Indiana University Archives
• •
It wasn’t so long ago that America could turn to voices of reason to settle vexing problems.

Beacons of sanity were in demand as the 21st century began. Lee Hamilton stood tall among those.

Hamilton, a true statesman, was a Democrat with such bipartisan appeal that southern Indiana voters elected him 17 times to represent them in the U.S. House. His gentlemanly Hoosier pragmatism earned respect from Republican colleagues in Congress and multiple presidential administrations.

Hamilton answered his nation’s call for rational, wise leadership several times. He led the congressional investigation of the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s. Hamilton also served as vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, which began its probe in 2002, working alongside New Jersey’s Republican Gov. Thomas Kean.

Hamilton died Tuesday at age 94 in his Bloomington home. The next day, Republican former Vice President and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence recalled being a high schooler when he first met Hamilton — “my hometown congressman.”

“With his love for our country and tireless commitment to our security and democracy, Lee was a leading figure who helped propel me into my own life of public service,” Pence said in a statement Wednesday. “While our politics diverged, my respect for him was boundless.”

Think about that last comment in the context of 2026 life — “ While our politics diverged, my respect for him was boundless.”

The Americans who could draw such across-the-aisle praise today are few, and perhaps even extinct after Hamilton’s passing.

His clear thinking, civil approach and thoughtful answers flowed during a handful of interviews I had the good fortune of conducting with Hamilton through the years.

We spoke in late October 2016 as the Donald Trump-vs.-Hillary Clinton presidential campaign devolved into its nastiest moments. One prevailing theme of that political season continues to plague the country — Trump’s obsessive, false claims that America’s elections are rigged and that the only way he can lose is if he’s getting cheated. Hamilton described the damage such inaccurate bluster inflicts on the nation’s democracy.

“That’s a dangerous trend,” Hamilton said in the autumn of 2016. “That’s a perilous way to characterize the country’s political system. It sows distrust. It undermines the government’s credibility. It delegitimizes the winners. It makes governing very, very difficult.”

Hamilton explained how such a broad scheme — a fantastical conspiracy carried out coast to coast in states with different election rules and operated by officials from both political parties — defies logic.

“How do you rig a system of 10,000 precincts [nationwide]? It’s not the easiest question in the world,” Hamilton said, calling the feat “exceedingly hard to do.”

Rather than making wild, unsubstantiated claims, Hamilton said the more useful approach is to address specific, real problems. And, no doubt, problems exist and will always exist.

“We all have criticisms of the system. It does not work perfectly. There’s no shortage of challenges,” Hamilton said. “But to suggest that the whole system is rigged is dangerous, because without a basic foundation of trust, our representative government just doesn’t work. So I think, instead of taking aim at the system and claiming that it’s rigged, you’ve got to focus on the shortcomings of the system, try to correct them, and not say the system is rigged.”

Of course, Trump won the 2016 election over Clinton through the Electoral College. And, of course, he also lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes. On Wednesday, Trump — reelected in 2024 — repeated his false claims about the “rigged 2020 election.” Trump’s fixation appears to be carrying over to the 2026 midterm election, with his party’s control of the U.S. House and Senate in question, given the president’s low national approval ratings.

The effectiveness of those chambers of Congress mattered significantly to Hamilton. He established the Center on Congress at Indiana University in Bloomington in 1999, and his passion for good government of, for and by the people continued into the 21st century. There are other facilities around the country dedicated to analyzing the complex duties handled by Congress, but the center Hamilton founded isn’t a think tank, is nonpartisan and is aimed at an audience beyond pundits and political scientists.

“Our center at Indiana University is really focused, as I say to the staff, on people who eat breakfast at McDonald’s every morning,” Hamilton said in a 2006 Tribune-Star interview. “They’re busy people in their work and their families and the community. They really haven’t had the opportunity to look at Congress as an institution. And among other things that we try to impart to them is that the Congress is an institution that profoundly affects their life.”

Just like those folks eating Egg McMuffins, Hamilton had his criticisms with Congress. “I think it’s become too timid. I don’t think you can say today it’s a co-equal branch of government,” he told me in 2006, presciently. “The core of the work of Congress is deliberation. I don’t think it’s nearly a deliberative body as it once was.”

For all the admiration Hamilton drew, he kept a keenly Hoosier perspective. At the height of his career, some in political circles saw Hamilton as a potential candidate for the nation’s highest offices.

“[Bill] Clinton interviewed me for vice president, and I think I was runner-up to Al Gore. I’m not sure. Maybe third. Who knows for sure?” Hamilton said with a laugh. “And several other times, people approached me about running for president and all the rest. I never did that and was perfectly satisfied with my position in southern Indiana.”

Perfectly satisfied. Deliberative. Rational.

Americans could really use a conversation with Lee Hamilton over cups of coffee at McDonald’s right now. He’ll be missed.
© 2026 Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.