Lee Hamilton, U.S. Congressman and Evansville native, dies at 94

Lee Hamilton, who rose from a star high school basketball player in Evansville to Congress and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, died Wednesday. He was 94.

Indiana University – where Hamilton previously worked as the founder and director of the school’s Center on Representative Government – announced his death via a news release.

“Few public servants have shaped our understanding of democracy, global engagement, and principled leadership as profoundly as Lee Hamilton," Indiana University President Pamela Whitten said in a statement issued by the school. "His lifelong commitment to public service reflects the very best of our democratic ideals and left an enduring impact on our nation."

“Congressman Hamilton’s legacy at Indiana University is both deep and lasting — from earning his law degree on our Bloomington campus to returning as a Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Practice, inspiring generations of students through his teaching and mentorship. His vision lives on through the Center on Representative Government and the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. We extend our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones and remain profoundly grateful for his service to Indiana University and the country.”

Hamilton served 34 years in as Indiana’s Ninth District representative in U.S. Congress before retiring in early 1999. He swept into office in 1964, defeating Republican Earl Wilson amid a Democratic surge sparked by the landslide of victory of President Lyndon Johnson over ultra-conservative Barry Goldwater. He went on to be re-elected 16 times.

He served as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and was an early advocate of scaling back the U.S. presence during the Vietnam War.

During his tenure, Hamilton chaired the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Joint Committee on Printing.

Contrary to the sharp partisanship of the present-day, Hamilton often worked across the aisle during his long career, and was unafraid to criticize his own party when appropriate.

Congress’ great fault, he once told the Washington Post’s David Broder, is timidity.

“We don’t like to stick our necks out,” he said.

Hamilton was born in Daytona Beach, Florida in 1931, but was raised in Evansville, where he graduated from Central High School in 1948, having led the Bears to a state finals appearance his senior year.

Hamilton also played basketball in college at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. There, he met his future wife, Nancy Ann Nelson.

Hamilton graduated from Indiana University Law School in 1956 and entered private practice, first in Chicago and then in Columbus, Indiana where he and Nancy welcomed three children.

His political work started relatively small compared to what It would later become. Hamilton led a local John F. Kennedy boosters group in 1960, and went on to become treasurer of Bartholomew County’s Young Democrats club for three years before serving as its president for two.

He managed Birch Bayh’s Senate campaign in Bartholomew County in 1962, then ran for Congress in 1964.

In an otherwise Republican-leaning district that stretched from the suburbs of Indianapolis to the Ohio River across from Louisville, Hamilton’s moderate, independent voting record proved popular with his constituents.

Even though he'd already gone on to become a successful attorney at that time, his speaking engagements in Evansville still billed him a "former star athlete."

After retiring, Hamilton founded IU’s Center on Representative Government at Indiana University in 1999 and served as its director until 2015. He was also the director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

He would later work as an advisor for the Department of Homeland and as vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission. Hamilton co-chaired Indiana’s Bicentennial Commission in 2016 with former lieutenant governor Becky Skillman.

In 2018, Indiana University renamed its prestigious School of Global and International Studies for Hamilton and former Indiana Senator Richard Lugar.

He and Lugar often appeared in public together. In 2016, the two helmed a talk at the University of Southern Indiana on “civility in politics": a phrase that, amid the harsh and poisonous acrimony of the that year's election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, had almost curdled into an oxymoron.

“We've just got to lower the political rhetoric, lower the ideological speeches and focus in a very pragmatic way on how to solve the problems,” Hamilton said that night.

Similar sentiments found their way into the scores of columns he wrote in his later years. One of his final efforts, published this past December, worried that the public now viewed elected officials “innately unethical” – a notion he fought against.

“Bad actors in government get a lot of attention, and rightly so. But we should remember that there are 435 members of the U.S. House and 100 members of the Senate, along with thousands of officials in state and local governments. The vast majority are doing their jobs with a sense of responsibility and integrity,” he wrote.

“As for those who aren’t, it’s up to the people to hold them accountable or replace them with officials who will serve the public.”