Ronald Finch

Ronald Roy Finch (June 13th, 1916 -- October 13th, 2001) was a Democratic United States Senator from Kansas from 1961 until 1981.

Early Life
Finch was born in Leavenworth, Kansas. His father, LeRoy Finch, Jr., served as warden of Leavenworth Federal Prison from 1918 until 1933.

Education And Pre-Political Life
Finch graduated from Kansas State University in 1938. He recieved his law degree from the University of Kansas Law School in 1940 and was admitted to the Kansas Bar in 1941. During World War II, he served as a member of the U.S. Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps. (JAG) and, after the war, he served as an assistant to the prosecutors at the first of the Nuremberg Trials. In this capacity, he observed firsthand the execution of convicted Nazi war criminals.

Discharged from the army in 1947, he joined the Topeka law firm of Brown, Brown, and White.

Political Career
As a Democrat, Finch was elected to the Kansas State House in 1952. After serving two terms, he was elected to the State Senate in 1956. In 1958, he was elected Kansas Attorney General, narrowly upsetting Republican incumbent Harry Farmer. Finch was reelected in 1960.

In 1961, when U.S. Senator Alvin Morris (R--KS) died, Finch was appointed to the seat by then Gov. Raymond Graham. Despite a strong primary challenge from Gov, Graham, Finch went on to narrowly win the seat in the 1962 elections, defeating Republican Rep. Richard Rowe by a little less than 1,500 votes.

Finch was narrowly reelected twice in 1968 and 1974. In 1974, he defeated Republican businessman James Kelley with only 52% of the vote. This was despite the fact that 1974 was an overwhelmingly Democratic year and Kelley was an unrepentant defender and supporter of Donald Hughes during the Watergate scandal.

In 1980, citing polls that indicated that he would have a difficult time winning reelection in what was shaping up to be a very Republican year, Finch declined to run for reelection. As expected, his seat was won by a Republican in November.

In The Senate
In the Senate, Finch was considered to be a member of the Democratic Party's "liberal" wing. He was an early opponent of the Viet Nam War and, despite (or because of) his earlier experiences at Nuremberg, he was an outspoken opponent of capital punishment. However, he devoted most of his time to dealing with agricultural issues and, as many of his critics were quick to point out, rarely addressed national issues while campaigning in Kansas.

In 1967, he broke party ranks by endoring Tom Delahunt's insurgent campaign for the 1968 Democratic Presidential Nomination. White House transcripts indicate that then-President Augustus Anderson held several meetings about the best way to "punish" Finch and even went so far as to try to persuade former Gov. Graham to again challenge Finch in the Democratic primary. Eventually, however, Anderson abandoned plans to defeat Finch, telling aides that "nobody listens to that stupid son of a bitch anyway."

In an anonymous poll of senate staffers that was conducted by United Citizens in 1970, Finch was voted the "Dumbest Member of the U.S. Congress." This result was repeated in two subsequent polls, conducted in 1973 and 1979.

1972 Presidential Campaign
On August 3rd, 1971, Finch announced that he would be a candidate for the 1972 Democratic Presidential Nomination. While admitting that he had little to no national base, Finch felt that his rural background and his anti-war stance could potentially appeal to several voters.

Finch's presidential campaign struggled from the beginning. Raising little money and facing polls that indicated that the majority of Americans had never head of him, Finch spent most of 1971 and the early part of 1972 running dead last in most opinion polls. At the time, whenever Finch was mentioned in the media, it was generally assumed that he was attempting to position himself to be the running mate of (then) front runner U.S. Sen. Francis Merino of Connecticut.

After a poor showing in the 1972 New Hampshire Democratic Primary, Finch ended his campaign and endorsed Merino. He did not attend that year's national convention but did endorse the Democratic ticket of Sam White and William Jarmon.

When Jarmon was later dropped from the ticket, Finch announced that he would be willing to serve as White's new running mate. However, all evidence would seem to indicate that Finch was neither asked nor considered.

Charges of Corruption
In 1979, the U.S. Justice Department announced that Finch, along with eight other senators, had been identified as the recepient of several thousand dollars worth of bribes over the course of the previous legislative session. Though Finch denied the charges and was ultimately never charged, the corruption charges hurt his already tenous standing back in Kansas.

After The Senate
After leaving the Senate, Finch and his family moved to Virginia and Finch soon became a partner in the lobbying firm of Karr, Corwin, Horowitz, and Valachi. As a member of the firm, he frequently lobbied his former colleagues in the U.S. Senate on behalf of defense interests.

In 1983, he served as a lobbyist for Simon Ortiz, the then-president of the San Isabella Islands. At the time, Ortiz's government was considered to be one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. In 1985, when Ortiz was assassinated and evidence came to light that Ortiz had been involved in the international drug trade, Finch issues a press release proclaiming himself innocent of anything that he might be charged with. This attracted a good deal of attention largely because Finch had not been charged with any crimes or mentioned in any documents connected to the Ortiz Case.

Finch retired in 1987 and moved back to Topeka, Kansas.

Prison Term
From 1991 through 1994, Finch was an inmate at the Federal Correctional Insitutue of Beaumont, Texas. This was the result of a 1990 conviction on charges of federal income tax evasion. While in prison, he apparently took up poetry and was reportedly working on a collection of inspirational haikus at the time of his death.

Death
Ronald Finch died on October 13th, 2001, around 12 noon in Topeka, Kansas. He was apparently jaywalking across a busy intersection when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver. Finch died at the scene.

The driver of the car was later identified as 16 year-old Kristy Montgomery. She was arrested two days after Finch's death. As a juvenile, she was sentenced to three years probation and an undisclosed amount of community service.

Personal Life
Finch married Marion Collins, the daughter of former Kansas Governor Howard Collins, in 1949. They had two sons, Ronald, Jr. (born in 1950) and Howard (born in 1955). Marion Finch died of pancreatic cancer in 2003.