Bio
Richard Lugar was a Republican Senator from Indiana. First elected to the Senate in 1976, he was the longest-serving Senator in Indiana's history and the longest-tenured Republican member of the Senate.
From 1964 to 1967, Lugar served on the Indianapolis Board of School Commissioners and in 1967, he was elected mayor of Indianapolis, Indiana. He served two terms as mayor and in 1971, was elected president of the National League of Cities. In 1972, Lugar was the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention.
After losing the 1974 election for U.S. Senate in Indiana, Lugar was elected Senator in 1976 and was re-elected six times. Much of Lugar's work in the Senate has been toward the dismantling of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons around the world. He was chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1985 to 1987 and from 2003 to 2007. Lugar has also been chairman of the Agriculture Committee.
In 2012, Lugar lost Indiana's Republican primary election in an attempt to serve a seventh term. His tenure in the Senate ended in January 2013.
Lugar ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1996, finishing fifth in the primary elections.
Before entering politics, Lugar was a Rhodes Scholar and a member of the U.S. Navy. He currently manages his family's Indiana farm, which produces corn, soybean, and trees.
Featured Work
OCT 12, 2012 • Podcast
Senator Richard Lugar on Nuclear Weapons Reduction
Senator Lugar tells the dramatic story of his bipartisan work on the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (also known as Nunn–Lugar), which provides funding and ...