Product Code Database
John Claggett Danforth (born September 5, 1936) is an American politician, attorney, diplomat, and Episcopal priest who served as the attorney general of Missouri from 1969 to 1976 and as a United States senator from 1976 to 1995. A member of the Republican Party, he later served as special counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice from 1999 to 2000 and as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2004 to 2005.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Danforth graduated from Princeton University and Yale University. George H. W. Bush considered selecting him as a vice-presidential running mate in 1988, and Bush's son, George W. Bush, considered doing the same in 2000.
Danforth attended St. Louis Country Day School. He graduated from Princeton University in 1958 with an A.B. in religion after completing his senior thesis, "Christ and Meaning: An Interpretation of Reinhold Niebuhr's Christology." He received degrees from Yale Law School and Yale Divinity School in 1963.
Before Danforth entered Republican politics, Missouri was a reliably Democratic state with its U.S. senators and governors usually being Democrats. Danforth's seat in the Senate was previously held by a succession of Democrats, including Thomas Hart Benton, Stuart Symington, and Harry S. Truman.
In 1976, Danforth ran to succeed Symington, who was retiring. He had little opposition in the Republican primary. The Democrats had a three-way battle among Symington's son James W. Symington, former Missouri Governor Warren Hearnes, and rising political star Congressman Jerry Litton. Litton won the primary, but he and his family were killed when the plane taking them to their victory party in Kansas City crashed on takeoff in Chillicothe, Missouri. Hearnes, who had finished second in the primary, was chosen to replace Litton as the Democratic nominee. In the general election, Danforth defeated Hearnes with nearly 57% of the vote.
In 1982, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate was Harriett Woods, a relatively unknown state senator from the St. Louis suburb of University City. She was active in women's rights organizations and collected union support and was a cousin of Democratic Senator Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio. Her speeches denounced Ronald Reagan's policies so vigorously that she ran on the nickname "Give 'em Hell, Harriett" (a play on the famous Truman phrase). Danforth defeated Woods 51% to 49%, with Woods's pro-choice stance said to be the reason for her loss.
In 1988, Danforth defeated Democrat Jay Nixon, 68%–32%. He chose not to run for a fourth term and retired from the Senate in 1995. He was succeeded by former Missouri governor John Ashcroft. Nixon was later elected Missouri Attorney General, and, in 2008, governor of Missouri.
In January 2001, when Missouri Democrats opposed Ashcroft's nomination for U.S. Attorney General, Danforth's name was invoked. Former U.S. Senator Thomas Eagleton reacted to the nomination by saying: "John Danforth would have been my first choice. John Ashcroft would have been my last choice."
Danforth portrayed himself as a political moderate, but voted like his right-wing Republican colleagues, including sustaining filibusters. He was once quoted as saying he joined the Republican Party for "the same reason you sometimes choose which movie to see—it's the one with the shortest line."
Danforth is a longtime opponent of capital punishment, as he made clear on the Senate floor in 1994.
In 1988, George H. W. Bush's presidential campaign vetted Danforth as a potential running mate. Bush selected Indiana Senator Dan Quayle instead.
In July 2000, Danforth's name was leaked as being on the short list of potential vice presidential nominees for Republican nominee George W. Bush, along with Michigan Governor John Engler, New York Governor George Pataki, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, and former U.S. Secretary of Transportation, U.S. Secretary of Labor and former American Red Cross President Elizabeth Dole. One week before the 2000 Republican National Convention was held in Philadelphia, campaign sources said that Dick Cheney, the man charged with leading the selection process for the nominee, had recommended Danforth. But Danforth wanted to continue living mainly in Missouri, where his family was still based, and formally declined to run for vice president on July 11, 2000. Bush ultimately selected Cheney himself. Bush wrote in his book Decision Points that Danforth would have been his choice if Cheney had not accepted; on July 28, 2000, The New York Times reported that the choice of Cheney as Bush's running mate was secretly made "weeks" before it was formally announced on July 25. On September 6, 2001, Bush appointed Danforth a special envoy to Sudan. He brokered a peace deal that officially ended the civil war in the South between Sudan's Islamic government and the U.S.-backed Christian rebels, but elements of that conflict still remained unresolved (as had the separate Darfur conflict). Known as the Second Sudanese Civil War, the conflict ended in January 2005 with the signing of a peace agreement.
On June 11, 2004, Danforth presided over the funeral of Ronald Reagan, held at Washington National Cathedral. Danforth also officiated at the funerals of Washington Post executive Katharine Graham, former United States Senator Harry Flood Byrd Jr. of Virginia, and Missouri State Auditor Tom Schweich.
On March 30, 2005, Danforth wrote an editorial in The New York Times critical of the Republican party. The article began: "By a series of recent initiatives, Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians". He also penned a June 17, 2005, piece headlined "Onward, Moderate Christian Soldiers". At a Log Cabin Republicans meeting on April 30, 2006, Danford publicly expressed opposition to the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have banned same sex marriages, calling it "silly" and comparing it to Prohibition. In 2015, Danforth and 299 other Republicans signed an amicus brief calling on the Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage.
Contributing to the anthology Our American Story (2019), Danforth addressed the possibility of a shared American narrative and focused on the "great American purpose" of "holding together in one nation a diverse and often contentious people." He encouraged continued work "to demand a functioning government where compromise is the norm, to integrate all our people into one indivisible nation, and to incorporate separated individuals into the wholeness of the community." (2026). 9781640121706, Potomac Books. ISBN 9781640121706 Danforth is a member of the Reformers Caucus of Issue One.
Danforth was a mentor and political supporter of Josh Hawley, who became Attorney General of Missouri in 2017 and U.S. Senator in 2019 with Danforth's encouragement; Danforth also supported Hawley's presidential ambitions. In the wake of the January 6 United States Capitol attack and Hawley's efforts to challenge the 2021 United States Electoral College vote count, Danforth said that supporting Hawley in the 2018 election "was the worst mistake I ever made in my life". During the 2022 United States Senate election in Missouri, Danforth headed a PAC supporting independent candidate John Wood, considered a long shot to win. Wood collected enough signatures to get on the ballot but dropped out after 50 days when Eric Schmitt won the Republican primary. Danforth spent $6 million on the effort.
In May 2012, a group led by Danforth's son-in-law, Summitt Distributing CEO Tom Stillman, in which Danforth is a minority investor, took controlling ownership of the St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League. The group acquired full ownership of the team in June 2019. Danforth has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. He is an honorary board member of the humanitarian organization Wings of Hope.
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|-
|
|
