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Paul David Wellstone (July 21, 1944 – October 25, 2002) was an American academic, author, and politician who represented Minnesota in the United States Senate from 1991 until he was killed in a plane crash near Eveleth, Minnesota, in 2002. A member of the Democratic Party (DFL), Wellstone was a leader of the Populism and Progressivism wings of the party.
Born in Washington, D.C., Wellstone grew up in Northern Virginia. He went on to graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelor's of Arts and a doctorate in political science. In 1969, Wellstone was hired as a professor at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, where he taught until his election to the Senate in 1990. In addition, he also worked as a local activist and community organizer in rural Rice County. In 1982, he made his first bid for political office in that year's Minnesota State Auditor race. His campaign was unsuccessful, losing to Republican incumbent Arne Carlson.
Wellstone challenged two-term Republican incumbent Rudy Boschwitz in the 1990 United States Senate election. Wellstone was widely seen as an underdog and was significantly outspent by Boschwitz. Using his progressive populism and Grassroots tactics, such as his iconic green school bus, Wellstone won in an upset victory that gained him national attention. He was the only challenger in the country that year to defeat an incumbent senator. In his 1996 reelection campaign, he defeated Boschwitz in a rematch. He won the elections with 50.4% and 50.3% of the vote, respectively.
While in the U.S. Senate, Wellstone was a supporter of environmental protection, labor groups, and health care reform. He notably authored the "Wellstone Amendment" for the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. However, his efforts toward campaign finance reform were overturned in 2010 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Wellstone was a candidate for reelection to the Senate in 2002 and was facing former Saint Paul mayor Norm Coleman in a competitive race when, a few weeks before the election, Wellstone died in a plane crash near Eveleth, Minnesota. His wife, Sheila Wellstone, and daughter, Marcia, also died on board. After his sudden death, Wellstone was replaced on the ballot by former Vice President Walter Mondale, who lost by a slim margin to Coleman. Wellstone's sons, David and Mark, were not on the flight, and until 2018 co-chaired the Wellstone Action (now named Re:Power) in honor of their parents.
Wellstone attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) on a sport wrestling. In college he was an undefeated Atlantic Coast Conference wrestling champion. After his freshman year, he married Sheila Wellstone. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in political science in 1965, and was elected Phi Beta Kappa. In May 1969, Wellstone earned a PhD in political science from UNC. His doctoral dissertation on the roots of black militancy was titled Black Militants in the Ghetto: Why They Believe in Violence.
Wellstone was arrested twice during this period for civil disobedience. The Federal Bureau of Investigation began a case file on him after his May 1970 arrest for protesting the Vietnam War at the Federal Office Building in Minneapolis. In 1984 Wellstone was arrested again, for trespassing during a foreclosure protest at a bank.
Wellstone extended his activism to the Minnesota labor movement. In the summer of 1985, he walked the picket line with striking P-9ers during a labor dispute at the Hormel plant in Austin, Minnesota. The Minnesota National Guard was called in during the strike to ensure that Hormel could hire permanent replacement workers.
The trustees of Carleton College briefly fired Wellstone in the late 1970s for his activism and lack of academic publications. After his students held a sit-in, the trustees rehired him and gave him tenure. Wellstone remains the youngest tenured faculty member in Carleton's history.
Wellstone defeated Boschwitz again in 1996. During that campaign, Boschwitz ran ads accusing Wellstone of being "embarrassingly liberal" and calling him "Senator Welfare". He accused Wellstone of supporting flag burning, a move some believe backfired. Before that accusation, the race was close, but Wellstone beat Boschwitz by nine points despite again being significantly outspent. Reform Party candidate Dean Barkley received 7% of the vote.
Wellstone's upset victory in 1990 and reelection in 1996 were also credited to a grassroots campaign that inspired college students, poor people, and minorities to get involved in politics, many for the first time. In 1990, the number of young people involved in the campaign was so notable that shortly after the election, Walter Mondale told Wellstone that "the kids won it for you". Wellstone also spent much of his Senate career working with the Hmong American community in Minnesota, which had not previously been much involved in American politics, and with the veterans community—serving on the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, successfully campaigning for to receive compensation from the federal government, and for increased spending on health care for veterans.
In 2002, Wellstone campaigned for reelection to a third term despite an earlier campaign pledge to serve only two. His Republican opponent was Norm Coleman, a two-term mayor of St. Paul and former Democrat, who had supported Wellstone's 1996 campaign. Earlier that year Wellstone announced he had a mild form of multiple sclerosis, causing the limp he had believed was an old wrestling injury.
Wellstone was in a line of center-left senators from the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL). The first three, Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, and Walter Mondale, were all prominent in the national Democratic Party. Shortly after joining the Senate, South Carolina Senator Ernest Hollings told Wellstone, "You remind me of Hubert Humphrey. You talk too much."
In 1998, Wellstone formed an exploratory committee and a leadership PAC, the Progressive Politics Network, that paid for his travels to Iowa and New Hampshire, two early primary states in the nomination process. He spoke before organized labor and local Democrats, using the slogan "I represent the democratic wing of the Democratic Party." Vermont governor Howard Dean later incorporated that phrase into his stump speech in the 2004 US presidential election.
On January 9, 1999, Wellstone called a press conference at the Minnesota State Capitol at which he said he lacked the stamina necessary for a national campaign, citing chronic back problems he ascribed to an old wrestling injury. His pain was later diagnosed as multiple sclerosis. He thereafter endorsed former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, the only Democratic candidate to challenge Vice President Al Gore.
In 1996, Wellstone voted for the Defense of Marriage Act. He later asked his supporters to educate him on the issue and by 2001, when he wrote his autobiography, Conscience of a Liberal, Wellstone admitted that he had made a mistake.
Wellstone was one of only eight senators to vote against repealing the Glass–Steagall Act in 1999.Congressional roll-call: S.900 as reported by conferees: Financial Services Act of 1999, Record Vote No: 354, November 4, 1999, Clerk of the Senate. Sortable unofficial table: On Agreeing to the Conference Report, S.900 Gramm-Bliley-Leach Act, roll call 354, 106th Congress, 1st session Votes Database at The Washington Post, retrieved on October 9, 2008
After voting against the congressional authorization for the war in Iraq on October 11, 2002, amid a tight election, Wellstone is said to have told his wife, "I just cost myself the election".
In the 2002 campaign, the Green Party ran a candidate against Wellstone, a move some Greens opposed. The party's 2000 vice-presidential nominee, Winona LaDuke, called Wellstone "a champion of the vast majority of our issues". Some liberals criticized the Green Party's decision to oppose Wellstone.
Wellstone was the author of the "Wellstone Amendment" to the McCain-Feingold Bill for campaign finance reform, in what came to be known as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. The law, including the Wellstone Amendment, was called unconstitutional by groups and individuals of various political perspectives, including the California Democratic Party, the National Rifle Association of America, and Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority whip. On December 10, 2003, the Supreme Court upheld McCain-Feingold's key provisions, including the Wellstone Amendment. Wellstone called McCain-Feingold's protection of "advocacy" groups a "loophole" allowing "special interests" to run last-minute election ads. He pushed an amendment to extend McCain-Feingold's ban on last-minute ads to nonprofits like "the NRA, the Sierra Club, the Christian Coalition, and others". Under the Wellstone Amendment, these organizations could advertise using only money raised under strict "hard money" limits—no more than $5,000 per individual.
In January 2010, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the McCain-Feingold Act and removed restrictions on the NRA's and others' ability to campaign at election time.
The Beechcraft King Air A100 plane crashed into dense forest about two miles from the Eveleth airport, while operating under instrument flight rules. It had no flight data recorders. Autopsy toxicology results on both pilots were negative for drug or alcohol use. Icing, though widely reported on in following days, was considered and eventually rejected as a significant factor in the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) judged that while cloud cover might have prevented the flight crew from seeing the airport, icing did not affect the plane's performance during its descent.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which initially sent agents to help recover debris, investigated possible foul play in the crash. After a few days, it determined that the crash was accidental, but only after following several criminal leads involving death threats. Wellstone had been receiving death threats since he took office; the FBI tapped his phone to locate the callers. Documents about the FBI's involvement in investigating Wellstone's death were not publicly released until 2010. Government documents also indicated that the FBI had been following Wellstone before he became a senator, and included records dating as far back as his arrest at a 1970 antiwar protest.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) later determined that the crash's likely cause was "the flight crew's failure to maintain adequate airspeed, which led to an aerodynamic stall from which they did not recover". The last two radar readings detected the plane traveling at or just below its predicted stall speed given conditions at the time. Aviation experts speculated the pilots might have lost situational awareness because they were lost and looking for the airport. They had been off course for several minutes and "clicked on" the runway lights, something not usually done in good visibility. There was a problem with the airport's VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) navigational beacon. According to Minnesota Public Radio:
Other pilots at the charter company told NTSB that pilot Richard Conry and first officer (co-pilot) Michael Guess had both displayed below-average flying skills. Conry had a well-known tendency to allow copilots to take over all aircraft functions as if they were the sole pilot. After the crash, three copilots told of occasions on which they had to take control of the aircraft away from Conry. After one of those incidents, three days before the crash, the copilot (not Guess) had urged Conry to retire. In a post-accident interview, Conry's longtime friend and fellow aviator Timothy Cooney said that he had last spoken to Conry in June 2001 and had expressed concerns about difficulties he had flying King Airs as late as April of that year, 18 months before the crash.Interview Summaries, pp. 18, 21. Significant discrepancies were also found in the captain's flight logs in the course of the post-accident investigation, indicating he had probably greatly exaggerated his flying experience, most of which had been accrued before a 9–10 year hiatus from flying due to a fraud conviction and poor eyesight. He underwent LASIK surgery, but it had improved his vision to only 20/50 or 20/30.Human Performance Specialist Report, p.10 FAA regulations required Conry to wear corrective lenses,Human Performance Specialist Report, p. 8 but his wife and Cooney said Conry did not do so after the surgery.Interview Summaries, pp. 19, 24 The coroner who examined his body was unable to determine whether Conry was wearing contact lenses at the time of the crash.Human Performance Specialist Report, p.26
Coworkers described Guess as having had to be consistently reminded to keep his hand on the throttle and maintain airspeed during approaches. He had two previous piloting jobs, one with Skydive Hutchinson as a pilot (1988–1989), and another with Northwest Airlines as a trainee instructor (1999), and was dismissed from both for lack of ability. Conry's widow told the NTSB that her husband told her "the other pilots thought Guess was not a good pilot".Interview Summaries page 26
The memorial service for Wellstone and the other victims of the crash was held in Williams Arena at the University of Minnesota and broadcast live on national TV. The lengthy service was dotted with political speeches, open advocacy on political issues, and a giant beach ball batted around the crowd in the style of a beach party. Many high-profile politicians attended the memorial, including former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, and more than half the U.S. Senate. The White House offered to send Vice President Dick Cheney to the service, but the Wellstone family declined.
Some criticized the service for having an inappropriate toneNoonan, Peggy. "'No Class': What Paul Wellstone might have thought of the memorial rally." The Wall Street Journal November 1, 2002. and resembling a "pep rally" or "partisan foot-stomp". Wellstone campaign manager Jeff Blodgett noted after the event that it had not been scripted and apologized to people who were offended or surprised. In his 2003 book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, Al Franken wrote that "reasonable people of good will were genuinely offended" but argued that conservative media figures exploited outrage at the event for political gain. At the time of writing, Franken was a comedian and liberal commentator. Five years later, in 2008, Franken was elected to the Senate seat once held by Wellstone.
Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, who had stated his preference to appoint a Democrat to serve the remainder of Wellstone's term, was "disgusted" by the event, walking out and later threatening to appoint "an ordinary citizen" instead. On November 4, the day before the election, Ventura appointed state planning commissioner Dean Barkley, founder and chair of Ventura's Independence Party of Minnesota, to serve the remaining two months of Wellstone's term; he had run against Wellstone in 1996.Sternberg, Bob von (October 27, 2008) Dean Barkley: As a "viable alternative," he's a force that matters StarTribune. "In the waning days of the administration, Ventura appointed Barkley to serve out the final weeks of Wellstone's Senate term after Wellstone died in a plane crash." Coleman received 49.5% of the vote, defeating Mondale. In 2008, he was narrowly defeated (by 312 votes) in his bid for reelection by Franken, in a three-way race that included Barkley.
Near the site of the plane crash, a memorial to the Wellstones was dedicated on September 25, 2005. His distinctive green bus was present, as well as hundreds of supporters and loved ones. The six-acre site, off Bodas Road near Eveleth, is a tribute to Wellstone's life and career, and to his family members and staff who died in the crash. The memorial is about three-quarters of a mile from the crash site, which is on private land. It is divided into three parts: the Legacy Trail, the Commemorative Circle, and the Crash Site Narrative Space.
Paul and Sheila Wellstone were buried at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis. A memorial sculpture near Bde Maka Ska marks their grave sites. Visitors sometimes follow the Jewish custom of placing small stones on the boulder marking the family plot or on the individual markers. Wellstone Action, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, trains citizens and potential candidates with a progressive agenda.
In 2007, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter joined David Wellstone to push Congress to pass legislation regarding mental health insurance. Wellstone and Carter worked to pass the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, which requires equal coverage of mental and physical illnesses when policies include both types of coverage; both testified about the bill before a House subcommittee in 2007. David said of his father, "Although he was passionate on many issues, there was not another issue that surpassed this in terms of his passion." Because Paul Wellstone's brother had had mental illness, Wellstone had fought for changes in mental health and insurance laws when he reached the Senate. The St. Paul branch of the Emily Program eating disorder clinic has a Wellstone Room in its adult inpatient unit. The room is dedicated to Paul and Sheila Wellstone for their work on treating eating disorders.
On March 5, 2008, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1424, the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007, by a vote of 268–148. It was sponsored by Representatives Patrick Kennedy and Jim Ramstad, both of whom are recovering alcoholics. The narrower Senate bill S. 558, passed earlier, was introduced by Kennedy's father, Senator Ted Kennedy, Pete Domenici, and Mike Enzi.
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