Richard Lugar
Richard "Dick" Green Lugar, KBE (born April 4, 1932), is an American politician and member of the Republican Party who served as a United States Senator, representing Indiana from 1977 to 2013. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Lugar is a graduate of Denison University and Oxford University. He served on the Indianapolis Board of School Commissioners from 1964 to 1967 before he was elected to two terms as Mayor of Indianapolis, serving from 1968 to 1976. During his tenure as Mayor, Lugar served as the President of the National League of Cities in 1971 and gave the keynote address at the 1972 Republican National Convention. In 1974, Lugar ran a failed campaign for the U.S. Senate, losing to incumbent Democratic senator Birch Bayh. He ran again in 1976, defeating Democratic incumbent Vance Hartke. Lugar was reelected in 1982, 1988, 1994, 2000 and 2006. In 2012, Lugar was defeated in a primary challenge by Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, ending his 36-year tenure in the U.S. Senate. Mourdock went on to lose the general election to Democrat Joe Donnelly. Lugar ran for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 1996 but did not win any primaries or caucuses. During Lugar's tenure, he served as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1985 to 1987 and from 2003 to 2007, serving as the ranking member of the committee from 2007 until his retirement in 2013. Lugar also twice served as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, from 1995 to 2001 and briefly again in part of 2001. Much of Lugar's work in the Senate was toward the dismantling of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons around the world, co-sponsoring his most notable piece of legislation with Georgia Democrat Sam Nunn: the Nunn-Lugar Act. He is also the longest-serving senator in Indiana's history and until his defeat was the most senior Republican member of the Senate. After leaving the Senate, Lugar created a nonprofit organization that specializes in the policy areas he pursued while in office. The Lugar Center focuses on food and energy security, the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and effective bipartisan governance. Located in Washington, D.C., the Center works with academics, experts, and policymakers in order to create proposals for these 21st century issues. The Center works to highlight these specific topics and their implications, as well as educating the public on them.