Lee Hamilton, towering figure in national politics, dies at 94

Lee Hamilton, a 17-term congressman serving southern Indiana, whose foreign policy expertise, reverence for democracy, and bipartisan ideals made him a towering and highly respected figure in national politics, died Wednesday. He was 94.

Hamilton, a Democrat, served as vice chair of the 9/11 commission and chair of the House committee investigating covert arms transactions with Iran.

Hamilton’s name is on Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He started IU’s Center on Representative Government as the Center on Congress. IU is home to Hamilton’s congressional papers.

In 2015, president Barack Obama awarded Hamilton the Presidental Medal of Freedom.

At the ceremony, Obama quoted Hamilton as having said, “At its best, representative democracy gives us a system where all of us have a voice in the process and a stake in the product.”

Obama added, “In his 34 years in Congress, Lee Hamilton was a faithful servant of that ideal, representing his district, his beloved Indiana, and his country with integrity and honor.”

Hamilton represented Indiana’s 9th Congressional District from 1965 to 1999.

“Few public servants have shaped our understanding of democracy, global engagement, and principled leadership as profoundly as Lee Hamilton,” IU president Pamela Whitten said in a statement Wednesday. “His lifelong commitment to public service reflects the very best of our democratic ideals and left an enduring impact on our nation.”

Hamilton continued writing up to only a few days ago, lamenting the current state of national politics in a newspaper column. Last September, he wrote a column under the headline, “Congress is no longer an equal branch.”

His most recent column opined that Congress needed more friendships.

“Because no step is more important right now than re-establishing Congress’s ability to assert itself as a robust and effective branch of government that can weigh in on — and even shape — policy both domestic and foreign,” Hamilton wrote. “And I’m convinced that unless individual members of Congress can build relationships with one another that transcend both party and the maneuvering for advantage that frequently marks relationships on Capitol Hill, that will be a lost cause.”

Hamilton was born April 30, 1931, in Daytona Beach, Fla. He grew up in Evansville and received his undergraduate degree from DePauw University, where Hamilton also played basketball.