Richard Lugar Totally Explained

Everything about Richard Lugar totally explained

Richard Green "Dick" Lugar (born April 4, 1932) is the senior United States Senator from Indiana. He is a member of the Republican Party.

Family background

Lugar was born in Indianapolis to Bertha Green and Marvin Lugar. He attended the public schools of Indianapolis. During this time he attained the Boy Scouts' highest rank: Eagle Scout. Later, he became a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. He graduated from Shortridge High School in 1950 and Phi Beta Kappa from Denison University in 1954, where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi. He went on to attend Pembroke College, Oxford, England, as a Rhodes Scholar, and received a graduate degree in 1956. He served in the United States Navy from 1957 to 1960; one of his assignments was as an intelligence briefer for Admiral Arleigh Burke.
Lugar manages his family's 604-acre (2.4 km²) Marion County corn, soybean and tree farm. Before entering public life, he helped his brother Tom manage the family's food machinery manufacturing business in Indianapolis.
Sen. Lugar is member of the United Methodist Church. He married Charlene Smeltzer on September 8, 1956 and the couple has four sons.

Entrance into politics

Lugar served on the Indianapolis Board of School Commissioners from 1964 to 1967. At the age of 35, he was elected Mayor of Indianapolis in 1967 and began serving the first of two mayoral terms in 1968. A political cartoon of the time questioned how an Eagle Scout could survive in the world of politics.

2006 re-election campaign

Steve Osborn, a Libertarian candidate in the 2006 election. The Democratic Party didn't field a candidate. Lugar won the election with 87% of the vote, the highest percentage of the 2006 senate elections despite a Democratic take-over of Washington.

Stance on Iraq War

On June 25, 2007, Senator Lugar, who had been "a reliable vote for President Bush on the war," said that "Bush's Iraq strategy [is] not working and... the U.S. should downsize the military's role."
Lugar's blunt assessment has been viewed as significant in that it shows the growing impatience and dissatisfaction with President Bush's strategy in Iraq. Lugar's speech had particular resonance given his stature as one of the party's elder statesmen on foreign policy. After Lugar finished his remarks, Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-IL), a sharp critic of the war, praised Lugar's "thoughtful, sincere and honest" speech, which Durbin said was in "finest tradition of the U.S. Senate." Durbin urged his Senate colleagues to take a copy of Lugar's speech home over the Fourth of July break and study it before returning to work.
Two days later, on June 27, 2007, Lugar said that Congressional measures aimed at curtailing U.S. military involvement in Iraq, including "so-called timetables, benchmarks," have "no particular legal consequence," are "very partisan," and "will not work."

Committee Assignments

Committee on Foreign Relations (Ranking Member)
- Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs (Ex-Officio)
- Subcommittee on European Affairs (Ex-Officio)
- Subcommittee on International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs and International Environmental Protection (Ex-Officio)
- Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Democracy and Human Rights (Ex-Officio)
- Subcommittee on Near East and South and Central Asian Affairs (Ex-Officio)
- Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps and Narcotics Affairs (Ex-Officio)
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
- Subcommittee on Energy, Science and Technology
- Subcommittee on Nutrition and Food Assistance, Sustainable and Organic Agriculture, and General Legislation
- Subcommittee on Rural Revitalization, Conservation, Forestry, and Credit

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