Birch Bayh

American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

Birch Evans Bayh Jr.was an American Democratic Party politician who served as U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1963 to 1981.

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About the Birch Bayh

Birch Evans Bayh Jr.was an American Democratic Party politician who served as U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1963 to 1981. He was first elected to office in 1954, when he won election to the Indiana House of Representatives; in 1958, he was elected Speaker, the youngest person to hold that office in the state’s history. In 1962, he ran for the U.S. Senate, narrowly defeating incumbent Republican Homer E. Capehart. Shortly after entering the Senate, he became Chairman of the Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, and in that role authored two constitutional amendments: the Twenty-fifth–which establishes procedures for an orderly transition of power in the case of the death, disability, or resignation of the President of the United States–and the Twenty-sixth, which lowered the voting age to 18 throughout the United States. He is the first person since James Madison and only non-Founding Father to have authored more than one constitutional amendment. Bayh also led unsuccessful efforts to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment and eliminate the Electoral College.

Bayh authored Title IX of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which bans gender discrimination in higher education institutions that receive federal funding. He also authored the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, and co-authored the Bayh-Dole Act, which deals with intellectual property that arises from federal-government-funded research. Bayh voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the confirmation of Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Supreme Court. He led the Senate opposition to the nominations of Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell, two of Richard Nixon’s unsuccessful Supreme Court nominees. Bayh intended to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972, but declined to run after his wife was diagnosed with cancer. He sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, but dropped out of the campaign after disappointing finishes in the first set of primaries and caucuses.

Bayh won re-election in 1968 and 1974, but lost his 1980 bid for a fourth term to Dan Quayle. After leaving the Senate, he remained active in the political and legal world. His son, Evan Bayh, served as the 46th Governor of Indiana and held his father’s former U.S. Senate seat from 1999 to 2011.

21 Quotes by Birch Bayh

  1. 1.

    I think that’s most unfortunate about our Democratic system, that you’re confining it to people who are either very wealthy in their own right or have capacity to gain access to large amounts of money.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  2. 2.

    Certainly I think the election of John Kennedy and all he stood for was one that really was an inspiration.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  3. 3.

    One of the big challenges for our party is to demonstrate to people that we have an agenda for economic prosperity and that we can be trusted with their money.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  4. 4.

    Young people are being elected for School Boards all over the country.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  5. 5.

    And I thought my loss my loss was not, certainly, the end of the world, but to lessen the enthusiasm of those young people who were signed up, I thought that was tragic.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  6. 6.

    I think we have a number of young people – like yourself – who want to make a difference. I’m not sure the numbers are as large because I think the burden of getting elected to public office at the national level has become astronomically expensive.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  7. 7.

    People are concerned, here again, about life, and haven’t given a whole lot of attention to how you make fathers responsible for the lives they bring into the world.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  8. 8.

    It’s unfortunate. Title IX is rather simple: don’t discriminate on the basis of sex.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  9. 9.

    You look at the whole Human Rights questions, I happened to be there at just the right time when the country was awakening – this goes to the first question you asked – the whole country was awakening to a hundred years of injustice that hadn’t been resolved yet.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  10. 10.

    How come life is so important in the nine months before birth, but then we sort of forget about the importance, we’re not worried about whether that baby lives in poverty once he or she is born.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  11. 11.

    I had the good fortune to be able to right an injustice that I thought was being heaped on young people by lowering the voting age, where you had young people that were old enough to die in Vietnam but not old enough to vote for their members of Congress that sent them there.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  12. 12.

    And Title IX coming along there. I don’t think Evan would have done any different than I did. I was fortunate to be there at a time when that was right.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  13. 13.

    You know I don’t think we need the Republicans to steal family values from us.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  14. 14.

    I should point out that I was intimately involved with a group of women here a year and a half ago when there was an effort made by a right wing element in the President’s party to get him to turn back the clock.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  15. 15.

    Well, I don’t know too many governors who are flaming ideologues.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  16. 16.

    You shouldn’t have to sue somebody to get justice. It ought to come through administrative process.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  17. 17.

    In fact, I really didn’t get enthused about his Secretary of State race until I attended a couple of his rallies and found out there were a bunch of young folks that there were a bunch of young folks that he had been able to recruit on his own.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  18. 18.

    I look at the Senior Al Gore that I had the chance to serve in the Senate with. A great human being. He went down to defeat to this right wing bunch back at the time.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  19. 19.

    But if you really want to get involved in making a difference, you can stay at home with your family and have a job and make a reasonable living without having to be on an airplane all of the time, then you ought to go back home and run for School Board.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  20. 20.

    I think that it’s important if you run for President that you have to make those important decisions. And your father, if he can help, probably, he helps just by being your father without getting intimately involved.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)

  21. 21.

    But people that are worried about unborn babies are the same ones that vote against kindergarten programs in Indiana or school lunch funds out of the federal government.

    Birch Bayh

    American lawyer and politician (1928-2019)