Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the previous senator and US consultant of Colorado recognized for his passionate advocacy of Native American points, died Tuesday. He was 92.
Campbell died of pure causes surrounded by his household, his daughter, Shanan Campbell, confirmed to The Related Press.
Campbell, a Democrat who surprised his social gathering by becoming a member of the Republican Social gathering, stood out in Congress as a lot for his unconventional costume — cowboy boots, bolo ties and ponytail — as his protection of kids’s rights, organized labor and monetary conservatism.
A member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe, Campbell stated his ancestors have been amongst greater than 150 Native People, principally girls, youngsters and aged males, killed by US troopers whereas camped below a flag of truce on Nov. 29, 1864. He helped sponsor laws upgrading the Nice Sand Dunes Nationwide Monument in southern Colorado, the place the bloodbath occurred, to a nationwide park.
He served three phrases within the Home, beginning in 1987. He then served two phrases within the Senate, from 1993 to 2005.
“He was a grasp jeweler with a status far past the boundaries of Colorado,” stated Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper on X. “I can’t overlook his acts of kindness. He can be sorely missed.”
Campbell was seen as a maverick
The motorcycle-riding lawmaker and cattle rancher was thought-about a maverick even earlier than he abruptly switched to the Republican Social gathering in March 1995, indignant with Democrats for killing a balanced-budget modification within the Senate. His swap outraged Democratic leaders and was thought-about a coup for the GOP.
“I get hammered from the extremes,” he stated shortly afterward. “I’m all the time prepared to hear … however I simply don’t suppose you will be all issues to all folks, irrespective of which social gathering you’re in.”
Thought of a shoo-in for a 3rd Senate time period, Campbell surprised supporters when he dropped out of the race in 2004 after a well being scare.
“I assumed it was a coronary heart assault. It wasn’t,” stated Campbell. “However after I was mendacity on that desk within the hospital wanting up in any respect these docs’ faces, I made a decision then, ‘Do I really want to do that six extra years after I’ve been gone a lot from house?’ I’ve two youngsters I didn’t get to see develop up, fairly frankly.”
He retired to concentrate on the Native American jewellery that helped make him rich and was placed on show on the Smithsonian Establishment’s Nationwide Museum of the American Indian. He additionally labored on a line of outside gear with a California-based firm, Kiva Designs, and have become a senior coverage adviser with the powerhouse legislation agency of Holland & Knight in Washington.
Campbell based Ben Nighthorse Consultants which centered on federal coverage, together with Native American affairs and pure sources. The previous senator additionally drove the Capitol Christmas Tree throughout the nation to Washington, DC, on a number of events.
“He was really one in every of a sort, and I’m pondering of his household within the wake of his loss,” stated Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette on X.
An unintentional politician
In 1982, he was planning to ship his jewellery to California, however unhealthy climate grounded his airplane. He was killing time within the southern Colorado metropolis of Durango when he went to a county Democratic assembly and wound up giving a speech for a buddy operating for sheriff.
Democrats have been searching for somebody to problem a GOP legislative candidate and sounded out Campbell through the assembly. “Like a fish, I used to be hooked,” he stated.
His opponent, Don Whalen, was a preferred former school president who “seemed like he was out of a Brooks Brothers catalog,” Campbell recalled. “I don’t suppose anyone gave me any type of an opportunity. … I simply suppose I expended a complete lot of power to show them mistaken.”
Campbell hit the streets, ripping city maps out of the Yellow Pages and strolling door to door to speak with folks. He recalled leaving a notice at a home in Cortez the place nobody was house when he heard a automobile roar into the driveway, gravel flying and brakes squealing.
The motive force jumped out, tire iron in hand, and screamed that Campbell couldn’t have his furnishings. “Aren’t you the repossession firm?” the person requested.
“And I stated, ‘No man, I’m simply operating for workplace.’ We bought to speaking, and I feel the man voted for me.”
Campbell went on to win and he by no means misplaced an election thereafter, transferring from the Colorado Home to the US Home after which the Senate.
Born April 13, 1933, in Auburn, California, Campbell served within the Air Pressure in Korea from 1951 to 1953 and acquired a bachelor’s diploma from San Jose State College in 1957. He attended Meiji College in Tokyo from 1960 to 1964, was captain of the US judo group within the 1964 Olympics and gained a gold medal within the Pan American Video games.
Campbell as soon as known as then-Inside Secretary Bruce Babbitt a “forked-tongued snake” for opposing a water venture close to the southern Colorado city of Ignacio, which Campbell promoted as a solution to honor the water rights of the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribes.
He clashed with environmentalists on every part from mining legislation and grazing reforms to setting apart land for nationwide monuments.
Regardless of all this — or maybe due to it — voters liked him. In 1998, Campbell gained reelection to the Senate by routing Democrat Dottie Lamm, the spouse of former Gov. Dick Lamm, regardless of his swap to the GOP. He was the one Native American within the Senate on the time.
Campbell insisted his ideas didn’t change, solely his social gathering
He stated he was criticized as a Democrat for voting with Republicans, after which pilloried by some newspapers for his stances after the swap.
“It didn’t change me. I didn’t change my voting report. For example, I had a sterling voting report as a Democrat on labor. I nonetheless do as a Republican. And on minorities and girls’s points,” he stated.
Campbell stated his values — liberal on social points, conservative on fiscal ones — have been formed by his life. Kids’s causes have been expensive to him as a result of he and his sister frolicked in an orphanage when his father was in jail and his mom had tuberculosis.
Organized labor gained his backing as a result of hooking up with the Teamsters and studying to drive a truck bought him out of the California tomato fields. His time as a Sacramento County sheriff’s deputy in California within the late Sixties and early ’70s made him a legislation enforcement advocate.
His choice to retire from politics, Campbell stated, had nothing to do with allegations that Ginnie Kontnik, his former chief of workers, solicited kickbacks from one other staffer and that his workplace lobbied for a contract for a expertise firm with ties to the previous senator.
He referred each issues to the Senate Ethics Committee. In 2007, Kontnik pleaded responsible to a federal cost of not reporting $2,000 in revenue.
“I suppose there was some disappointment” with these fees, Campbell stated. “However plenty of issues occur in Washington that disappoint you. You simply should recover from them as a result of day by day there’s a brand new disaster to take care of.”
