He was not on the list.
Conrad Burns, a onetime cattle auctioneer who parlayed his
down-home appeal into three terms as a Republican senator from Montana, reaping
federal dollars for his state as well as criticism for his impolitic, at times
offensive, off-the-cuff remarks, died April 28 at his home in Billings, Mont.
He was 81.
The cause was complications from a stroke in 2009, said a
daughter, Keely Godwin.
Mr. Burns served from 1989 to 2007 in the Senate, where he
made “weighty speeches on foreign policy and the future of the Internet,” it
was observed in the Almanac of American Politics, even while cutting “the
figure of a stereotypical Westerner, picking his teeth with a pocketknife,
chewing tobacco, telling deadpan jokes.”
He lost his seat in 2006 to a Democratic challenger,
then-state Senate President Jon Tester, after revelations that Mr. Burns had received
$150,000 in campaign contributions — among the highest amounts of any member of
Congress — from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates.
The son of Missouri ranchers, Mr. Burns had established
himself in Billings, Mont., as a livestock auctioneer, then built a network of
29 radio and six television stations devoted to agricultural news. He was
elected Yellowstone County commissioner in 1986 and two years later defeated an
incumbent Democrat, John Melcher, for a seat in the Senate. Mr. Burns came to
Washington promising never to “take a chew under the Capitol dome.”
He did not come to the Senate “deeply steeped in politics
and governance,” Norman J. Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute, said in an interview, adding that Mr. Burns had some
“rough edges.” But “I liked him because he was very unpretentious,” Ornstein
said. “He knew who he was.”
Mr. Burns obtained a seat on the Commerce Committee,
chairing the subcommittee on communications, and on the powerful Appropriations
Committee, where he led the Interior subcommittee.
On the former, he supported deregulation and the cultivation
of online commerce. On the latter, he helped direct federal funds to Montana.
Especially as his seniority increased, he became known as an effective advocate
for his constituents.
When drought hit farmers, Mr. Burns lobbied for federal
relief similar to the funds given to victims of floods and hurricanes. A family
statement on his death emphasized his attention to Montana interests including
farming and ranching, as well as rural telecommunications and health care.
But Mr. Burns also drew the ire of many in his state and
elsewhere over his stream of gaffes insulting groups including but not limited
to African Americans, Arabs and immigrants.
“I can self-destruct in one sentence,” Mr. Burns once said.
“Sometimes in one word.”
In 1991, after the passage of a civil rights bill, Mr. Burns
invited a mixed-race group of lobbyists to an auction. When the prospective
guests inquired what goods were to be sold, he responded, “Slaves.”
Mr. Burns later clarified that his phrasing referred to
volunteers who agreed to do chores or other jobs for a charitable cause.
During his reelection campaign in 1994, he relayed to the
Bozeman Daily Chronicle a meeting with a Montana rancher who asked him how he
managed to live in Washington with “all those [n-----s],” using a racial slur
for African Americans. By his account, Mr. Burns replied that it was a “hell of
a challenge.”
The senator later apologized, saying that the episode
represented “views which I do not condone and do not share.” He also remarked
that “it’s always a challenge when you bring different cultures and beliefs
together.”
On another occasion, he referred to Arabs as “ragheads.”
During his final reelection campaign, Mr. Burns was widely
rebuked for telling firefighters that they were doing a “piss-poor job”
combating a wildfire in Montana. By that time, Mr. Burns faced withering
scrutiny over his ties to Abramoff, who pleaded guilty in January 2006 to
fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials.
As chairman of the Interior subcommittee, Mr. Burns oversaw
legislation involving Indian affairs. Abramoff, who admitted to defrauding
Indian tribes he represented, told Vanity Fair magazine that his clients
received “every appropriation we wanted” from Mr. Burns’s subcommittee.
Mr. Burns said that he did not personally know Abramoff and
that he had not realized the lobbyist’s relationship with tribes that donated
to his campaign.
“I don’t know who Abramoff influenced,” Mr. Burns said in a
campaign advertisement, “but he never influenced me.”
Mr. Burns had announced in 2005 that he would return the
Abramoff funds, but the scandal took its toll. He lost to Tester by fewer than
3,600 votes.
In 2008, the Justice Department closed an investigation of
Mr. Burns’s involvement in the Abramoff matter, without bringing criminal
charges.
Conrad Rae Burns was born in Gallatin, Mo., on Jan. 25,
1935. After studying agriculture at the University of Missouri, he served in
the Marine Corps for two years. He moved to Montana as a representative for a
trade publication devoted to polled Hereford cattle. He sold his agricultural
broadcast network as he launched a career in politics.
Mr. Burns easily won reelection in 1994 but faced greater
difficulty in 2000 when he ran for a third term, despite a promise to stay in
Washington for only two. He defeated Democrat Brian Schweitzer, later elected
Montana governor, 51 percent to 47 percent.
After his loss in 2006, Mr. Burns worked for a Washington
lobbying firm, Gage Business Consulting. He frequently offered his services as
an auctioneer at charitable functions.
His daughter Kate Burns died in 1985. Survivors include his
wife of 48 years, the former Phyllis Kuhlmann, of Billings; two children, Keely
Godwin of Durham, N.C., and Garrett Burns of Alexandria, Va.; a sister; and
three grandchildren.
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