Former Sen. Birch Bayh, an Indiana Democrat who wrote two constitutional amendments that cleared Congress and the states, but who lost his Senate seat in an upset to future Vice President Dan Quayle, died at 91.
The cause was pneumonia, his family said in a statement — including his son Evan Bayh, who held his father’s old Senate seat from 1999-2011 and who previously served as governor of Indiana.
Birch Bayh, a Terre Haute, Ind., native, served as an MP with the United States Army in Allied-occupied Germany following World War II. He won a seat in the Indiana House of Representatives and quickly rose to speaker after Democrats unexpectedly won a majority during the Eisenhower recession of the late 1950s.
Bayh earned a law degree at night while serving in the legislature, all the while setting his sights on Washington. In 1962 he beat 18-year incumbent Republican incumbent Sen. Homer E. Capehart.
Bayh quickly rose to national prominence through his sponsorship of constitutional amendments, which face the high hurdle of needing two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate, and then ratification by three-quarters of the states.
President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963 proved a morbid impetus for Bayh’s proposed constitutional amendment on presidential succession. The issue had actually been debated publicly since President Dwight Eisenhower’s pair of heart attacks.
The resulting 25th Amendment was ratified in 1967. It created a process for an orderly transition of power in the case of death, disability, or resignation of the president, and a method of selecting a vice president when a vacancy occurs in that office — the latter used when President Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974 over Watergate and Vice President Gerald Ford became commander-in-chief.
More recently, partisan foes of President Trump have cited lesser-known provisions of the 25th Amendment as a wishful thinking approach to removing him from office. That scenario remains highly unlikely since it would require participation by Vice President Mike Pence and Cabinet members.
Bayh also authored a constitutional proposal to lower the voting age to 18 nationally, which became the 26th Amendment.
Bayh sought the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination, but fell short in a crowded field to former Gov. Jimmy Carter, who beat President Ford that fall.
But Bayh’s political fortunes waned as the Reagan Revolution gathered steam. With decades of a liberal voting record, Bayh found himself out of step politically in a conservative-leaning state. In 1980, he faced a challenge from two-term Republican Rep. Dan Quayle, scion of a prominent Hoosier State publishing family.
The pair engaged in an unprecedented seven debates around Indiana, against the backdrop of Republican presidential nominee Ronald Reagan’s successful challenge to Carter. Quayle beat Bayh 54-46 percent, making him a national figure of sorts who GOP nominee George H.W. Bush chose as his running mate in his successful 1988 race.
Bayh was among nine Senate Democrats swept out of office in 1980, giving Republicans their first majority there in more than a quarter-century. After leaving office, Bayh worked for several law firms in Washington and served on corporate boards.
Though Bayh’s career in elective office was over, his last name still had some political juice. Evan Bayh went on to a successful career in statewide office, though he lost his 2016 bid to return to the Senate after six years.
