Frank Lausche - After Baseball

After Baseball

Lausche entered the Cleveland-Marshall School of Law early on 1919, and decided to continue in law school that spring, rather than report to spring training. He graduating from the law school in 1920. Lausche served as Municipal Court judge from 1932 to 1937 and Common Pleas Court judge from 1937 to 1941, before winning election as Mayor of Cleveland in 1941. He served until 1944, when he first won election as Governor of Ohio, becoming the state's first Catholic governor. Lausche served as governor from 1945 to 1947, when he narrowly lost to Thomas J. Herbert. Lausche defeated Herbert in a 1948 rematch, however, serving from 1949 to 1957. He was reelected as Governor in 1952, defeating Cincinnati Mayor Charles Phelps Taft II, and 1954, defeating state Auditor Jim Rhodes, who later became Governor himself. Lausche resigned in early 1957, having won election to the United States Senate in 1956, unseating incumbent Republican George Bender.

In his first term, with the Senate almost evenly split, Lausche gave Senate Democratic leader Lyndon B. Johnson a scare by hinting that he might vote for Republican William F. Knowland for Senate Majority Leader, although he ultimately did not. Throughout his career, Lausche displayed a bipartisan and independent approach to politics, being known by some as a "Democrat with a small 'd'", but his approach to ethnic Democratic politics paved the way for followers such as Ralph S. Locher, who became Mayor of Cleveland and later an Associate Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, and Bronis Klementowicz, a leader of Cleveland City Council and law director under Locher. Lausche's independence also earned him, among some, the derisive moniker, "Frank the Fence." Some nicknames attributed to him were derisive and even scatological. Among them included "Frank J. Lousy" and "Frank J. Laushit." Lausche was easily re-elected to the Senate in 1962, but was defeated in his bid for renomination in 1968, due to his loss of labor union support. He lost Democratic primary by John J. Gilligan by a 55% to 45% margin, and in the general election, Lausche refused to support Gilligan, who went on to lose the general election to then-state Attorney General William B. Saxbe.

Lausche was a very popular, plain-spoken, big-city politician of the old school. He was credited with building a coalition of ethnic voters in Cleveland known as the "cosmopolitan Democrats." There is some evidence that Republican presidential candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, considered asking Lausche to become his running mate.

Lausche was named a ”Knight of St John of Malta” by Pope John Paul II, “the highest civilian honor that can be bestowed by the Catholic Church”.

In retirement, Lausche and his wife lived in Bethesda, Maryland. Jane Lausche died November 24, 1981, and, having converted to the Roman Catholic faith, was buried at Calvary Cemetery in southeast Cleveland. Lausche continued to live a lonely life in Bethesda until contracting pneumonia in January, 1990. He was flown back to Cleveland, and was admitted to the Slovenian Home for the Aged on February 20. He died there of congestive heart failure April 20, 1990.

Lausche's funeral was at St. Vitus Church, with Bishop Anthony Edward Pevec delivering the homily. He was buried at Calvary Cemetery. His tombstone was incorrectly inscribed with a birth date of 1898.

The State of Ohio's office building in Cleveland, Ohio is named after Lausche. In 2005, James E. Odenkirk authored the book, Frank J. Lausche: Ohio's Great Political Maverick, an in-depth look at Lausche's political career. In the early 1990s, Ohio's Lincoln was published.