John Brademas - Congressional Service

Congressional Service

Brademas served as United States Representative in Congress from Indiana's 3rd congressional district for 22 years (1959–81), the last four as House majority whip. While in Congress he was a member of the Committee on Education and Labor, where he played a leading role in writing most of the federal legislation enacted during that time concerning schools, colleges and universities; services for the elderly and the handicapped; libraries and museums; and the arts and humanities.

Brademas holds the distinction of being the first Greek-American member of Congress, preceding, among others, Olympia Snowe, Paul Tsongas and Paul Sarbanes.

Cosponsor of the 1965 legislation creating the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Brademas for ten years chaired the congressional subcommittee with jurisdiction over them. He was chief House sponsor of the Arts, Humanities and Cultural Affairs Act; Arts and Artifacts Indemnity Act; Museum Services Act; Library Services and Construction Act; National Commission on Libraries and Information Services Act; Education for All Handicapped Children Act; Alcohol and Drug Abuse Education Act; and International Education Act. He was also a major co-author of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965; the Higher Education Acts of 1972 and 1976, which focused on student aid; and the measure creating the National Institute of Education.

In December 1963, the Studebaker Corporation closed its South Bend, Indiana automobile manufacturing plants, putting more than 5,000 people out of work. Brademas was instrumental in helping the South Bend area recover from the Studebaker closing through his contacts in Washington. In 1964, after receiving an $81 million contract from the government, Kaiser Jeep Corporation purchased the Chippewa Avenue truck plant from Studebaker, and put a sizable number of people back to work building military and postal vehicles. Today, although the Chippewa plant is no longer in use, AM General, successor to Kaiser Jeep and American Motors Corporation, produces the military Humvee and the Hummer H1 and H2 in Mishawaka, Indiana, just east of South Bend. This would have been nearly impossible without the work of John Brademas in the mid-1960s. Brademas was defeated for reelection on November 4, 1980, by Republican John Hiler.

On October 3, 2011, the King of Spain bestowed on John Brademas the Order of Isabella the Catholic (Spanish: Orden de Isabel la Católica), a Spanish civil order granted in recognition of services that benefit the country.