Senate Career 1928-1935
On March 31, 1928, Governor Fred Green appointed 44-year-old Vandenberg, a Republican, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Senator Woodbridge Nathan Ferris, a Democrat, from pneumonia. Green made the appointment reluctantly under considerable political pressure. Vandenberg immediately declared his intention to stand for election to both the short, unexpired term and the full six-year term. Though once a friend and admirer of President Woodrow Wilson, his ties to the Republican Party were well established.
He became the fifth journalist in the U.S. Senate. Governor Green "stressed the advantage of youth as a qualification for the rough-and-tumble of life in Washington committee rooms" which was deemed an explanation for over the aged Joseph Warren Fordney for the position. "Fellow Republican publishers to whom he can look from behind his horn-rimmed glasses for encouragement in his maiden speech are Cutting of New Mexico, Capper of Kansas, La Follette of Wisconsin. Senator-publisher Carter Glass of Virginia sits across the aisle among the Democrats."
In November 1928, Vandenberg was handily elected for a full term. In the Senate, he piloted into law the Reapportionment Act of 1929, which provided for the automatic redistricting of the House of Representatives after each national census. He was at first an ardent supporter of President Herbert Hoover but he became discouraged by Hoover's intransigence and failures in dealing with the Great Depression.
After the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, Vandenberg went along with most of the early New Deal measures, except for the NIRA and AAA. With the exception of his amendment to the 1933 Glass–Steagall Banking Act, which created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Vandenberg failed to secure enactment of any significant legislative proposals. By the 1934 election, his own political position was precarious and lost his home district; he was still reelected by 52,443 votes.
Read more about this topic: Arthur H. Vandenberg
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