Mike Synar - Election and Service in Congress

Election and Service in Congress

He was first elected to Congress in 1978 at the age of 28, by defeating incumbent Ted Risenhoover. Synar's campaign pulled off an upset victory as they circulated copies of a Washington D.C. media report that said Risenhoover slept on a "heart-shaped waterbed," which did not play well with the voters back home in Oklahoma.

In the Congress, he may be best known for his successful constitutional challenge to the Gramm-Rudman Act. In the 1986 Supreme Court decision Bowsher v. Synar, the Court struck down the law stating, in part, that the provision granting executive power to Comptroller General Charles Arthur Bowsher, a legislative branch officer, did "violate the Constitution's command that Congress play no direct role in the execution of the laws." Synar was also an ardent and persistent foe of the tobacco industry.

In 1989 Synar served as the lead prosecutor as Congress conducted an impeachment trial of then U.S. Federal Judge Alcee Hastings, who was impeached on bribery charges and removed from the bench. Ironically, Hastings was later elected to the U.S. Congress from Florida, and was in line to chair the House Select Committee on Intelligence, but was passed over by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

In 1994, Synar was narrowly defeated in a Democratic primary run-off election by Virgil Cooper, a retired high school principal. Though Cooper's campaign spent less than $20,000 itself, some money was spent by outside interests that were opposed to Synar, including the National Rifle Association, tobacco companies, and cattlemen. Cooper seized on Synar's connections with Japanese businesses with a bumper sticker slogan of "Sayonara Synar."

Cooper won by just 2,609 votes out of 92,987 cast, a 51-49 margin. Cooper was subsequently defeated in the general election by Republican Tom Coburn by a 52-48 margin.