Phil Crane - Political Career

Political Career

Crane was first elected to the United States Congress in what was then the 13th District in a 1969 special election, succeeding Donald Rumsfeld, who was appointed to a position in the Nixon administration. Crane was a dark horse candidate in a field of seven aspirants, and was by far the most conservative candidate in the field. Despite the opposition of the Chicago North Shore GOP monied establishment, he prevailed by only 2,100 votes. He then won the special election with 58 percent of the vote.

He soon established himself as one of the House's most conservative members, leading a small but growing cluster of right-wing congressmen who had cut their teeth in the fledgling conservative intellectual movement of the early 1960s and drew their inspiration from Goldwater's presidential campaign. He was handily elected to a full term in 1970, and was reelected 16 times. His district number changed as Illinois lost congressional seats—from the 13th (1969–73) to the 12th (1973–93) to the 8th (1993–2005). His district was long considered the most Republican district in the Chicago area, if not in all of Illinois. He almost always won with 70 percent or more of the vote until the 1990s, when he had to fend off more moderate Republicans in the primary and better-funded Democrats in the general election.

Soon after being elected to his first full term in 1970, he was tapped by several conservative activists, including Paul Weyrich, to form a group of conservative congressmen to keep watch on the Republican leadership, which at the time was seen as too moderate. This new group was known as the Republican Study Committee, and Crane served as its first chairman. He remained a member of the group for the remainder of his time in Congress.

In 1976, he was appointed Chairman of the Illinois Citizens for Reagan, in which capacity he made numerous speaking engagements throughout the midwest on behalf of the conservative California governor's unsuccessful GOP primary bid for the Presidential nomination.

In 1978, he became chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU), a Washington, D.C. based conservative citizens' lobby and political action group. During his tenure the group waged a nationwide campaign against President Jimmy Carter's proposed cession of the Panama Canal and against the proposed SALT II arms limitation treaty with the USSR. As a result of these efforts, the organization's budget, staff and presence in Washington greatly increased.