Ellis James Abdnor was an American politician from the state of South Dakota. Abdnor was a Republican and served as a U.S. Senator from South Dakota.
Personal life
Abdnor was born in Kennebec, South Dakota, on February 13, 1923, the son of Mary and Samuel J. Abdnor. Abdnor served in the United States Army during World War II and then graduated from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1945 where he became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. He was a member of the South Dakota Senate from 1957 to 1969. A common, decent, plain spoken man," he was affectionately known as "the people's Senator." He was also described as a "nice-guy public servant" with a "down-home, warm and fuzzy way. His staff considered him to be a friend as well as an honorable mentor and public servant. Like his South Dakota Congressional colleague James Abourezk, he was a second-generation Lebanese-American and second U.S. Senator of Lebanese descent after Abourezk, as well.
Politics
From 1946 to 1948, James Abdnor worked as a teacher and coach. Abdnor was chief clerk of the State Legislature in the early 1950s. Abdnor was the 30th Lieutenant Governor of South Dakota from 1969 to 1971, and unsuccessfully sought the nomination for the House of Representatives in 1970. In 1972, he was elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican. Abdnor ran in the 1980 election against three-term incumbent and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern for the United States Senate. Abdnor claimed McGovern was out of touch with the state and unseated him by a large margin. During his term as a senator, Abdnor served on the Appropriations Committee and chaired three subcommittees, including the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee. In 1986, after winning by a wide margin a bruising re-election primary campaign against then Governor Bill Janklow, Abdnor narrowly lost his Senate seat to then-Representative Tom Daschle. He served as the administrator of the Small Business Administration from 1987 to 1989, and served in an advisory capacity for John Thune's successful campaign against Daschle in 2004.
Legislation
Abdnor's accomplishments included authorization of the Grassropes irrigation project and the Walworth, Edmunds, Brown rural water system, reauthorization of the Belle Fourche irrigation project, and the inclusion of oats in the farm program. As a fiscal conservative, on April 2, 1984, he introduced S. 2516, the Deficit Reduction Act, a forerunner to the Gramm–Rudman–Hollings Balanced Budget Act. As chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Water Resources, he exerted leadership in passage of legislation requiring cost-sharing for Federal water development projects. His interest in chairing the subcommittee was spawned by the importance of water to South Dakota's primary industry, agriculture, and the fact the state had been promised irrigation development in trade for inundation of its Missouri River bottom land behind massive dams in order to provide flood control and navigation benefits to downstream states.
