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Nebraska: Senior Senator Sen. Chuck Hagel (R) Last Updated July 14, 2003
Chuck Hagel, elected in 1996, is Nebraska's senior senator. Hagel grew up in the Sand Hills and small towns of Nebraska; his father died when he was 16; he became a radio DJ, then with his younger brother Tom volunteered for service in Vietnam. Promoted to sergeant because so many were dying, Chuck and Tom served together; in March 1968, when their armored personnel carrier hit a mine, Chuck, his body on fire, dragged Tom from the APC to safety. Chuck Hagel returned home, worked his way through the University of Nebraska, then got a job in Omaha Congressman John McCollister's office. He rose to administrative assistant; after McCollister lost a Senate race in 1976, Hagel became a lobbyist for Firestone. He got the number two position in the Reagan Veterans' Affairs Administration, but resigned after only one year. He was one of two main speakers at the 1982 groundbreaking of the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial. Then he made his great break, using all of his savings--$5,000--and starting Vanguard Cellular Systems, which became the second largest independent cell phone company in the nation; Hagel traveled on business to 60 countries and installed cell phone systems in Costa Rica, Saudi Arabia and Britain. Then he went back into government, as head of World USO and then deputy director of the 1990 G-7 Summit. In 1992 he returned to Omaha, to work in investment banking; the McCarthy Group, of which he was a partner, owned a share of Election Systems & Software, which manufactures nearly half of American voting machines; he was criticized later for naming in his disclosure forms on the McCarthy Group and not the firms in which it has an interest. In 1995 he started running for the Senate, very much the underdog. His platform was solidly conservative, sometimes riskily so: He backed school choice, opposed racial quotas and preferences, backed the Freedom to Farm Act ("less government and more open markets"), opposed the estate tax. In the primary he called state Attorney General Don Stenberg a "career politician"; Stenberg hit him for living 20 years in Virginia and for contributing to Bob Kerrey's 1992 presidential campaign. Hagel won the May primary 62%-37%. In the general he faced Governor Ben Nelson, who had won re-election in 1994 by a 73%-26% margin and had a record of tax-cutting and supported the balanced budget amendment and other conservative causes. Nelson led consistently in polls, though by lower margins in the fall. Nelson raised far more PAC money--$909,000, nearly half of his campaign funds--but Hagel spent $1 million of his own money and $3.5 million altogether. Hagel resisted advice from Republican campaign committee head Alfonse D'Amato to go negative; Nelson in the last weeks charged that Hagel had engaged in fraudulent franchising practices with Vanguard. Newspapers hit Nelson, and Hagel responded, "This is a guy who lies. This is a guy who cheats. This is a guy who will do anything." Hagel won 56%-42%, carrying all but five counties. In the Senate, Hagel sought a seat on Foreign Relations and got it--because no one else wanted it. He quickly became, in columnist David Broder's words, ''the freshman who probably has made the deepest impression on his colleagues of both parties.'' From a historically isolationist state, but one now heavily dependent on exports, Hagel has become a leading internationalist. His impulse is toward a bipartisan foreign policy, when possible. Hagel called on his military experience in 1997 to support the treaty against land mines, opposed by the Clinton administration; he spoke for the chemical weapons treaty ratified by the Senate in 1997 over the objections of Foreign Relations Chairman Jesse Helms; he voted against the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in October 1999 but joined Democrats and the administration in trying to prevent the vote. In 1999 he questioned whether the U.S. should defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack. He supported the bombing of Serbia in spring 1999, but decried the Clinton policy of ruling out the use of ground troops. In May 2000, when most Senate Republicans wanted to set a deadline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Kosovo, Hagel was the first senator to consult George W. Bush, even though he had been campaigning for John McCain two months before, and ask his opinion; Bush, like the Clinton administration, opposed the deadline, and the measure never passed. In Bush's first full month as president, Hagel joined Christopher Dodd in sponsoring a resolution to open Cuba to all U.S. exports and to end all restrictions on travel and credit. "Our 40-year policy toward Cuba is senseless." He was one of two senators to vote against extending trade sanctions on Iran and Libya. After September 11, he has been one of the Republicans most cautious against taking action against states that sponsor terrorism. His experience traveling abroad on business and coordinating a G-7 summit may have led him to place a high value on reaching consensus with European nations. In February 2002 he was accusing the administration of a "cavalier approach" to the rest of the world and said that the axis of evil part of George W. Bush's first State of the Union speech was "name calling." In May 2002 he said, "Our potential to lead the world at such a critical time in history calls for creativity, boldness and vision rather than nostalgia and dividing the world into simplistic categories." Before Bush's September 12, 2002, speech to the United Nations, Hagel said he had "a completely open mind" on military action in Iraq. He backed Joseph Biden and Richard Lugar in their efforts to draft a resolution endorsing military action only after diplomatic efforts were exhausted in the United Nations; that was put aside after Bush got agreement on his draft from congressional Republican leaders and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt. He voted for the Iraq war resolution, but insisted, "Actions in Iraq must come in the context of an American-led, multilateral approach to disarmament, not as the first case for a new American doctrine involving the preemptive use of force." In December 2002 Hagel and Biden traveled to the Middle East and visited Kurdish-held areas in northern Iraq. In January 2003 Condoleezza Rice encouraged them to sound out Iranian officials in New York. Though Hagel has given Bush formal support on policy toward Iraq, it is a fair conclusion that if he had been president he would have follow a course quite different from that of Bush and his friend John McCain. In his first two years in the Senate, Hagel was a favorite of the Republican leadership. But in 1999 and 2000, on foreign policy and other issues, he grew caustically critical of the leadership, in public. When in July 1999 Lott and others put holds on the nomination of Richard Holbrooke to be UN Ambassador he said that was "an irresponsible way to govern." He called the leadership budget devices "silly" and "a charade" in fall 1999. In June 2000, he said, "If we lose the Senate, I don't think it's too difficult to imagine that we're going to change leadership." He spent much of his time campaigning for John McCain for president. The two had often met with other senators who were Vietnam veterans and had developed a strong bond. When McCain entered the race, Hagel endorsed him in March 1999. He was one of only four senators who did so (the others were Fred Thompson, Mike DeWine and Arizona's Jon Kyl). Hagel traveled frequently on McCain's Straight Talk Express and made appearances for him in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and other states; in the first half of 2000 he appeared on Sunday interview programs more often than any other member of Congress but McCain. He sharply criticized George W. Bush's campaign tactics in South Carolina, but he also was one of the few who would talk back to McCain. After McCain lost, Hagel was on George W. Bush's short list of vice presidential prospects. Though he did not get that nomination, the McCain campaign, plus Hagel's own work on foreign policy, made him a national figure. Hagel did not agree with McCain on campaign finance. He favored reducing soft money contributions but not limiting them; his amendment to do that was rejected 60-40 in March 2001. He supported oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and opposes limits on drilling, logging and grazing in national forests. He and John Ensign introduced a prescription drug plan very similar to George W. Bush's; it got a 51-48 margin in the Senate in July 2002, but 60 votes were needed for approval. The Senate passed his and Edward Kennedy's amendment to extend the deadline for immigrants to apply for permanent residency status in September 2001, as Mexico President Vicente Fox addressed Congress. The day before September 11 he introduced a bill requiring an economic impact analysis when the federal government impacts property rights. He opposed the farm bill passed in 2002 and criticized its conservation sections for interfering with water rights under state law; he, Charles Grassley and Byron Dorgan did get the Senate to limit payments to $275,000. To combat the effects of the drought in summer 2002 he called for the Agriculture Department to allow early haying and purchase more beef and pork as ranchers culled their herds. In late 2002 he led an uprising in the Republican Conference against riders added to the homeland security bill by House Majority Leader Dick Armey (he called that "dishonest, deceitful back room dealing") and got Trent Lott, then thought to be the next Senate Majority Leader, to make a commitment that those items would be revisited in the next Congress. With a high job rating, Hagel seemed a cinch for reelection in 2002, and he was. His Democratic opponent couldn't afford the $1,500 filing fee and filed as a pauper. Hagel raised $3.5 million, but spent only $2 million. He won 83%-15%--that's not a misprint--by a considerable margin the biggest percentage margin ever in a Nebraska Senate race. He won 78% or more in 91 of 93 Nebraska counties, and as much as 94% in one; the other two, in the northeast corner of the state, he carried with 68% and 74%. Hagel has been mentioned as a future presidential candidate, perhaps in 2008; in 2002 and 2003 he attended political events in New Hampshire and South Carolina. He may not be averse to running. Once, when Nebraska schoolchildren asked him if he would like to be president, he said, "Maybe." But his foreign policy views may be out of sync with Republican primary voters.
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