Editing Jesse Helms (section)

{{short description|American politician (1921–2008)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2021}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|name                = Jesse Helms
|image               = JesseHelms (cropped).jpg
|jr/sr               = United States Senator
|state               = [[North Carolina]]
|term_start          = January 3, 1973
|term_end            = January 3, 2003
|predecessor         = [[B. Everett Jordan]]
|successor           = [[Elizabeth Dole]]
|office2             = Chair of the [[United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations|Senate Foreign Relations Committee]]
|term_start2         = January 20, 2001
|term_end2           = June 6, 2001
|predecessor2        = [[Joe Biden]]
|successor2          = Joe Biden
|term_start3         = January 3, 1995
|term_end3           = January 3, 2001
|predecessor3        = [[Claiborne Pell]]
|successor3          = Joe Biden
|office4             = Chair of the [[United States Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry|Senate Agriculture Committee]]
|term_start4         = January 3, 1981
|term_end4           = January 3, 1987
|predecessor4        = [[Herman Talmadge]]
|successor4          = [[Patrick Leahy]]
|birth_name          = Jesse Alexander Helms Jr.
|birth_date          = {{birth date|1921|10|18}}
|birth_place         = [[Monroe, North Carolina]], U.S.
|death_date          = {{Death date and age|2008|7|4|1921|10|18}}
|death_place         = [[Raleigh, North Carolina]], U.S.
|restingplace        = [[Historic Oakwood Cemetery]]
|party               = [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] (before 1970)<ref name="Conservative Republican Victor"/><ref name="Helms Exhorts Tobacco"/><br>[[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] (1970–2008)
|spouse              = {{marriage|Dot Coble|1942}}
|children            = 3
|education           = [[Wingate University]]<br>[[Wake Forest University]]
|allegiance          = {{flag|United States}}
|branch              = {{flag|United States Navy}}
|serviceyears        = 1942–1945
|battles             = [[World War II]]
|module              = {{Listen|pos=center|embed=yes|filename=Sen. Jesse Helms on Issues Facing Secretary of State Nominee James Baker.ogg|title=Jesse Helms's voice|type=speech|description=Jesse Helms addresses potential issues facing Secretary of State nominee [[James Baker]]<br/>Recorded January 25, 1989}}
}}
{{Jesse Helms series}}
{{conservatism US|politicians}}
'''Jesse Alexander Helms Jr.''' (October 18, 1921 – July 4, 2008) was an American politician. A leader in the [[Conservatism in the United States|conservative]] movement, he served as a senator from [[North Carolina]] from 1973 to 2003. As chairman of the [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]] from 1995 to 2001, he had a major voice in foreign policy. Helms helped organize and fund the conservative resurgence in the 1970s, focusing on [[Ronald Reagan]]'s quest for the White House as well as helping many local and regional candidates.

On domestic social issues, Helms opposed [[civil rights]], [[disability rights]], [[environmentalism]], [[second-wave feminism|feminism]], [[gay rights]], [[affirmative action]], access to [[abortion in the United States|abortions]], the [[Religious Freedom Restoration Act]], and the [[National Endowment for the Arts]].<ref>Link (2008)</ref> He brought an "aggressiveness" to his conservatism, as in his rhetoric against [[homosexuality]].<ref name="Snider_Helms_Hunt_1985">{{cite book |author=William D. Snider |title=''Helms and Hunt: the North Carolina Senate Race, 1984'' |date=1985 |page=224 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=9780807841327}}</ref><ref>Link (2008) pp 39, 50, 196, 284, 373</ref> ''[[The Almanac of American Politics]]'' wrote that "no American politician is more controversial, beloved in some quarters and hated in others, than Jesse Helms".<ref>{{citation |url=http://www.unctv.org/content/biocon/jessehelms |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130131004532/http://www.unctv.org/content/biocon/jessehelms |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 31, 2013 |title=Jesse Helms |work=University of North Carolina TV |location=Research Triangle Park, NC |series=Biographical Conversations }}</ref>

As chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he demanded an anti-communist foreign policy. His relations with the State Department were often acrimonious, and he blocked numerous presidential appointees.

Helms was the longest-serving popularly elected senator in North Carolina's history. He was widely credited with shifting the one-party state into a competitive two-party state. He advocated the movement of conservatives from the Democratic Party – which he deemed too liberal – to the Republican Party. The Helms-controlled [[National Congressional Club]]'s state-of-the-art [[direct mail]] operation raised millions of dollars for Helms and other conservative candidates, allowing Helms to outspend his opponents in most of his campaigns.<ref>William A. Link, ''Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of Modern Conservatism'' (2008) p. 557</ref> Helms was considered the most stridently conservative American politician of the post-1960s era,<ref>Bruce Frohnen, ''American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia'' (2006) p. 379</ref> especially in opposition to federal intervention into what he considered state affairs (including legislating [[racial integration|integration]] via the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] and enforcing suffrage through the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]]).