Editing Lester C. Hunt (section)

==Political career==

===State representative and Secretary of State===
Hunt was elected in 1933 to the [[Wyoming House of Representatives]] from [[Fremont County, Wyoming|Fremont County]].<ref name=storrow>{{cite news |last=Storrow |first=Benjamin |date=April 14, 2013 |title=A Death Untold: The Suicide of Wyoming Sen. Lester Hunt |url=http://trib.com/lifestyles/home-and-garden/a-death-untold-the-suicide-of-wyoming-sen-lester-hunt/article_68e7c2e9-cec0-557b-bf53-1b5db00ea88e.html |newspaper=Casper Star-Tribune |location=Casper, WY}}</ref> He sponsored [[Eugenics in the United States|eugenics legislation]] that would have permitted the sterilization of inmates at Wyoming institutions if "afflicted with insanity, idiocy, imbecility, feeblemindedness, or epilepsy". The legislation, though similar to that enacted in several neighboring states in the 1920s, failed, and he later stated that he regretted sponsoring it.<ref>{{cite book|last=McDaniel |first=Rodger |title=Dying for Joe McCarthy's Sins: The Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt |publisher=WordsWorth |location= Cody, Wyoming |year=2013 |isbn= 978-0983027591|pages=40ff}}</ref> He was elected as [[Wyoming Secretary of State]] in [[1934 Wyoming state elections|1934]] and [[1938 Wyoming state elections|1938]], serving from 1935 to 1943.<ref>T.A. Larson, ''History of Wyoming'' (University of Nebraska Press, 1965), 464–5, 467–8</ref> In 1935, he commissioned muralist [[Allen Tupper True]] to design the [[Bucking Horse and Rider]] that has appeared on Wyoming [[license plate]]s since 1936.<ref>Wyoming Secretary of State: [http://soswy.state.wy.us/AdminServices/BHRHistory.aspx "Bucking Horse & Rider, Historical Information"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090309022724/http://soswy.state.wy.us/AdminServices/BHRHistory.aspx |date=March 9, 2009 }}, accessed February 24, 2011 ''New York Times'': [https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/26/arts/l-western-images-wyoming-s-plate-167037.html "Western Images: Wyoming's Plate," May 26, 2002], accessed February 24, 2011</ref> While serving as Secretary of State, Hunt personally claimed the copyright of the ''Wyoming Guidebook'', a [[Work Projects Administration]] publication, after the Governor and legislature failed to act to preserve the bucking horse and rider design as the state's intellectual property.<ref>''Wyoming: A Guide to its History, Highways, and People'' (NY: Oxford University Press, 1941), copyright page, [https://books.google.com/books?id=kayF9jqCaccC&pg=PR4& available online], accessed February 25, 2011</ref> The book proved popular, and there were questions as to whether Hunt benefited personally from its sales. He was able to demonstrate that he had endorsed all quarterly royalty checks and turned them over to the state treasurer, and he transferred the copyright to the State of Wyoming in 1942.<ref>{{cite book|last=McDaniel |first=Rodger |title=Dying for Joe McCarthy's Sins: The Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt |year=2013|pages=54ff}}</ref>

===Governor of Wyoming===
Hunt was governor of Wyoming, from 1943 to 1949.<ref name=nytobit /> He faced hostile majorities in both houses of the legislature throughout his years as governor.<ref>Larson, ''History'', 495, 508–9</ref> The principal legislative accomplishment of his first term was the enactment of a retirement system for teachers.<ref>Larson, ''History'', 496</ref> He repeatedly proposed a retirement system for state workers in his second term without success.<ref>Larson, ''History'', 509-10</ref> During his first term, Republican U.S. Senator [[Edward V. Robertson]] charged that the Japanese citizens interned at [[Heart Mountain Relocation Center|Heart Mountain]], Wyoming, were leading pampered lives and hoarding supplies. The ''Denver Post'' wrote an exposé backing his complaints. Hunt dismissed that as a "political story" and said that "food stuffs cannot be brought into a city to feed 13,500 people in a wheel barrow and it would not be good business to bring it in every day." He toured the camp and said the internees' "living standard was, to my way of thinking, rather disgraceful."<ref>Larson, ''History'', 479-80</ref> At the end of the war, he wrote to the [[War Relocation Authority]] that "We do not want a single one of these evacuees to remain in Wyoming."<ref>Larson, ''History'', 480</ref>

When President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|Roosevelt]] issued an executive order on March 16, 1943, creating [[Jackson Hole National Monument]], Hunt joined in mobilizing opposition and said he would use state police to remove any federal official who tried to exert authority in the Monument's lands. Congress refused to fund the Monument until 1950, when Wyoming's two U.S. Senators, [[Joseph C. O'Mahoney]] and Hunt, reached a compromise with the Truman administration. It merged most of the Monument's lands into [[Grand Teton National Park]], provided compensation for lost revenue, and protected local property owners.<ref>Larson, ''History'', 499–501</ref>

Hunt was a Wyoming delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1940, 1944, and 1948. He chaired the [[National Governors Association]] in 1948. His official gubernatorial portrait was painted by artist [[Michele Rushworth]] and hangs in the [[Wyoming State Capitol|state capitol building]] in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

===United States Senator===
{{main|1948 United States Senate election in Wyoming}}

Hunt was elected to the [[United States Senate|U.S. Senate]] in 1948 to a term beginning January 3, 1949, defeating incumbent Republican [[Edward V. Robertson|E.V. Robertson]] by a comfortable margin.<ref>''New York Times'': [https://www.nytimes.com/1963/04/17/archives/ev-robertson-ex-gopsenator-former-wyoming-rancher-diesserved-194349.html E.V. Robertson, Ex-G.O.P. Senator," April 17, 1963], accessed February 24, 2011; Larson, ''History'', 510</ref> His political positions combined fiscal conservatism and opposition to big government with support for public housing and increased federal aid to education.<ref>Larson, ''History'', 510</ref> During his tenure in the Senate, Hunt became a bitter enemy of Wisconsin senator [[Joseph R. McCarthy]], and his criticism of McCarthy's tactics marked him as a prime target in the 1954 election.<ref name=CST>{{cite news|url=http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2004/11/01/news/wyoming/8cf263f85d4be99387256f3e0020f92f.txt|title=A senator's suicide|publisher=[[Casper Star Tribune]]|date=October 31, 2004|access-date=February 25, 2011}}</ref> For example, he campaigned for a law to restrict [[Speech or Debate Clause|Congressional immunity]] by allowing individuals to sue members of Congress for slanderous statements.<ref name=nytobit /> He called for reform of Senate rules: "If situations confront the Congress in which it can no longer control its members by the rules of society, justice and fair play, then Congress has, I feel, a moral obligation to take drastic steps to remedy those situations."<ref name=nytobit />

In 1949, he recommended that the [[American Medical Association]] (AMA) and the [[American Dental Association]] (ADA) consider endorsing a plan for the federal government to offer health insurance policies with low deductibles to cover "medical, surgical, hospital, laboratory, nursing and dental services." He told an ADA convention:<ref>{{cite news | newspaper=New York Times | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1949/10/19/archives/senator-urges-u-s-sell-health-policy-hunt-at-dental-convention-asks.html | first = Lawrence |last=Daviess | title =Senator Urges U.S. Sell Health Policy | date =October 19, 1949 | access-date = February 24, 2011}}</ref>
{{Blockquote|We cannot preserve the freedom of the practice of dentistry and medicine, we cannot keep dentistry and medicine uncontrolled and unregimented by the Federal Government, we cannot maintain our American free and independent practice in the health services by simply denouncing socialization or by a stand-pat opposition.}}

He served on the Senate [[United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce|Crime Investigating Committee]] (known as the [[Estes Kefauver|Kefauver]] Committee)<ref>See for example {{cite news | newspaper =New York Times |url = https://www.nytimes.com/1951/07/08/archives/atlantic-city-seen-as-a-hub-of-crime-senator-hunt-says-gaming-and.html | title =Atlantic City Seen as Hub of Crime | date=July 8, 1951| access-date = February 24, 2011}}</ref> and the [[United States Senate Committee on Armed Services|Senate Armed Services Committee]].<ref name=nytobit>{{cite news | newspaper=New York Times | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1954/06/20/archives/hunt-saw-himself-as-a-progressive-ran-on-a-new-dealfair-deal.html | title = Hunt Saw Himself as Progressive | date =June 20, 1954 | access-date = February 24, 2011}}</ref> He backed foreign aid programs and supported a call for disarmament designed to demonstrate that Russia's peace proposals were not serious.<ref name=nytobit />

Following [[Dwight Eisenhower]]'s landslide victory in the [[1952 United States presidential election|1952 election]], Hunt announced that he felt obliged to support the administration's legislative proposals wherever possible. He cited complete agreement with plans for agricultural subsidies, the expansion of [[Social Security (United States)|Social Security]], the creation of a [[Fair Employment Practices Commission]], and the abolition of [[Racial segregation in the United States|segregation]] in the [[District of Columbia]].<ref>{{cite news | newspaper =New York Times | url =https://www.nytimes.com/1952/12/06/archives/hunt-democrat-backs-g-o-p-aims-senator-sees-eisenhower-vote-in.html |title=Hunt, Democrat, Backs G.O.P. Aims | date = December 6, 1952 | access-date = February 24, 2011}}</ref>