Adlai Ewing Stevenson III (October 10, 1930 – September 6, 2021) was an American attorney and politician from Illinois. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a member of the United States Senate from 1970 to 1981. A member of the prominent Stevenson family, he also served as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives and Illinois Treasurer. He unsuccessfully ran for governor of Illinois in 1982 and 1986. He had been awarded Japan’s Order of the Sacred Treasure with gold and silver stars and was an honorary Professor of Renmin University of China.
Early life, education, and early career (1930–1964)
Adlai Stevenson III was born in Chicago to Ellen Stevenson and two-time Democratic Party presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson II. He attended Milton Academy in Massachusetts, Harrow School in England, and Harvard College. He received a law degree in 1957 from Harvard Law School. Stevenson was commissioned as a lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1952, served in Korea and was discharged from active duty in 1954. He continued to serve in the Marine Reserve and was discharged in 1961 as a captain. In 1957, Stevenson went to work as a clerk for a justice of the Supreme Court of Illinois and worked there until 1958 when he joined the law firm of Brown and Platt.
Illinois House of Representatives (1965–1967)
Stevenson was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in the 1964 Illinois House of Representatives election, which was held at-large due to the state's failure to redistrict. With 2,417,978 votes, he received the most votes of any candidate (by a margin of 7,613 more votes than the next candidate). More than half of ballots cast in the statewide general election included a vote for Stevenson.
Stevenson served in the Illinois House from 1965 to 1967. During his time in the state house, he won a Best Legislator award from the Independent Voters of Illinois.
Treasurer of Illinois (1967–1970)
In 1966, Stevenson was elected treasurer of Illinois. Stevenson's 1966 victory had come despite a Republican-favoring wave election in Illinois that year. As state treasurer, he quadrupled earnings on the investment of state funds while cutting the budget each year.
Tensions with Daley machine; Committee on Illinois Government
By the late-1960s, Stevenson was regarded as a leader of reform-minded (anti-establishment) politics in Illinois. He had a complicated dynamic with Mayor Richard J. Daley and the Daley-led political machine. He received Daley's support in his 1966 state treasurer campaign. In 1968, Stevenson unsuccessfully sought the political machine's slating to run for governor, but Daley preferred to support the nomination of Lieutenant Governor Sam Shapiro and his machine followed suit. Stevenson then turned his attention to running for United States Senate, but Daley and his machine instead slated State Attorney General William G. Clark. Soon after this, Stevenson spoke critically Daley publicly by faulting his handling of protesters during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He later accused Daley of running a "feudal" political system based upon "patronage and fear."
Stevenson formed the Committee on Illinois Government, an informal group which also included William Singer and Abner Mikva. The group began holding meetings at Stevenson's Chicago home. In September 1969, the group held a large picnic event at Stevenson's Libertyville farm to which 15,000 reform-minded individuals were invited, of whom 8,000 attended. Attendees of the event were asked to sign the Libertyville Proclamation, which would call for the Democratic Party of Illinois to "end reliance upon the purchased loyalties of patronage". Mayor Daley crashed the event by attending himself, arriving in a limosine alongside Congressman Dan Rostenkowski, Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Matt Danaher, and State Auditor Michael Howlett. He then took the stage, and delivered a speech which pandered to the reform-minded crowd by highlighting Daley's past support for political candidates they appreciated, such as Stevenson's own father, the late president John F. Kennedy, and the former senator Paul Douglas. Having been blindsided by Daley, Stevenson threw out his own prepared marks and spoke positively of the Mayor in his own impromptu speech. At the same event, South Dakota U.S. Senator George McGovern shared news to the crowd that Illinois U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen had died in office. Daley would ultimately slate Stevenson to run in the special election for his seat, pacifying Stevenson's growing resistance to his machine.
United States Senate (1970–1981)
Following the death of incumbent U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen in 1969, Stevenson ran for his seat. He faced former state representative Ralph T. Smith in the general election, who was appointed to the seat by Gov. Richard B. Ogilvie. Stevenson defeated Smith in a 1970 special election by 545,336 votes, to fill Dirksen's unexpired term.
In 1974, Stevenson ran for re-election, and faced Republican George Burditt in the general election. He defeated Burditt by 726,612 votes.
In the Senate, Stevenson served on the Commerce Committee (Chairman of the Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space), Banking Committee (Chairman of the Subcommittee on International Finance) and Intelligence Committee (Chairman, Subcommittee on the Collection and Production of Intelligence). He was the first Chairman of the United States Senate Select Committee on Ethics charged with implementing a code of ethics he helped draft. Stevenson was also chairman of a Special Senate Committee which led the first major reorganization of the Senate since its Committee system was formed in the early 19th Century.
Stevenson took his seat on November 17, 1970.
Stevenson opposed the Vietnam War. He condemned Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Indochina policies and the violent police tactics at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, renewed his attacks on Republican President Richard Nixon’s prosecution of the war. He also introduced legislation requiring an end to all aid to South Vietnam by June 30, 1975.
Stevenson was highly critical of Republican President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal. He called on Nixon to answer for the integrity of the country’s leaders. “All of us — Republicans and Democrats — have an interest in clearing the record," he said a year before Nixon resigned in disgrace. “The faith of the people in their system and their leaders — a faith that has already been shaken enough — is at stake."