Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January
5, 1928 – April 19, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as
the 42nd vice president
of the United States from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. A U.S. senator from Minnesota from 1964 to 1976, he was the Democratic Party's nominee in
the 1984
presidential election, but lost to incumbent Ronald Reagan in an Electoral College and
popular vote landslide. Reagan won 49
states while Mondale carried his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia. His
vice presidential nominee, U.S. Representative Geraldine Ferraro from New York, was the first female
vice-presidential nominee of any major party in U.S. history. Mondale was born
in Ceylon, Minnesota, and
graduated from the University of Minnesota in
1951 after attending Macalester College. He
then served in the U.S. Army during
the Korean War before earning a law degree in 1956. He married Joan Adams in 1955. Working as a lawyer in Minneapolis, Mondale was appointed Minnesota Attorney General in
1960 by Governor Orville Freeman and
was elected to a full term as attorney general in 1962 with 60% of the vote. He
was appointed to the U.S. Senate by Governor Karl Rolvaag upon the resignation of Senator Hubert Humphrey following Humphrey's election as vice
president in 1964. Mondale was elected to a full Senate term in 1966 and
reelected in 1972, resigning in 1976 as he prepared to succeed to the vice
presidency in 1977. While in the Senate, he supported consumer protection, fair housing, tax reform and the desegregation of schools; he served on the Church Committee. In 1976, Jimmy Carter, the Democratic presidential nominee, chose
Mondale as his vice-presidential running mate. The Carter–Mondale ticket
defeated incumbent president Gerald Ford and his running mate, Bob Dole. Carter and Mondale's time in office was marred by a
worsening economy and they lost the 1980 election to
Republicans Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. In 1984,
Mondale won the Democratic presidential nomination and campaigned for a nuclear freeze, the Equal Rights Amendment, an
increase in taxes, and a reduction of U.S. public debt. Mondale and Ferraro lost the election to the
incumbents Reagan and Bush. After his defeat, Mondale joined the
Minnesota-based law firm Dorsey & Whitney and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (1986–1993).
President Bill Clinton appointed Mondale U.S. Ambassador to Japan in
1993; he retired from that post in 1996. In 2002,
Mondale became the last-minute choice of the Minnesota
Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party to run for Senate after
Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone died
in a plane crash less than two weeks before the election. Mondale narrowly lost
the race to Saint Paul mayor Norm Coleman. He then returned to working at Dorsey &
Whitney and remained active in the Democratic Party. Mondale later took up a
part-time teaching position at the University of Minnesota's Hubert H.
Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
Robert
Selmer Bergland (July
22, 1928 – December 9, 2018) was an American politician. He served as a member of the House of Representatives from Minnesota's 7th
congressional district from 1971 to 1977, and he served
as United States
Secretary of Agriculture from 1977 until 1981, during the
administration of President Jimmy Carter. Bergland was born near Roseau, Minnesota, the son of Mabel (Evans) and Selmer Bennett
Bergland, a garage mechanic. He studied agriculture at the University of Minnesota in
a two-year program.[3] A farmer, he became an official of the
Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service for the Department of
Agriculture from 1963-68.
Bergland was a member of the United States
House of Representatives from 1971 to 1977 as a member of
the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party,
entering the House by defeating U.S. Republican incumbent Odin Langen in 1970. He was elected to the 92nd, 93rd, 94th, and 95th Congresses. In
Congress, he served on the House Committee on Agriculture's subcommittees for
Conservation and Credit, and Livestock, Grains, Dairy, and Poultry. On January
22, 1977, Bergland resigned from the House shortly after the beginning of a new
term, and was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as Secretary of
Agriculture and served from January 23, 1977 until January 20,
1981. A minor but much-celebrated struggle between the United States
Department of Agriculture and the General Services Administration occurred
during his tenure, resulting in the ironic dedication of the USDA executive
cafeteria in honor of Alferd Packer in order to shame the
General Services Administration into terminating the Nixon-era cafeteria services
contract. Following the end of the Carter administration in 1981, Bergland
became the chairman of Farmland World Trade until 1982, when he became the vice
president and general manager of the National
Rural Electric Cooperative Association.[1] In the latter capacity, Bergland lobbied both
Congress and the regulatory agencies on behalf of the Cooperative's electricity business. After retiring
in 1994, Bergland was elected by the Minnesota State Legislature to
a term on the University of Minnesota Board
of Regents. Bergland retired after the one term and owned a 600-acre
(2.4 km2) farm in Minnesota.