Exon, John James, Jr.

(b. 9 August 1921 in Geddes, South Dakota; d. 10 June 2005 in Lincoln, Nebraska), businessman, governor, and U.S. senator whose folksy manner and fiscal restraint won him enduring popularity among Nebraska voters and national influence as a leading Democratic moderate.

Exon was born and raised in rural South Dakota. Politics was part of his heritage, as his parents, John James Exon and Luella (Johns) Exon, were longtime Democratic Party activists and his English immigrant grandfather served as a county judge for thirty-five years. In 1939 Exon moved to Nebraska and attended the University of Omaha before enlisting in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He served in the South Pacific during World War II and was honorably discharged with the rank of master sergeant in December 1945. Before he left for his overseas service, he wed Patricia Pros of Omaha, beginning a marriage that lasted more than sixty years; the two would have three children.

Returning to Nebraska, Exon worked for the Universal Finance Corporation before founding Exon’s Inc., an office-supply firm, in 1954. He spent the next ten years expanding his business while delving into state politics. As a Democratic state committee member, he supported candidates for statewide office while laying the groundwork for a campaign of his own. His chance came in 1970, when the Republican governor Norbert T. Tiemann stirred controversy by supporting state income and sales taxes. Exon ran as a conservative Democratic alternative on a platform of lower taxes and fiscal austerity and was elected with 55 percent of the vote. In his inaugural address, he made his cost-cutting priorities clear: “Recognizing it takes more courage to say ‘no’ than ‘yes,’ we are approaching our new responsibilities with determination.” He remained true to his promises by vetoing numerous spending bills, refusing to raise taxes, and producing a state budget surplus by the end of his first term. Exon also made the protection of Nebraska’s national resources a priority. Among his accomplishments was the establishment of the Platte River Whooping Crane Trust, which both protected the flyway of an endangered wild bird and helped to generate tourism.

Exon’s large frame and bluff, unpretentious manner struck a chord with his state’s voters. In 1974 he won reelection with 59 percent of the vote, defeating the Republican state senator Richard D. Marvel. After completing his second term, Exon became the first sitting Nebraska governor to win a U.S. Senate seat in 1978, withstanding the charge by the Republican nominee Donald E. Shasteen that he had illegally directed state business to his office-supply company. In that election, Exon earned 68 percent of the vote and carried all but one of the state’s ninety-eight counties.

During his first Senate term, Exon proved himself a moderate-to-conservative voice on fiscal policy. After supporting President Ronald W. Reagan’s initial tax cuts, he criticized the White House for running excessive deficits and supported alternatives to Republican budget proposals. Serving on the Armed Services Committee, he was often skeptical of Defense Department budget increases while working to protect Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base. Exon leaned further rightward than many of his fellow Democrats on a number of key issues, opposing federal funding for abortion and the creation of a national holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. In other policy areas he was in step with his more liberal colleagues, particularly through his support of banning semiautomatic assault weapons and of instituting waiting periods for handgun sales. He reflected the views of his state’s constituents by supporting the speed limit of sixty-five miles per hour and by favoring restrictions on Canadian meat imports.

Unexpectedly, Exon came within 25,000 votes of losing his 1984 reelection bid, as his Republican opponent, the University of Nebraska regent Nancy Hoch, charged him with being a “backbencher” unable to protect Nebraska’s farm interests. Exon responded forcefully by citing his legislative record and ultimately achieved a 52 percent victory. He then returned to Washington and gained greater national attention during his second term. Within the Senate Budget Committee, he unsuccessfully championed a plan to raise taxes and reduce spending. He participated in fights to maintain agricultural price supports and obtain federal emergency credit assistance for farmers. Among his more notable achievements was his cosponsoring of the 1988 Exon-Florio law, which strengthened the president’s ability to investigate foreign buyouts or takeovers of American companies if national security issues were involved.

In 1989 Exon plunged into controversy by helping to defeat the nomination of his former Armed Services Committee colleague John Tower for defense secretary. He based his opposition on claims that Tower had ongoing problems with alcohol, a charge that the ex-senator denied. The bitterness between the two continued into the following year, when Tower came to Nebraska to oppose Exon’s reelection and charged him with being “one of the two or three biggest boozers in the Senate.” Exon responded by stating that he had never been drunk in his life and that his occasional grogginess was due to painkillers used to treat a gallbladder condition. His Republican opponent, the former congressman Hal Daub, tried to gain traction with these and other charges, but his aggressive tactics failed; Exon retained his job by garnering 59 percent of the vote.

Exon’s third term was perhaps his most productive one. He maintained his influence on military affairs, generally siding with his Democratic colleagues while acting independently on several key issues. Describing himself as “still a hawk, but a thinking hawk,” he voted against cutting Strategic Defense Initiative funds and redirecting defense funds toward domestic programs while supporting the development of the B-2 stealth bomber. He opposed military authorization for the Gulf War in 1990 and supported the arms embargo on Bosnia. In 1992 he cosponsored legislation that entailed phasing out underground nuclear testing if other nations agreed to do likewise.

On economic issues, Exon continued to favor fiscal restraint. He introduced balanced budget amendments in 1991 and 1995, the second of which failed to pass by a single vote. He voted in favor of President Bill Clinton’s deficit reduction plan in 1993, then supported a plan to hold discretionary spending below the levels sought by Clinton a year later. In tandem with the Budget Committee chairman Peter V. Domenici, he crafted a proposal for a presidential line-item veto that, while ultimately shelved, helped pave the way for a similar plan to become law.

As chairman of the Senate’s Surface Transportation Subcommittee, Exon dealt with areas of particular concern to his sparsely populated state. He was a key supporter of Amtrak, sponsoring legislation to establish new passenger-service routes, promote high-speed rail technology, and raise railroad safety requirements. He worked to strengthen truck safety inspection and supported random drug testing at truck stops. Mindful of Nebraska’s agricultural interests, he fought against restrictions on farm exports, worked to fund crop insurance reform, and promoted the use of ethanol fuels. He defended his state’s water rights by successfully halting the construction of the Two Forks Dam in Colorado, which had threatened to impede the flow of the South Platte River.

In 1995 Exon gained national attention by introducing the Communications Decency Act. That legislation, intended to protect children from pornographic material available on the Internet, passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law by President Clinton as part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. What the act’s supporters saw as an attack on indecency was viewed by others as an assault on free speech; after being challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups as a violation of the First Amendment, it was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1997.

In March 1995 Exon announced his intention to retire from the Senate. In his statement, he surveyed the changes that had taken place in American politics since he had come to Washington, lamenting that “the traditional art of workable compromises for the ultimate good of all, the essence of democracy, has been demonstrably eroded.” After leaving the Senate, he served on the Deutch Committee, created by Congress to study the threat posed by biological and nuclear weapons, and continued to campaign for Democratic candidates around Nebraska. Surviving a bout with cancer in 2003, he was able to attend the Democratic National Convention the following year. Exon’s death on 10 June 2005 was officially attributed to natural causes. He became the first former governor to lie in state in Nebraska’s capitol rotunda, where he was eulogized by friends and former colleagues.

In both his politics and personality, Exon embodied the attitudes of his native Great Plains. As a governor and U.S. senator, he tempered a decidedly tight-fisted approach to government spending, with defense of farming interests and a concern for the environment. A true moderate during an era of increasing political polarization, he was able to take right-leaning positions on social issues without compromising his lifelong loyalty to the Democratic Party. He never lost an election and remained a popular figure in his state until his passing. At his funeral, Senator Ben Nelson spoke for many when he called Exon “a common man who dearly loved the state of Nebraska, and that’s why people loved him.”

The online Exon Library, at http://www.exonlibrary.com, offers access to important documents and speeches. Biographical information can be found in Duane Hutchinson, Exon: Biography of a Governor (1973). For details of the Tower-Exon feud, see John G. Tower, Consequences: A Personal and Political Memoir (1991). Obituaries are in the Washington Post (12 June 2005) and New York Times (13 June 2005).

Barry Alfonso