Former Rep. Mo Udall of Arizona Dies

Former Rep. Morris K. Udall (D-Ariz.), known for his productive environmental stewardship and for the wit that prompted him to title his failure to achieve the nation’s highest office “Too Funny to Be President,” has died. He was 76.

Udall, who represented southern Arizona in Congress from 1961 until 1991, died late Saturday of Parkinson’s disease at the U.S. Veterans Medical Center in Washington, D.C. His death was announced in Tucson by the family foundation.

“Mo Udall was a leader whose uncommon wisdom, wit and dedication won the love of his colleagues and the respect of all Americans,” said President Clinton, who awarded Udall the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996. “Above all, he was a devoted steward of the land that God gave us, and was responsible for the preservation of some of our most important wilderness areas. . . . The sun will never set on the legacy of Mo Udall.”

Udall was the House’s most prolific author of environmental legislation and was particularly effective during his tenure as chairman of the House Interior Committee from 1976 until he left Congress.

He shepherded passage of a measure to designate 8 million acres of federal lands as wilderness in 1984; a ban on development on millions of acres in Alaska in 1980; strip-mining control legislation in 1977; and a nuclear waste management policy in 1982. Clinton noted that both the nation’s easternmost and westernmost outreaches, in the Virgin Islands and Guam respectively, are named “Udall Point” in honor of the man who protected them.

The liberal congressman considered his finest legislative achievement to be the creation of the Central Arizona Project, a series of aqueducts that carry Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson.

Although he was part of a prolific Mormon family, one of six children and the father of six children, Udall as early as 1969 began urging American couples to limit themselves to two offspring for ecological reasons. A large family, he said then, “whatever its comforts to the home or the ego, may be a disaster to the community, the nation and the world.”

Udall also worked for reforms in civil service and campaign finance regulations.

As a political young Turk trying to oust the entrenched old guard including septuagenarian John W. McCormack, Udall failed twice in the 1970s to win election as House speaker. But he earned far greater national recognition in 1976 when he was out-distanced for the Democratic presidential nomination by Jimmy Carter.

Udall, dubbed “Second Place Mo” in a song written by reporters who covered the 1976 primaries, was quick to laugh and even profit from being the butt of other people’s jokes. Yet nobody considered him a buffoon. The same reporters praised his candor and honesty and referred to him as “the thinking man’s candidate.”

No presidential hopeful other than Mo Udall ever told prideful New Hampshire voters on the eve of their seminal primary election, as he did in 1976: “A week from tonight, you won’t get a presidential candidate to come within 100 miles of this state.”

Udall never pandered for a vote. He stuck to his belief in school desegregation, for example, in troubled Boston and Detroit as well as in placid Yuma.

David Broder, a longtime political reporter for the Washington Post and Udall’s friend, once said, “Mo Udall wanted to run for president in the worst way, and he did.”

Udall’s presidential campaign had so little money, a Times pundit noted, that it literally hired a one-man band for rallies in New Mexico, and was so riddled with bad luck that “it seems invariably to rain when he schedules an outdoor event.”

For the self-effacing Udall, labeling his 1988 book chronicling the ill-fated campaign and other milestones of his long public service “Too Funny to Be President” was typical.

“He first taught me that humor is essential to the workings of a strong democracy,” said Udall’s son, Mark, who was elected to Congress from Colorado last month.

The humor that helped Udall guide legislation into law and put him on invitation lists to the capital’s most influential parties never forestalled trouble, but did help him deal with it.

As a congressman, he commented easily on the glass eye he had worn since an accident cost him a real one at age 6: “I’m a one-eyed Mormon Democrat from conservative Arizona and you can’t have a higher handicap than that.”

With the same pluck, he had, despite the missing eye, enlisted in the Army Air Corps and learned to fly during World War II, then played basketball for the University of Arizona and professionally for the Denver Nuggets.

Within an eight-month period in 1976, Udall not only lost the presidency, but also broke both arms in a fall from a ladder, caught viral pneumonia, burst his appendix, suffered peritonitis and contracted Parkinson’s disease, the degenerative neurological illness.

“I don’t feel lucky in having gotten the damn thing,” he noted of Parkinson’s, “but I do feel lucky that it is not as disabling for me as it is for many.”

Udall, first elected in a special election to replace older brother Stewart when Stewart was named President John F. Kennedy’s secretary of the Interior, easily won every reelection, including November 1990 when he amassed 66% of the vote. That, he said, would be his final term. But a few months later, Mo Udall suffered another fall at his suburban Washington home, breaking several ribs, fracturing a shoulder blade and sustaining a concussion. Unable to talk after that, he resigned effective May 4, 1991.

Born in St. Johns, Ariz., the son of an Arizona chief justice, Udall first became involved in politics as student body president of the University of Arizona. After earning his law degree there in 1949, he practiced law with his brother Stewart.

Udall married three times. He was divorced in 1966 from his first wife, Patricia, the mother of his children. After his second wife, Ella, committed suicide in 1988, he married Norma Gilbert, who survives. Other survivors include his three sons and three daughters, four siblings, one stepson and seven grandchildren. Among the clan is nephew Tom Udall, who was elected last month to represent New Mexico in Congress.

In his book, Udall described his philosophy about life and politics by quoting humorist Will Rogers: “We are here for just a spell and then pass on. So get a few laughs and do the best you can. Live your life so that whenever you lose, you are ahead.”