Dan Glickman

Glickman's first foray into public office was as a publicly elected member of the Wichita School Board, which oversees the Wichita Public Schools (USD-259), one of the nation's largest school districts. Between 1973 and 1976 he served as President of the Wichita School Board.[1][12][11]

Glickman was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives to represent Kansas's 4th congressional district in 1976, serving from January 3, 1977 to January 3, 1995, through eight successive re-elections.[1]

In 1976, in his first congressional race, Glickman was elected to the House of Representatives as a Democrat from Kansas's 4th congressional district[1]—defeating eight-term Republican incumbent Garner Shriver. Glickman held the office for nine consecutive terms.[1][11][13]

Glickman was active in general aviation policy, and co-wrote the General Aviation Revitalization Act (GARA) – controversial landmark legislation providing product liability protection for small airplane manufacturers (his district has produced most of America's light aircraft).[13][11][14][15][16]

During his congressional tenure, Glickman was also active in agriculture issues (his district's other major industry), and served on the House Agriculture Committee, including six years as chair of the subcommittee overseeing federal farm policy. He served as principal author of the 1990 Farm Bill and other legislation. While there, he lobbied for the position of Secretary of Agriculture under President Bill Clinton, losing initially, but winning the post after his tenth-race election ouster from Congress.[9][13][11][17]

In 1986, Glickman was one of the managers appointed by the House of Representatives in 1986 to conduct the impeachment proceedings against Harry E. Claiborne, judge of the United States District Court for Nevada.[1]

In 1993, he was appointed chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the One Hundred Third Congress, serving one term before his 1994 defeat.[1]

In October 1993, Glickman, representing a district whose second-largest industry was agriculture (particularly wheat production), voted for protectionism over free trade, restricting the importation of Canadian wheat.[18]

On "media freedom" versus "family values" one analyst reported that Glickman, in June 1993, voted to require that television shows have explicit viewer advisories.[18] Glickman would later lead the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which develops such ratings for motion pictures.

In his final term, Glickman was Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He held open hearings to bring the intelligence community's post–Cold War activities to light and began a committee investigation into the Aldrich Ames espionage case. Colleagues from both parties lauded his quiet, non-grandstanding, "careful and considered" leadership of the committee.[13][9][11]

On abortion, Glickman straddled the fence, generally accommodating abortion, but voting for the Hyde Amendment that restricted federal funding of abortion.[13] In 1993, while on the House Judiciary Committee, he was absent from a key vote on removing most state abortion restrictions, and said later that he was unsure how he would have voted.[19]

In the Republican-landslide 1994 congressional elections, known as the Republican Revolution, Glickman—in his bid for re-election to a 10th term—was unexpectedly defeated by Goddard Republican Todd Tiahrt.[9][20][13][21][22]

Glickman later blamed his surprise defeat largely on his own pro-choice positions, which he said opponents used as an "organizing tool" to rally opposition against him from voters who were otherwise politically inactive.[20][13][21] In a detailed review of Tiahrt's victory, the Chicago Tribune reported that Glickman's unexpected defeat was largely the product of Tiahrt's recruitment of 1,800 volunteers from churches and anti-abortion groups in their congressional district (which had become the center of the national anti-abortion movement[23][24][25][26][27][28]), and from gun-rights organizations.[13]

Another casualty of the 1994 Republican congressional sweep was Glickman's wife, Rhoda, who, for 13 years, had led the Congressional Arts Caucus—one of 28 caucuses soon to be defunded by the incoming Republican Congress.[9]

As of 2021, no other Democrat has won election to the congressional seat lost by Glickman,[22][29]

The court-ordered redistricting in 2012 shifted the Fourth District sharply westward, reaching into more conservative[30] Western Kansas.[31][32]

Following his congressional defeat, Glickman was appointed by President Bill Clinton to be the Secretary of Agriculture, where he served from 1995 to 2001.[1][12]

Glickman had sought the post previously but initially lost his bid to Mississippi Congressman Mike Espy. Glickman's 1994 appointment to the post followed Espy's departure under ethics concerns.[9] Glickman's Senate confirmation was supported by a powerful Republican, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, from Glickman's home state of Kansas.

During Glickman's tenure, he participated in implementation of the Department's controversial HACCP Program to control food safety at U.S. food-processing facilities, some of which was subsequently overturned in the federal court Supreme Beef case.[33]

During President Clinton's February 4, 1997 State of the Union address to Congress, Glickman was the "Designated Survivor".[34][35]

When Clinton's term ended, Glickman's career in government ended, but was followed by numerous leadership roles in related institutions and organizations.[13]

After Clinton's term ended, Glickman became the head of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and later director of Harvard's Institute of Politics.[1][17][13][20]

Glickman became Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Congressional Program, a nongovernmental, nonpartisan discussion fellowship for public leaders.[11]

Glickman is a Senior Fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Council on American Politics at The Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he teaches.[11]

Glickman is a senior fellow of the Center on Communication Leadership and Policy at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.[11]

Glickman is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, America's pre-eminent foreign policy think tank, led by several former U.S. Secretaries of State and other top former national security leaders.[11]

During President Barack Obama's administration, Glickman served on the External Advisory Board to CIA Director Leon Panetta.[11] (Glickman, while in Congress, had chaired the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.)[1]

Glickman is Chair of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, at the Center for U.S. Global Engagement.[11]

Glickman left the Motion Picture Association of America in 2010 to serve as president of Refugees International. He occupied the post for less than three months.[40]

Glickman's political experience in agriculture led to several post-political roles, including:[11]

• Chicago Mercantile Exchange: Glickman serves on the board of directors
• Food Research and Action Center, a domestic anti-hunger organization
• National 4-H Council, Board of Trustees: The leading national youth agriculture-education program. Glickman favored the expansion of 4-H urban programs[17]
• Meridian Institute: Glickman co-chairs an initiative of eight foundations, administered by the Meridian Institute, to look at long term implications of food and agricultural policy.
• Institute of Medicine: Glickman chairs an initiative at the Institute of Medicine on "accelerating progress on childhood obesity."
• World Food Program-USA: vice-chair
• Chicago Council on Global Affairs: co-chair of its global agricultural development initiative
• Author of "Farm Futures," in Foreign Affairs (May/June 2009)

• Communities In Schools, a federation of independent 501(c)(3) organizations in 27 states and the District of Columbia that work to address the "dropout epidemic"—one of the largest dropout-prevention organizations in the U.S., and one of the largest promoters of community-based, integrated student-support services. CIS identifies and mobilizes existing community resources, and fosters cooperative partnerships, such as: mentoring, tutoring, health care, summer and after-school programs, family counseling, and service learning.[11][41]
• William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan, a not-for-profit, independent, research and educational institute dedicated to creating, aggregating, and disseminating intellectual capital on business and policy issues in emerging markets. It provides a forum for business leaders and public policy makers to discuss issues affecting the environment in which these companies operate.[11]
• Advisory Board member for The Michigan in Washington Program at the University of Michigan. The MIW program offers an opportunity each year for 45–50 undergraduates from any major to spend a semester (Fall or Winter) in Washington D.C. Students combine coursework with an internship that reflects their particular area of interest (such as American politics, international studies, history, the arts, public health, economics, the media, the environment, science and technology). The semester in Washington is rigorous. Students work during the day, attend classes in the evenings, and explore the city on weekends.