Historic Tidbit: I have noted in my below piece that Democrats Tom Ashley and Charlie Vanik both came to the House in 1954 and left in ’80, after 26 years of service. Vanick left voluntarily, while Ashley retired. 1992 was the Republicans turn. Fellow Ohioans Chalmers Wylie and Clarence Miller both won their seats in 1966. 26 years later, they would exit together. Wylie decided to retire amid 515 House overdrafts and Miller narrowly lost a redistricting necessitated primary to another incumbent.
There are a number of laws that have come to be known by the names on them. Sarbanes/Oxley, Dodd/Frank, and Humphrey/Hawkins are amongst the most famous. There is another such law which proved to be among the most important on the foreign relations front:Jackson/Vanik.
While the name of “Scoop” Jackson does stand out in American politics, Charlie Vanik does not. And that is unfortunate because, for citizens of oppressed countries of all generations, Vanik had and continues to have enormous impact. That ought make him far more than a footnote in history to millions. Furthermore, the man himself stands out as being among the most unique and creative in the House during that era, both in terms of legislative creativity and wardrobe.
Jackson/Vanik was enacted in 1974, part of a trade law that addressed the issue of Soviet Jewery, but also had reach on China and Vietnam. At that time, the Soviet Union had emigration restrictions on it’s citizens that made it difficult for Jews to leave the country, and Jackson/Vanik would require the United States to assess their records prior to granting them Most Favored Nation status. Vanik was chair of the Ways and Means Committee on trade.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer observed in Vanick’s obituary that that the Act “eventually led to a surge of emigration, ” with Vanik’s former Chief of Staff saying “that more than two million people were able to leave the Soviet Union as a result.” Ed Robin, who would go on to Chair the National Conference of Soviret Jewery, called Vanik “a legislative giant who…authored legislation that changed the course of how the United States confronted the forces of oppression.”
As a man of Czechoslovak roots and a Cleveland zip-code, Vanick’s interest in eastern Europe and trade would be only natural. Vanik grew up in Cleveland, the son and grand-son of butchers, and young Vanik would often deliver the goods. and attended Western Reserve University. At 25, he was a councilman, the youngest person in Cleveland history at the time to achieve that. At 26, he would hold a seat in the Ohio State Senate. Vanik would serve in the Navy during World War II, but would return to become a Cleveland Municipal Judge.
Vanik’s electoral history, while mostly uneventful, did result in a couple of wins that could have easily won him the name “giant killer.” Twice, he unseated two octogenarians who were among Ohio’s most senior members of Congress. The first came in a 1954 primary, when he would challenge Robert Crosser, 80, who had served in Congress for 38 of the previous 42 years (one of his classmates was a Texan named Sam Rayburn). But Crosser was fiercely independent, which by ’54 had caused him problems with independents. Vanik won, and would take his seat the same year as Thomas “Lud” Ashley, a fellow Ohioan who would also take charge of a number of high profile issues in the 1970’s.
Vanik also helped give way to Ohio’s first African-American Congressman from Cleveland. The 1968 redistricting had left his district majority black, so Vanik decided to run in a nearby, more Republican suburban district. The move would entail a challenge to GOP Congresswoman Francis Payne Bolton, who had been serving in the House since 1940 and at 83, was somewhat of an institution in Ohio politics. She came from a very prominent Ohio family and once purchased land because she was afraid a complex would be in the vicinity of Mount Vernon.
Vanik in 1967 (Historic Images)
But Vanik would prevail with 55%, thereby allowing Louis Stokes, the brother of Cleveland’s former Mayor, to win the House seat he’d left behind.
By 1974, Vanik’s Congressional career had already spanned two decades, but one might say that was the year the House knew that Vanik had arrived. Not only was that the year of Jackson/Vanik, but it was when Vanik stopped accepting contributions. For his own races, they weren’t necessary, as he would spend no more than $3,000 on them (he spent $649 in ’76 and won 79%). He viewed money as corrupting the system.
That forced him to take stands that were out of character, such as voting for an amendment that banned busing, for Vanik reckoned that if he didn’t, he would have to raise money explaining his position to his district. And his district had heavy pockets, it was not a stronghold by any means. Nixon had taken 57% and Ford actually edged out Carter by 1,000 votes even as Carter was narrowly winning Ohio.
For the most part, his popularity stemmed from the fact that he was a people person. Stokes would say Vanik “could go into a room with a group of politicians and he could touch every hand in the room and get out of the room ahead of everybody.”
With Mo Udall and others. Wiki Photo
On most issues, Vanik was a solid liberal. Many of the amendments he proposed in Ways and Means would strengthen Social Security and Medicare. He made public a list of corporations that were delinquent on taxes and sought to crack down on loopholes. At home, he championed the cleanup of Lake Erie. The Washington Post in 1980 said he Vanik is seen universally as a four-square battler for the underdog, the working man and the middle-class taxpayer — fairly left-wing views on the Ways and Means Committee. He loved to whack away at the tax-dodging corporations and the gentry who could win tax breaks in Congress.”
Vanik was a rare Congressmen with the bow-ties (as was Texan Bob Eckhardt, who is also featured in this book). The Plain Dealer quoted Minnesotan Bill Frenzel, who also shared Vanik’s penchant for good government, as calling Vanik’s “the only man in the world who has a closet full of suits, each of them black, and the only man in the world whose entire wardrobe of neckties are all black and all bow-string ties.”
Vanik retired in 1980, in large measure because he didn’t want to have to raise loads of money. Ashley would also lose his seat that year. But he wouldn’t be out of public life for long. Vanik accepted the number two position on the 1982 Gubernatorial ticket headed by William Brown (he said he “missed politics”), but the ticket lost the primary to Lieutenant Governor Richard Celeste.
Vanik would go on to practicing law in Washington. But he still resisted attempts to weaken Jackson/Vanik, which many had begun calling obsolete. “Lenin has been dead for a long time, and they still live under his guidance,” he said. George H.W. Bush waived the law in 1990.
Vanik and his wife would eventually relocate to Florida where he would die at 94 in 2007.
Columnist Christine Jindra called Vanik “a respected and serious man who didn’t take himself seriously. He was serious when he was doing our business.” But the consequences for many throughout the world were beyond serious. They were life changing. Thank you, Charlie Vanick.