Quentin Burdick

Quentin Burdick was born in Munich, North Dakota, as the oldest of three children of Usher Lloyd Burdick and Emma Cecelia Robertson. His father was a Republican politician who served as Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota (1911–1913) and a U.S. Representative (1935–1959). His mother was the daughter of the first white settler in the area of North Dakota that lies west of Park River. He was the brother of Eugene Allan Burdick, who was judge of the Fifth Judicial District of North Dakota from 1953 to 1978. His sister Rosemary was married to Robert W. Levering, who was a U.S. Representative from Ohio (1959–1961). During college, he played on the football team as a blocking back for Bronko Nagurski, and was president of the Sigma Nu fraternity. He suffered a knee injury in football that disqualified him from military service in World War II. In 1932, he received his law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School and was admitted to the bar. ==Early career==

Burdick joined his father's law firm in Fargo, where he advised farmers who were threatened with foreclosure during the years of the Great Depression. He later recalled, "I guess I acquired a social conscience during those bad days, and ever since I've had the desire to work toward bettering the living conditions of the people." In 1933, he married Marietta Janecky; the couple had one son and three daughters. She died in 1958. Like his father, Burdick became active in politics and joined the Nonpartisan League (NPL), a populist-progressive group which was allied with the Republican Party. As a candidate for the NPL, he unsuccessfully ran for attorney general in 1934 and 1940, state senator from Cass County in 1936, and lieutenant governor in 1942. Burdick, who believed the NPL was dividing the state's progressive vote, began to advocate aligning the NPL with the Democratic Party. He subsequently ran for Governor of North Dakota in 1946 as a Democrat, but was again unsuccessful. He was a delegate for former Vice President Henry A. Wallace, who ran as a candidate of the Progressive Party, in the 1948 presidential election. In 1956, the NPL aligned with the Democratic Party to create the North Dakota Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party. That same year, Burdick suffered his sixth and final electoral defeat when he ran against Republican incumbent Milton Young for the U.S. Senate. ==Congressional career==

United States Representative In spring 1958, Usher Burdick, who worried about being defeated for re-election in the Republican primary, offered to withdraw his candidacy if the NPL agreed to support his son as the Democratic-NPL candidate for his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. On August 8, 1960, Burdick resigned his House seat and was sworn in as a member of the U.S. Senate. He secured a full six-year term in the heavily Democratic year of 1964, having defeated Republican Thomas Kleppe. Burdick easily defeated Kleppe in a rematch in 1970, another national Democratic year. He continued to be reelected by wide margins in 1976, 1982, and 1988. In 1987, Burdick became the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. In 1990, he was one of only nine Senators, all Democratic, who voted against confirming David Souter to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Burdick earned the nickname the "King of Pork" for focusing nearly all of his legislative efforts on bringing federal funds to North Dakota, which was rural, poor, and less developed than many other states. ==Death==

Near the end of his life, Burdick suffered from health problems, including hospitalizations for heart problems, including a mild heart attack. At the end of his tenure, 76% of North Dakotans believed he should step down from his seat. ==See also==