While still in law school, Saxbe campaigned for the
Ohio House of Representatives in 1947, and won. He served as the Ohio House majority leader during 1951 and 1952, and as speaker of the House during 1953 and 1954. During 1957, Saxbe was elected
Ohio Attorney General, defeating Democrat
Stephen M. Young. He was re-elected three times and had that office until 1968. In this capacity, Saxbe argued the murder case of Doctor
Sam Sheppard before the United States Supreme Court during 1966, against Sheppard's attorney
F. Lee Bailey. He was a member of the Ohio Crime Commission from 1967 to 1968. Saxbe won the
1968 United States Senate election in Ohio, defeating Democratic candidate and former U.S. representative
John J. Gilligan. During his campaign, he became a prominent supporter of a national health insurance system, co-sponsoring the Kennedy–Griffiths universal healthcare program in 1971 alongside fellow Republicans
Jacob Javits (New York),
Clifford Case (New Jersey) and
John Sherman Cooper (Kentucky). When President
Richard Nixon had
resumed bombing North Vietnam in late 1972, Saxbe stated that Nixon "lost his senses". Saxbe served in the Senate until January 3, 1974, when Nixon appointed him U.S. Attorney General. He was the permanent replacement for
Elliot Richardson, who had resigned during the "
Saturday Night Massacre" resignations during the
Watergate scandal. Saxbe took over from Solicitor General
Robert Bork, who had served as acting attorney general after Richardson's resignation. Gilligan, who had been elected
Governor of Ohio in 1970, appointed Democrat
Howard Metzenbaum to serve the remainder of Saxbe's vacated term. Former astronaut
John Glenn was elected to replace Saxbe in November 1974. There was some minor controversy regarding Saxbe's appointment and the
Ineligibility Clause of the Constitution, which states that a legislator cannot be appointed to an executive position during the same term that the legislature had voted to increase the salary of said position. Nixon addressed the problem by having Congress reduce the salary of the attorney general to $35,000, as it was before Saxbe's term in the Senate began. This maneuver had only occurred once before, when Senator
Philander C. Knox had been appointed
Secretary of State during 1909, and has since become known as the "
Saxbe fix". Because there was not any perception that anything
intentional had been done to benefit Saxbe, the matter was largely ignored. As attorney general for Nixon, Saxbe supervised
United States v. AT&T, the antitrust suit that ultimately ended the
Bell System telephone monopoly. Saxbe continued to serve as attorney general for the first few months of
Gerald Ford's presidency before resigning in early 1975, when he was appointed
United States Ambassador to India. He served in that capacity until 1977. After that, Saxbe returned to Mechanicsburg and resumed the practice of law. ==Personal life and death==