Block, Upload, Automoderated users, edit, move, protect, rollback
57,799
edits
Changes
Created page with "{{Infobox officeholder |name=Clifford Peter Hansen |image=Clifford Hansen of WY.jpg |office=United States Senator for Wyoming |term_start=January 3, 1967 |term_end=Dec..."
{{Infobox officeholder
|name=Clifford Peter Hansen
|image=Clifford Hansen of WY.jpg
|office=[[United States Senator]] for [[Wyoming]]
|term_start=January 3, 1967
|term_end=December 31, 1978
|preceded=[[Milward Simpson]]
|succeeded=[[Alan Simpson]]
|office2=26th [[Governor]] of Wyoming
|term_start2=January 7, 1963
|term_end2=January 2, 1967
|preceded2=Jack Robert Gage
|succeeded2=[[Stanley K. Hathaway]]
|birth_date=November 16, 1912
|birth_place=Teton County, Wyoming
|death_date=October 20, 2009 (aged 96)
|death_place=Jackson, Wyoming
|party=[[Republican Party|Republican]]
|spouse=Martha Close Hansen (married 1934–2009, his death)
|children=Mary Elisabeth Hansen Mead Steinhour<br>
Peter Arthur Hansen
'''Grandson''':<br>[[Matt Mead]]
|alma_mater=University of Wyoming (Laramie)<br>
(Bachelor of Science)
|religion=[[Episcopalian]]
}}
'''Clifford Peter Hansen''' (October 16, 1912 – October 20, 2009) was an [[United States|American]] [[politician]] from his native [[Wyoming]]. A [[Republican Party|Republican]], he served from 1963 to 1967 as the 26th [[Governor]] of his state and a [[United States Senator]] for two terms from 1967 to 1978. He died four days after his 97th birthday and was at the time was the oldest living former U.S. Senator<ref name=cph/> as well as the third oldest former governor in the United States.
Former Senate staffer Pete Williams recalled Hansen as
'''an honest man, of rock solid integrity, who loved his wife,
his children, and his state. And when his service to his nation
was over, he went back to Wyoming, where he died, not far from
the log house where he was born.'''
==Background==
Hansen was born in Zenith in Lincoln County (now Teton County), a settlement so small that it is no longer listed on Wyoming road maps. He was the son of Peter Christofferson Hansen (1867-1952) and the former Sylvia Irene Wood (1885-1976). The senior Hansens were ranchers; Peter, of Danish extraction, came from Soda Springs, [[Idaho]], and Sylvia, of English descent, was born in Blackfoot, Idaho. Peter Hansen, who had some college training, was a "practical" engineer in that he did surveying and ditch work on ranch lands. In the Menors Cabin, a small [[museum]] near the south entrance to [[Grand Teton National Park]] and adjacent to the Chapel of the Transfiguration, is a picture of young Cliff Hansen and his mother, which was taken in the early 1920s. The [[photograph]] is posted under the [[cattle]] exhibit and is meant to demonstrate the hardiness of early Wyoming pioneers.<ref>Menors Cabin exhibit, [[Grand Teton National Park]], Jackson, Wyoming.</ref>
Hansen was reared in Jackson Hole, located in a high-mountain valley that includes Grand Teton]]. There he attended public school, during which time he overcame a serious speech impediment which baffled his teachers. His problem was not inability to learn but a severe stutter which was corrected by his attendance at a special school. Having overcome the speech impediment, Hansen forever stressed the value of an education, once having advised a grandson, "It's the one thing no one can take away from you."<ref name=obit>{{cite web|url=http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2009/10/24/obituaries/01obit_10-24-09.txt|title=Obituary of Clifford P. Hansen|publisher=''Wyoming Tribune-Eagle''|accessdate=October 24, 2009}}</ref>
[[Peter K. Simpson]], a UW [[political science]] professor and the 1986 Republican gubernatorial nominee, described the importance of the Tetons to the Hansen family: "That country is special. It provides solace and power all at the same time. . . . There's a specific nurturing quality in it, and it has nurtured a specific breed of people -- strong, independent, clear-thinking, forthright, trustworthy, authentic Western-types. No-nonsense, good-humored, exuberant, full of warmth, larger than life. Close enough to creation to be at ease with all mankind, and thereby able to serve them better."<ref name=joyce>{{cite web|url=http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2009/10/25/featured_story/01top_10-25-09.txt|title=Matt Joyce, "Hansen remembered as a man who gave much, but took little"|publisher=''Wyoming Tribune-Eagle''|accessdate=October 25, 2009}}</ref>
Hansen obtained his bachelor's degree in animal science from UW in 1934. From 1946 to 1962, he was a UW trustee from 1946 to 1962 and the trustees president from 1955 to 1962, when he stepped down to run for governor. From 1943 to 1951, he was a Teton county commissioner.<ref name="obit" /> From 1953 to 1955, he served as the president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association.<ref name=":0">{{cite web|title=Clifford P. Hansen papers, 1943-1978 (bulk 1967-1978)|url=https://rmoa.unm.edu/docviewer.php?docId=wyu-ah11454.xml|accessdate=July 23, 2021|publisher=rmoa.unm.edu}}</ref>
==Political life==
Hansen won the governorship in the 1962 mid-term elections by 1ten thousand votes. He unseated the [[Democratic Party|Democrat]] Jack Robert Gage (1899-1970), who had served fewer than two years. First, Hansen won the [[Republican Party|GOP]] primary with 57 percent of the vote against two opponents, attorney and former state Representative Charles Monroe Crowell (1910-1991) of Casper<ref>Charles Monroe Crowell (1910-1991) - Find A Grave Memorial, accessed July 24, 2021.</ref> and Robert E. Cheever (1905-1982),<ref>Robert E Cheever (1905-1982) - Find A Grave Memorial, accessed July 24, 2021.</ref> a former mayor of the capital city of [[Cheyenne]]. Jack Gage defeated William Jack to secure the Democratic nomination, 55.5-44.5 percent. In the [[general election]], Hansen polled 64,970 votes (54.5 percent); Gage,s 54,298 (45.5 percent).<ref>''Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections, Wyoming governorship, 1966.</ref>
Several western [[newspaper]]s called Hansen the "cowboy governor. Hansen's obituary contends that he "brought both the down-to-earth pragmatism of a lifelong cattle rancher and the affability of a small-town politician to Cheyenne and then to Washington, and he was on friendly and familiar terms throughout his career, not only with those on both sides of the political aisle, but also with elevator attendants, cafeteria workers, and staff members throughout the Capitol who called him friend."<ref name=obit/>
Governor Hansen worked to bolster programs to combat [[alcoholism]] and mental illness.<ref>{{cite web|author=Douglas Martin|title=Clifford Hansen, Former Wyoming Governor and U.S. Senator, Is Dead at 97|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/us/politics/22hansen.html|access-date=13 October 2014|publisher=''[[The New York Times''|date=October 21, 200|accessdate=July 23, 2021}}</ref>
After a single term as governor, Hansen ran for the U.S. Senate seat which was being vacated by the retiring Republican [[Milward Simpson]]. He won that election with just under 52 percent of the vote. In a fairly Republican year nationally, he defeated popular Representative at-large Teno Roncalio, a Democrat of [[Itay|Italian]] extraction. Hansen received 63,548 votes (51.8 percent); to Roncalio, 59,141 (48.2 percent).<ref>''Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections,'' U.S. Senator from Wyoming, 1966.</ref>
In 1972, Hansen was reelected to the Senate over Democrat Mike M. Vinich (1924-2015) of Hudson in Fremont County<ref>Mike M. Vinich (1924-2015) - Find A Grave Memorial, accessed July 24, 2021.</ref> 101,314 votes (71.3 percent) to 40,753 (28.7 percent).<ref>''Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections'', U.S. Senator from Wyoming, 1972</ref> Senator Hansen was known for social and fiscal conservatism. He voted against sending to the states the proposed [[Equal Rights Amendment]], which would have codified federal power over the states. He opposed the [[Richard M. Nixon]] administration's deployment of the [[anti-ballistic missile]], a position which put him at odds with then [[United States Secretary of Defense|Defense Secretary]] [[Melvin R. Laird]] of [[Wisconsin]].<ref name="williams">Pete Williams, "Remembering Clifford Hansen," firstread.msnbc.msn.com, October 21, 2009; no longer on-line.</ref>
Hansen voted in 1967 to confirm the [[African-American]] [[liberal]] [[Thurgood Marshall], the plaintiff's attorney in the 1954 ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' school desegregation case, to the [[United States Supreme Court]] and the next year voted for the open-housing Civil Rights Act of 1968.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/90-1967/s176|title=CONFIRMATION OF NOMINATION OF THURGOOD MARSHALL, THE FIRST NEGRO APPOINTED TO THE SUPREME COURT.|publisher=GovTrack.us}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/90-1968/s346|title=TO PASS H.R. 2516, A BILL TO PROHIBIT DISCRIMINATION IN SALE OR RENTAL OF HOUSING, AND TO PROHIBIT RACIALLY MOTIVATED INTERFERENCE WITH A PERSON EXERCISING HIS CIVIL RIGHTS, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES|publisher=GovTrack.us|accessdate=July 23, 2021}}</ref>
In 1976, Hansen supported the renomination and reelection of President [[Gerald Ford|Gerald R. Ford Jr.]], who won Wyoming's three [[electoral votes]]. Hansen retired from the Senate in 1978, when he declined to run for a third term. He moved back to Jackson and served on the Senate Finance Committee under Democratic chairman [[Russell Long]], of [[Louisiana]], another of his senatorial friends who showed interest in the plight of western ranchers.
When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, after losing the nomination battle in 1976 to Gerald Ford, he offered Hansen the position of [[Secretary of the Interior]], which another Wyoming politician, Stanley Hathaway had held for four months in the Ford administration. Hansen declined the offer because of conflict that might arise from his [[cattle]] operation in Jackson County.<ref name=cph>>Clifford Peter Hansen (1912-2009) - Find A Grave Memorial, accessed July 24, 2021.</ref>
Hansen pushed for national legislation to increase the share of mineral royalties collected on federal lands within the western states from 37.5 to 50 percent. This adjustment brought an additional $2.8 billion to Wyoming over the years, according the Department of Revenue.<ref name="joyce">{{cite news|url=http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2009/10/25/featured_story/01top_10-25-09.txt|author=Matt Joyce|title=Hansen remembered as a man who gave much, but took little|publisher=''Wyoming Tribune-Eagle''|accessdate=October 25, 2009|accessdate=July 23, 2021}}</ref>
Hansen resigned his Senate seat on the last day of 1978 to permit his successor, Alan Simpson, to gain a leg up in seniority.<ref name="joyce" /> Simpson would later become the Senate Republican whip and was considered along with [[Dan Quayle]] for the 1988 vice-presidential nomination under [[George Herbert Walker Bush]]. At the Hansen funeral, Alan Simpson paid tribute, accordingly: "I owe him much. All of Wyoming and the nation owe him much. . . . He was a dear and special man who gave much and asked very little, and fought on always with integrity, courage, and an uncommon degree of common sense. God bless his soul."<ref name="joyce" />
==The Hansen family==
In 1934, Hansen married the former Martha Close (1914-2011), originally from Sheridan, Wyoming. The two met in Laramie at the University of Wyoming. The Hansens were the parents of Peter Arthur Hansen and Mary Elisabeth Hansen Mead Steinhour (1935-1996), the unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1990.<ref>Mary Hansen Mead Steinhour (1935-1996) - Find A Grave Memorial, accessed July 23, 2021.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=; under pay wall}}</ref>
Hansen's grandson, [[Matt Mead|Matthew H. "Matt" Mead]], who was born eight months before his grandfather ran for governor. Matt Mead was the United States Attorney in the capital city of [[Cheyenne]] from 2001 to 2007, an appointee of then U.S. President [[George W. Bush]]. In 2007, Mead resigned as the U.S. Attorney to seek the seat of the late U.S. Senator [[Craig Thomas]]. However, the Wyoming Republican State Central Committee bypassed Mead on the third and final ballot. He came within fourteen votes of being one of the three nominees from which Democratic Governor [[David D. Freudenthal]] would make the final selection of [[John Barrasso]] to fill the Thomas vacancy until the 2008 general election. Barrasso served the unexpired term and then was elected to full terms in 2012 and 2018. In 2010, Mead was elected as the 32nd governor and was elected to a second term in 2014.
Upon the death of former Republican Senator [[Hiram Fong]] of [[Hawaii]] in August 2004, Hansen became the oldest living person to have served in the United States Senate.
Hansen's official gubernatorial [[portrait]] was prepared by [[Michele Rushworth]], who sought to represent the former governor's soul in paint.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2007/11/25/news/19local_11-25-07.txt|title=Bill McCarthy, "Artists will attempt to capture souls of former governors: Two portrait artists will paint five former governors that will hang in the Capitol"|publisher=Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, November 25, 2007|access-date=October 28, 2009}}</ref>
==Death and legacy==
In 2006, Hansen said in an interview that he and his wife were in "pretty good health" considering their ages, though he had vision difficulties and they hired a driver. By mid-October 2009, Hansen fell severely ill because of complications from a broken pelvis. After a short time in the hospital, he returned home to be with Martha, his wife of more than seventy-five years, whom he had met at UW in Laramie. Theirs was the longest active marriage of a present or former U.S. senator. Hansen's prognosis was poor, and he died four days after his 97th birthday. In addition to his wife and son, Hansen was also survived by a brother, Robert Hansen, and a sister, Ordeen Hansen, five grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren.<ref name=obit/>
Hansen lay in state in a casket draped with the Wyoming flag at the state capitol in Cheyenne. State funeral services were held on October 24 at the Cheyenne Civic Center. Governor Freudenthal eulogized Hansen:
<blockquote>
I think that without a doubt we can see Cliff Hansen was beloved and always will be. ... And more than any stone monument, we will carry him with us throughout our lives because he is woven into who we are and through the fabric of this wonderful state.<ref name=joyce/></blockquote>
Mrs. Hansen recalled her husband's faith in the American people: "Everybody is important, and his actions both inside and outside politics bore that out."<ref name=obit/>
Pete Williams of [[NBC]] News, who formerly worked in Hansen's Senate office, recalled him, accordingly: "He was an honest man, of rock solid integrity, who loved his wife, his children, and his state. And when his service to his nation was over, he went back to Wyoming, where he died, not far from the log house where he was born."<ref name=williams/>
In 1995, Hansen was inducted, along with the Texas artist and illustrator Thomas C. Lea, III (1907-20o1) into the Hall of Great Westerners of the [[National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum]] in [[Oklahoma City]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Hall of Great Westerners |url=https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/hall-of-great-westerners/ |website=National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum |access-date=November 22, 2019}}</ref>
Hansen sat beside his friend, [[Barry Goldwater]], the [[Arizona]] Republican who lost the 1964 presidential election to [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] of [[Texas]]. He had been among those Republican senators who urged Goldwater to meet with President Nixon to inform him that there were far insufficient votes in the Senate to avoid conviction of a pending [[impeachment]] even though Hansen had personally benefited from Nixon leading the Republican Party in 1972.<ref name=williams/>In a 2006 interview, Hansen fondly recalled one of Goldwater's jokes: Goldwater goes into a California country club that excludes [[Jews]]. The man in charge tells him that he is sorry but Jews cannot play in the club. Goldwater says, "I'm only half Jewish. Can I still play nine holes?"
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hansen, Clifford P.}}
[[Category:Wyoming]]
[[Category:Ranchers]]
[[Category:Business People]]
[[Category:Former Governors]]
[[Category:Republican Governors]]
[[Category:Former United States Senators]]h descent]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
[[Category:Episcopalians]]
|name=Clifford Peter Hansen
|image=Clifford Hansen of WY.jpg
|office=[[United States Senator]] for [[Wyoming]]
|term_start=January 3, 1967
|term_end=December 31, 1978
|preceded=[[Milward Simpson]]
|succeeded=[[Alan Simpson]]
|office2=26th [[Governor]] of Wyoming
|term_start2=January 7, 1963
|term_end2=January 2, 1967
|preceded2=Jack Robert Gage
|succeeded2=[[Stanley K. Hathaway]]
|birth_date=November 16, 1912
|birth_place=Teton County, Wyoming
|death_date=October 20, 2009 (aged 96)
|death_place=Jackson, Wyoming
|party=[[Republican Party|Republican]]
|spouse=Martha Close Hansen (married 1934–2009, his death)
|children=Mary Elisabeth Hansen Mead Steinhour<br>
Peter Arthur Hansen
'''Grandson''':<br>[[Matt Mead]]
|alma_mater=University of Wyoming (Laramie)<br>
(Bachelor of Science)
|religion=[[Episcopalian]]
}}
'''Clifford Peter Hansen''' (October 16, 1912 – October 20, 2009) was an [[United States|American]] [[politician]] from his native [[Wyoming]]. A [[Republican Party|Republican]], he served from 1963 to 1967 as the 26th [[Governor]] of his state and a [[United States Senator]] for two terms from 1967 to 1978. He died four days after his 97th birthday and was at the time was the oldest living former U.S. Senator<ref name=cph/> as well as the third oldest former governor in the United States.
Former Senate staffer Pete Williams recalled Hansen as
'''an honest man, of rock solid integrity, who loved his wife,
his children, and his state. And when his service to his nation
was over, he went back to Wyoming, where he died, not far from
the log house where he was born.'''
==Background==
Hansen was born in Zenith in Lincoln County (now Teton County), a settlement so small that it is no longer listed on Wyoming road maps. He was the son of Peter Christofferson Hansen (1867-1952) and the former Sylvia Irene Wood (1885-1976). The senior Hansens were ranchers; Peter, of Danish extraction, came from Soda Springs, [[Idaho]], and Sylvia, of English descent, was born in Blackfoot, Idaho. Peter Hansen, who had some college training, was a "practical" engineer in that he did surveying and ditch work on ranch lands. In the Menors Cabin, a small [[museum]] near the south entrance to [[Grand Teton National Park]] and adjacent to the Chapel of the Transfiguration, is a picture of young Cliff Hansen and his mother, which was taken in the early 1920s. The [[photograph]] is posted under the [[cattle]] exhibit and is meant to demonstrate the hardiness of early Wyoming pioneers.<ref>Menors Cabin exhibit, [[Grand Teton National Park]], Jackson, Wyoming.</ref>
Hansen was reared in Jackson Hole, located in a high-mountain valley that includes Grand Teton]]. There he attended public school, during which time he overcame a serious speech impediment which baffled his teachers. His problem was not inability to learn but a severe stutter which was corrected by his attendance at a special school. Having overcome the speech impediment, Hansen forever stressed the value of an education, once having advised a grandson, "It's the one thing no one can take away from you."<ref name=obit>{{cite web|url=http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2009/10/24/obituaries/01obit_10-24-09.txt|title=Obituary of Clifford P. Hansen|publisher=''Wyoming Tribune-Eagle''|accessdate=October 24, 2009}}</ref>
[[Peter K. Simpson]], a UW [[political science]] professor and the 1986 Republican gubernatorial nominee, described the importance of the Tetons to the Hansen family: "That country is special. It provides solace and power all at the same time. . . . There's a specific nurturing quality in it, and it has nurtured a specific breed of people -- strong, independent, clear-thinking, forthright, trustworthy, authentic Western-types. No-nonsense, good-humored, exuberant, full of warmth, larger than life. Close enough to creation to be at ease with all mankind, and thereby able to serve them better."<ref name=joyce>{{cite web|url=http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2009/10/25/featured_story/01top_10-25-09.txt|title=Matt Joyce, "Hansen remembered as a man who gave much, but took little"|publisher=''Wyoming Tribune-Eagle''|accessdate=October 25, 2009}}</ref>
Hansen obtained his bachelor's degree in animal science from UW in 1934. From 1946 to 1962, he was a UW trustee from 1946 to 1962 and the trustees president from 1955 to 1962, when he stepped down to run for governor. From 1943 to 1951, he was a Teton county commissioner.<ref name="obit" /> From 1953 to 1955, he served as the president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association.<ref name=":0">{{cite web|title=Clifford P. Hansen papers, 1943-1978 (bulk 1967-1978)|url=https://rmoa.unm.edu/docviewer.php?docId=wyu-ah11454.xml|accessdate=July 23, 2021|publisher=rmoa.unm.edu}}</ref>
==Political life==
Hansen won the governorship in the 1962 mid-term elections by 1ten thousand votes. He unseated the [[Democratic Party|Democrat]] Jack Robert Gage (1899-1970), who had served fewer than two years. First, Hansen won the [[Republican Party|GOP]] primary with 57 percent of the vote against two opponents, attorney and former state Representative Charles Monroe Crowell (1910-1991) of Casper<ref>Charles Monroe Crowell (1910-1991) - Find A Grave Memorial, accessed July 24, 2021.</ref> and Robert E. Cheever (1905-1982),<ref>Robert E Cheever (1905-1982) - Find A Grave Memorial, accessed July 24, 2021.</ref> a former mayor of the capital city of [[Cheyenne]]. Jack Gage defeated William Jack to secure the Democratic nomination, 55.5-44.5 percent. In the [[general election]], Hansen polled 64,970 votes (54.5 percent); Gage,s 54,298 (45.5 percent).<ref>''Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections, Wyoming governorship, 1966.</ref>
Several western [[newspaper]]s called Hansen the "cowboy governor. Hansen's obituary contends that he "brought both the down-to-earth pragmatism of a lifelong cattle rancher and the affability of a small-town politician to Cheyenne and then to Washington, and he was on friendly and familiar terms throughout his career, not only with those on both sides of the political aisle, but also with elevator attendants, cafeteria workers, and staff members throughout the Capitol who called him friend."<ref name=obit/>
Governor Hansen worked to bolster programs to combat [[alcoholism]] and mental illness.<ref>{{cite web|author=Douglas Martin|title=Clifford Hansen, Former Wyoming Governor and U.S. Senator, Is Dead at 97|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/us/politics/22hansen.html|access-date=13 October 2014|publisher=''[[The New York Times''|date=October 21, 200|accessdate=July 23, 2021}}</ref>
After a single term as governor, Hansen ran for the U.S. Senate seat which was being vacated by the retiring Republican [[Milward Simpson]]. He won that election with just under 52 percent of the vote. In a fairly Republican year nationally, he defeated popular Representative at-large Teno Roncalio, a Democrat of [[Itay|Italian]] extraction. Hansen received 63,548 votes (51.8 percent); to Roncalio, 59,141 (48.2 percent).<ref>''Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections,'' U.S. Senator from Wyoming, 1966.</ref>
In 1972, Hansen was reelected to the Senate over Democrat Mike M. Vinich (1924-2015) of Hudson in Fremont County<ref>Mike M. Vinich (1924-2015) - Find A Grave Memorial, accessed July 24, 2021.</ref> 101,314 votes (71.3 percent) to 40,753 (28.7 percent).<ref>''Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections'', U.S. Senator from Wyoming, 1972</ref> Senator Hansen was known for social and fiscal conservatism. He voted against sending to the states the proposed [[Equal Rights Amendment]], which would have codified federal power over the states. He opposed the [[Richard M. Nixon]] administration's deployment of the [[anti-ballistic missile]], a position which put him at odds with then [[United States Secretary of Defense|Defense Secretary]] [[Melvin R. Laird]] of [[Wisconsin]].<ref name="williams">Pete Williams, "Remembering Clifford Hansen," firstread.msnbc.msn.com, October 21, 2009; no longer on-line.</ref>
Hansen voted in 1967 to confirm the [[African-American]] [[liberal]] [[Thurgood Marshall], the plaintiff's attorney in the 1954 ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' school desegregation case, to the [[United States Supreme Court]] and the next year voted for the open-housing Civil Rights Act of 1968.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/90-1967/s176|title=CONFIRMATION OF NOMINATION OF THURGOOD MARSHALL, THE FIRST NEGRO APPOINTED TO THE SUPREME COURT.|publisher=GovTrack.us}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/90-1968/s346|title=TO PASS H.R. 2516, A BILL TO PROHIBIT DISCRIMINATION IN SALE OR RENTAL OF HOUSING, AND TO PROHIBIT RACIALLY MOTIVATED INTERFERENCE WITH A PERSON EXERCISING HIS CIVIL RIGHTS, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES|publisher=GovTrack.us|accessdate=July 23, 2021}}</ref>
In 1976, Hansen supported the renomination and reelection of President [[Gerald Ford|Gerald R. Ford Jr.]], who won Wyoming's three [[electoral votes]]. Hansen retired from the Senate in 1978, when he declined to run for a third term. He moved back to Jackson and served on the Senate Finance Committee under Democratic chairman [[Russell Long]], of [[Louisiana]], another of his senatorial friends who showed interest in the plight of western ranchers.
When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, after losing the nomination battle in 1976 to Gerald Ford, he offered Hansen the position of [[Secretary of the Interior]], which another Wyoming politician, Stanley Hathaway had held for four months in the Ford administration. Hansen declined the offer because of conflict that might arise from his [[cattle]] operation in Jackson County.<ref name=cph>>Clifford Peter Hansen (1912-2009) - Find A Grave Memorial, accessed July 24, 2021.</ref>
Hansen pushed for national legislation to increase the share of mineral royalties collected on federal lands within the western states from 37.5 to 50 percent. This adjustment brought an additional $2.8 billion to Wyoming over the years, according the Department of Revenue.<ref name="joyce">{{cite news|url=http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2009/10/25/featured_story/01top_10-25-09.txt|author=Matt Joyce|title=Hansen remembered as a man who gave much, but took little|publisher=''Wyoming Tribune-Eagle''|accessdate=October 25, 2009|accessdate=July 23, 2021}}</ref>
Hansen resigned his Senate seat on the last day of 1978 to permit his successor, Alan Simpson, to gain a leg up in seniority.<ref name="joyce" /> Simpson would later become the Senate Republican whip and was considered along with [[Dan Quayle]] for the 1988 vice-presidential nomination under [[George Herbert Walker Bush]]. At the Hansen funeral, Alan Simpson paid tribute, accordingly: "I owe him much. All of Wyoming and the nation owe him much. . . . He was a dear and special man who gave much and asked very little, and fought on always with integrity, courage, and an uncommon degree of common sense. God bless his soul."<ref name="joyce" />
==The Hansen family==
In 1934, Hansen married the former Martha Close (1914-2011), originally from Sheridan, Wyoming. The two met in Laramie at the University of Wyoming. The Hansens were the parents of Peter Arthur Hansen and Mary Elisabeth Hansen Mead Steinhour (1935-1996), the unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1990.<ref>Mary Hansen Mead Steinhour (1935-1996) - Find A Grave Memorial, accessed July 23, 2021.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=; under pay wall}}</ref>
Hansen's grandson, [[Matt Mead|Matthew H. "Matt" Mead]], who was born eight months before his grandfather ran for governor. Matt Mead was the United States Attorney in the capital city of [[Cheyenne]] from 2001 to 2007, an appointee of then U.S. President [[George W. Bush]]. In 2007, Mead resigned as the U.S. Attorney to seek the seat of the late U.S. Senator [[Craig Thomas]]. However, the Wyoming Republican State Central Committee bypassed Mead on the third and final ballot. He came within fourteen votes of being one of the three nominees from which Democratic Governor [[David D. Freudenthal]] would make the final selection of [[John Barrasso]] to fill the Thomas vacancy until the 2008 general election. Barrasso served the unexpired term and then was elected to full terms in 2012 and 2018. In 2010, Mead was elected as the 32nd governor and was elected to a second term in 2014.
Upon the death of former Republican Senator [[Hiram Fong]] of [[Hawaii]] in August 2004, Hansen became the oldest living person to have served in the United States Senate.
Hansen's official gubernatorial [[portrait]] was prepared by [[Michele Rushworth]], who sought to represent the former governor's soul in paint.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2007/11/25/news/19local_11-25-07.txt|title=Bill McCarthy, "Artists will attempt to capture souls of former governors: Two portrait artists will paint five former governors that will hang in the Capitol"|publisher=Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, November 25, 2007|access-date=October 28, 2009}}</ref>
==Death and legacy==
In 2006, Hansen said in an interview that he and his wife were in "pretty good health" considering their ages, though he had vision difficulties and they hired a driver. By mid-October 2009, Hansen fell severely ill because of complications from a broken pelvis. After a short time in the hospital, he returned home to be with Martha, his wife of more than seventy-five years, whom he had met at UW in Laramie. Theirs was the longest active marriage of a present or former U.S. senator. Hansen's prognosis was poor, and he died four days after his 97th birthday. In addition to his wife and son, Hansen was also survived by a brother, Robert Hansen, and a sister, Ordeen Hansen, five grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren.<ref name=obit/>
Hansen lay in state in a casket draped with the Wyoming flag at the state capitol in Cheyenne. State funeral services were held on October 24 at the Cheyenne Civic Center. Governor Freudenthal eulogized Hansen:
<blockquote>
I think that without a doubt we can see Cliff Hansen was beloved and always will be. ... And more than any stone monument, we will carry him with us throughout our lives because he is woven into who we are and through the fabric of this wonderful state.<ref name=joyce/></blockquote>
Mrs. Hansen recalled her husband's faith in the American people: "Everybody is important, and his actions both inside and outside politics bore that out."<ref name=obit/>
Pete Williams of [[NBC]] News, who formerly worked in Hansen's Senate office, recalled him, accordingly: "He was an honest man, of rock solid integrity, who loved his wife, his children, and his state. And when his service to his nation was over, he went back to Wyoming, where he died, not far from the log house where he was born."<ref name=williams/>
In 1995, Hansen was inducted, along with the Texas artist and illustrator Thomas C. Lea, III (1907-20o1) into the Hall of Great Westerners of the [[National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum]] in [[Oklahoma City]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Hall of Great Westerners |url=https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/hall-of-great-westerners/ |website=National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum |access-date=November 22, 2019}}</ref>
Hansen sat beside his friend, [[Barry Goldwater]], the [[Arizona]] Republican who lost the 1964 presidential election to [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] of [[Texas]]. He had been among those Republican senators who urged Goldwater to meet with President Nixon to inform him that there were far insufficient votes in the Senate to avoid conviction of a pending [[impeachment]] even though Hansen had personally benefited from Nixon leading the Republican Party in 1972.<ref name=williams/>In a 2006 interview, Hansen fondly recalled one of Goldwater's jokes: Goldwater goes into a California country club that excludes [[Jews]]. The man in charge tells him that he is sorry but Jews cannot play in the club. Goldwater says, "I'm only half Jewish. Can I still play nine holes?"
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hansen, Clifford P.}}
[[Category:Wyoming]]
[[Category:Ranchers]]
[[Category:Business People]]
[[Category:Former Governors]]
[[Category:Republican Governors]]
[[Category:Former United States Senators]]h descent]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
[[Category:Episcopalians]]