Mel Carnahan
Encyclopedia
Melvin Eugene "Mel" Carnahan (February 11, 1934 – October 16, 2000) was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 politician. A Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

, he served as the 51st Governor of Missouri from 1993 to 2000. He died in a plane crash on the Pevely and Hillsboro
Hillsboro, Missouri
Hillsboro is a city in Jefferson County, Missouri, United States. The estimated population as of 2008 is 2,062. The population was 1,675 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Jefferson County.- Origin of name :...

, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

 border during a campaign for the U.S. Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

, after which he was elected posthumously to the office.

Family life and education

Carnahan was born in Birch Tree, Missouri
Birch Tree, Missouri
Birch Tree is a city in Shannon County, Missouri, United States. The population was 634 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Birch Tree is located at ....

. His father was A. S. J. Carnahan
A. S. J. Carnahan
Albert Sidney Johnson Carnahan was an American politician. He was a member of the United States House of Representatives for southeastern Missouri for 14 years, as well as the first member of the Carnahan Family to serve in public office.-Early life:Carnahan was born near Ellsinore, Missouri, and...

, who served eight terms in the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

 as the Representative from Missouri's 8th congressional district
Missouri's 8th congressional district
Missouri's 8th Congressional District is one of 435 congressional districts in the United States and one of nine congressional districts in the state of Missouri. The district encompasses rural Southeast Missouri and South Central Missouri as well as some counties in Southwest Missouri. The...

. His only sibling, Robert Carnahan, was president of the Missouri Association of Realtors.

Carnahan graduated from high school in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, and earned a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 in business administration from George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...

. He entered the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...

, rising ultimately to first lieutenant, and served as a special agent
Special agent
Special agent is usually the title for a detective or investigator for a state, county, municipal, federal or tribal government. An agent is a worker for any federal agency, and a secret agent is one who works for an intelligence agency....

 for the Office of Special Investigation
Air Force Office of Special Investigations
The Air Force Office of Special Investigations , is a Field Operating Agency of the United States Air Force that provides professional investigative services to commanders throughout the Air Force...

. He received a J.D.
Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...

 from the University of Missouri School of Law
University of Missouri School of Law
University of Missouri School of Law is the law school of the University of Missouri, a state university in the U.S. State of Missouri. It is located on the university's main campus in Columbia, forty minutes from the Missouri State Capitol and Supreme Court in Jefferson City...

 in Columbia, Missouri
Columbia, Missouri
Columbia is the fifth-largest city in Missouri, and the largest city in Mid-Missouri. With a population of 108,500 as of the 2010 Census, it is the principal municipality of the Columbia Metropolitan Area, a region of 164,283 residents. The city serves as the county seat of Boone County and as the...

, in 1959.

Carnahan married Jean Carpenter in Washington, D.C. on June 12, 1954. They had four children: Russ Carnahan
Russ Carnahan
John Russell "Russ" Carnahan is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2005. He is a member of the Democratic Party.The district includes the southern third of the city of St. Louis and most of the southern St. Louis suburbs including most of Jefferson County and all of Ste. Genevieve County...

, a member of the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

; Tom Carnahan
Tom Carnahan
Tom Carnahan is the founder of Wind Capital Group, a privately owned builder and developer of wind farms in the Midwest and in 2008 produced the power for the first 100 per cent wind powered city in the United States....

, founder of Wind Capital Group
Wind Capital Group
The wind power developer Wind Capital Group was founded in 2005 by Missouri native Tom Carnahan.- Blue Grass Ridge Wind Farm:On January 31st 2006, Wind Capital Group announced the planned construction of Blue Grass Ridge Wind Farm near King City in Gentry County, Missouri. Construction of the 27...

 which builds wind farm
Wind farm
A wind farm is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electric power. A large wind farm may consist of several hundred individual wind turbines, and cover an extended area of hundreds of square miles, but the land between the turbines may be used for agricultural or other...

s; Robin Carnahan
Robin Carnahan
Robin Carnahan is an American politician, daughter of Missouri politicians Mel and Jean Carnahan and the current Missouri Secretary of State. She is a member of the Democratic Party and was the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2010, to replace retiring Republican Sen...

, who was elected in 2004 as Missouri Secretary of State; and Roger "Randy" Carnahan, who piloted the plane and perished in the same crash that killed his father

Political career

Carnahan's political career started as a member of the Missouri House of Representatives
Missouri House of Representatives
The Missouri House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the Missouri General Assembly. It has 163 members, representing districts with an average size of 31,000 residents. House members are elected for two-year terms during general elections held in even-numbered years.In 1992 Missouri...

 representing the Rolla
Rolla, Missouri
Rolla is a city in Phelps County, Missouri, United States, midway between the larger cities of St. Louis and Springfield along I-44. The population in the 2010 United States Census was 19,559.It is the county seat of Phelps County...

 area. In 1980, Carnahan was elected Missouri State Treasurer
State Treasurer of Missouri
The State Treasurer of Missouri is a statewide elected official responsible for serving as Missouri's chief financial officer. The current State Treasurer is Clint Zweifel.-Duties of the State Treasurer:...

. He served in that post from 1981 to 1985. In 1984 he was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Missouri, losing the Democratic primary election
Primary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....

 to then-Lieutenant Governor Kenneth Rothman, who lost the general election that year to state Attorney General John Ashcroft
John Ashcroft
John David Ashcroft is a United States politician who served as the 79th United States Attorney General, from 2001 until 2005, appointed by President George W. Bush. Ashcroft previously served as the 50th Governor of Missouri and a U.S...

.

In 1988 he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Missouri. In 1992, he faced Saint Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

 Mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....

 Vincent C. Schoemehl
Vincent C. Schoemehl
Vincent C. Schoemehl, Jr. was the 42nd mayor of St. Louis, Missouri, serving three terms from 1981 to 1993. At the time of his first election, he was one of the City's youngest mayors. Schoemehl is remembered for his leadership in the areas of historic preservation and urban design...

 in the Democratic primary for governor. He won the Democratic nomination by a wide margin and went on to easily defeat Republican state Attorney General William L. Webster
William L. Webster
William L. Webster is a former American politician and convicted felon from Missouri.-Early life and career:William Webster is the son of the late Richard M. Webster, who was a prominent Missouri State Senator and Janet Webster. Webster was born and raised in Carthage, Missouri and was a graduate...

 in the general election. He was elected as Governor of Missouri on November 3, 1992 and re-elected for a second term on November 5, 1996, defeating Republican state Auditor Margaret Kelly
Margaret B. Kelly
Margaret Blake Kelly is an American accountant and politician from Missouri. She served as the State Auditor of Missouri from 1984 to 1999. She was the first woman to hold statewide office in Missouri, and the fourth Certified Public Accountant to hold the auditor's position. She is a...

.

2000 Senate election and death

In 2000, Mel Carnahan ran for U.S. Senate, opposing the incumbent Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

, John Ashcroft
John Ashcroft
John David Ashcroft is a United States politician who served as the 79th United States Attorney General, from 2001 until 2005, appointed by President George W. Bush. Ashcroft previously served as the 50th Governor of Missouri and a U.S...

. It was a heated, intense campaign in which Carnahan traveled all over the state to garner support in what was a very close race. Early on October 16, 2000, just three weeks before the election and the night before a presidential debate
United States presidential election debates
During presidential elections in the United States, it has become customary for the main candidates to engage in a debate...

 to be held at Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis is a private research university located in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1853, and named for George Washington, the university has students and faculty from all fifty U.S. states and more than 110 nations...

, the twin-engine Cessna
Cessna
The Cessna Aircraft Company is an airplane manufacturing corporation headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, USA. Their main products are general aviation aircraft. Although they are the most well known for their small, piston-powered aircraft, they also produce business jets. The company is a subsidiary...

 airplane piloted by the Governor's son, Randy, crashed on a heavily forested hillside during a rainstorm and foggy conditions near Goldman, Missouri
Goldman, Missouri
Goldman is a tiny ghost town in Jefferson County, Missouri, about 25 miles south of St. Louis, Missouri, and five miles north of the county courthouse at Hillsboro, Missouri. Goldman is located on Old Lemay Ferry Road, an old trade route connecting Hillsboro and St...

, about 35 miles south of St. Louis. All three occupants of the plane - Governor Carnahan, his son Randy, and Chris Sifford, campaign advisor and former chief of staff to the governor - died in the crash.

Shortly afterward, Lieutenant Governor Roger B. Wilson
Roger B. Wilson
Roger B. Wilson is an American politician who was the 52nd Governor of Missouri from October 16, 2000 to January 8, 2001. He is a Democrat.- Early Life and education :...

 succeeded Mel Carnahan to fill the Governor's office until January 2001. Because Missouri election law would not allow for Mel Carnahan's name to be removed from the November 7, 2000 ballot, Jean Carnahan
Jean Carnahan
Jean Anne Carpenter Carnahan is an American politician and writer who served in the United States Senate from 2001 to 2002. A Democrat, she was appointed to the Senate to fill the seat of her posthumously elected husband, becoming the first woman to represent Missouri in the Senate.-Biography:Born...

, his widow, became the Democratic candidate unofficially. Governor Wilson promised to appoint her to the senate seat if vacant as a result of Mr. Carnahan's being elected, and the campaign continued using the slogan "I'm Still With Mel." A Senate first, the deceased Carnahan won by a 2% margin. Mrs. Carnahan was then appointed to the Senate and served until, in a special election in November 2002, she was narrowly defeated by James Talent, a Republican.

Carnahan is not the only candidate to have died during a U.S. Senate race in recent decades. Senator Paul Wellstone
Paul Wellstone
Paul David Wellstone was a two-term U.S. Senator from the state of Minnesota and member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which is affiliated with the national Democratic Party. Before being elected to the Senate in 1990, he was a professor of political science at Carleton College...

 of Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 was killed in a plane crash in 2002, 11 days before his U.S. Senate election. Representative Jerry Litton
Jerry Litton
Jerry Lon Litton was a Democratic U.S. Representative from Missouri who died with his wife and two children while en route via a small plane to the victory party after winning Missouri's state Democratic primary for U.S. Senate....

, also of Missouri, died in a plane crash in 1976 on the day he was nominated by his party. Richard "Dick" Obenshain
Richard D. Obenshain
Richard Dudley Obenshain was an attorney in southwest Virginia and rising conservative political leader in the Republican Party of Virginia until his death in the crash of a small airplane.- Biography :...

 of Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

 died in a plane crash in 1978 shortly after receiving the Republican nomination. In the California State Senate race of 2010
California State Senate elections, 2010
The 2010 California State State elections were held on November 2, 2010. Voters in the 20 even-numbered districts of the California State Senate voted for their representatives. Other elections were also held on November 2. No seats changed parties in this election.- Overview :- Results :The 2010...

, voters in the Long Beach
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...

 district re-elected Jenny Oropeza
Jenny Oropeza
Jennifer Ann "Jenny" Oropeza was the California State Senator for the 28th district which includes the cities of Carson, El Segundo, Hermosa Beach, Lomita, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, and Torrance; the Los Angeles communities of Cheviot Hills, Bel Air, Harbor City, Harbor Gateway, Lennox, Mar...

, who had died of illness the month previously.

Personal life

Carnahan and his family were active members of the First Baptist Church of Rolla, where he served as an ordained deacon and member of the building committee. In 1984, he risked his political career by taking a public stand against Missouri ballot issues, Amendments 5 and 7, which would legalize parimutuel betting
Parimutuel betting
Parimutuel betting is a betting system in which all bets of a particular type are placed together in a pool; taxes and the "house-take" or "vig" is removed, and payoff odds are calculated by sharing the pool among all winning bets...

 and create a state lottery
Lotteries in the United States
Lotteries in the United States are run by 46 jurisdictions; 43 states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands.In the US, the lottery is subject to the laws of each jurisdiction; there is no national lottery.- History :...

. He was one of only a handful of state elected officials to take such a position; however, both amendments passed.
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