"Arkansas Senator" David Pryor Hand Signed TLS Dated 1991 Todd Mueller COA

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Up for auction
"Arkansas Senator" David Pryor Hand Signed TLS Dated 1991.
This item is certified authentic by Todd Mueller Autographs and comes with their Certificate of Authenticity.
ES-2444
David Hampton Pryor
(born August 29, 1934) is an American politician and former
Democratic
United States Representative
and
United States Senator
from the State of
Arkansas
. Pryor also served as
39th
Governor of Arkansas
from 1975 to 1979 and was a member of the
Arkansas House of Representatives
from 1960 to 1966. He served as the interim chairman of the
Arkansas Democratic Party
, following
Bill Gwatney
's assassination. Pryor was born in
Camden
, the seat of
Ouachita County
in southern Arkansas, to William Edgar Pryor and the former Susan Newton. He attended public schools in Camden, attended
Henderson State Teacher's College
in
Arkadelphia
, and graduated from the
University of Arkansas
in
Fayetteville
in 1957. Pryor was founder and publisher of the
Ouachita Citizen
from 1957 to 1960. He graduated from
law school
at the University of Arkansas in 1964 and was admitted to the bar that same year. His state House service preceded his tenure in the U.S. House. He was elected to Congress in a
special election
to fill the unexpired term in the 89th Congress of fellow Democrat
Oren Harris
, whom
U.S. President
Lyndon B. Johnson
appointed to a federal judgeship. At the same time, Pryor was elected to the 90th Congress for a full term. In the primary, Pryor defeated the
Texarkana
lawyer
Richard S. Arnold
, whom he later described as "a very, very close friend." Pryor thereafter defeated the
Republican
candidate,
A. Lynn Lowe
of
Texarkana
, by a comfortable margin. Lowe would subsequently become chairman of the fledgling Arkansas
GOP
. Pryor was reelected to the House twice and served from November 8, 1966 to January 3, 1973. He was not a candidate for reelection in 1972. Instead he failed in a hard-fought campaign to wrest the Democratic
U.S. Senate
nomination from the popular
conservative
John L. McClellan
, from Sheridan, Arkansas. Pryor finally won McClellan's Senate seat in 1978. McClellan died in 1977, and Governor Pryor appointed a caretaker successor Kaneaster Hodges, Jr., who was prohibited by the
Arkansas Constitution
from running himself. Pryor won the Democratic senatorial nomination over then
U.S. Representatives
Jim Guy Tucker
and
Ray Thornton
and then secured a lopsided general election victory in the fall over the liberal Republican Tom Kelly, who advocated marijuana legalization, among other things. He served three Senate terms. His closest contest was his 1984 reelection against the Republican U.S. Representative
Edwin Bethune
. Despite the presence of
Ronald Reagan
on the Republican ticket, Pryor still defeated Bethune, 502,3431 (57.3 percent) to 373,615 (42.7 percent). Pryor was unopposed in 1990, and he did not seek a fourth term in 1996. The seat instead went Republican for one term with the election of U.S. Representative
Tim Hutchinson
. Pryor hence retired from elected office in 1997. Pryor served as chairman of the
Committee on Aging
. Pryor was known for his advocacy for the aged and for promoting taxpayer rights. During his tenure, he was secretary of the Democratic Conference, third in the Senate Democratic Leadership. In 2000 Pryor became Director of the Institute of Politics at the
Kennedy School of Government
at
Harvard University
in
Cambridge, Massachusetts
. He served as
dean
of the
Clinton School of Public Service
in
Little Rock
from 2004 to 2006. In June 2006, President
George W. Bush
nominated Pryor to the board of the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
, and in September of that year he was confirmed by the Senate for a six-year term. As he has done occasionally in the past, Pryor taught a political science course at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville during the Fall 2008 term.