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Wendell Anderson Dead At 83 — A Loss For Minnesota And The Nation

By Susan Macdonald
Published on: 15:59 PST, Jul 17, 2016

Wendell Richard Anderson, the former governor of Minnesota, died Sunday, July 17, according to the Star-Tribune. Anderson was 83-years-old. He died of pneumonia, at Our Lady of Peace Hospice in St. Paul, MN, where he had been a patient for the last month.

“Few governors of any state can claim a larger state policy legacy than could Wendell Anderson, who died Sunday at age 83. He served in statewide office for just eight years, six of them as governor. In that brief span, he presided over changes so sweeping that they can fairly be said to have invented modern Minnesota.”

Wendell Anderson was a larger-than-life character: Olympic athlete, political wunderkind, army veteran, environmentalist. Any decent editor would refuse to publish a novel featuring a character based on Gov. Anderson, since fiction, unlike real life, must be believable.

He was born to working class parents in St. Paul, MN, a truck driver’s son. He attended Johnson High School, the second oldest high school in St. Paul. Anderson attended the University of Minnesota from 1951 to 1954 and played defense on the school hockey team, the Golden Gophers. He then went on to earn a silver medal on the U. S. hockey team in the 1956 Olympic Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. He spent two years in the U.S. Army, serving his country, then returned to the University of Minnesota to earn his law degree.

Anderson was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives while he was still in law school. He then served in the Minnesota State Senate from 1963 to 1970. Wendell Anderson was governor of Minnesota from 1971 to 1976. He then became senator, serving in the U.S. Senate from 1976 to 1978.

Current Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton offered his condolences to Anderson’s family when he tweeted about Wendell Anderson’s legacy.

As 33rd governor of Minnesota, Anderson was considered a political wunderkind. He was only 37-years-old when he was elected governor. A member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), he excelled at bipartisanship. August 13, 1973, he was on the cover of Time Magazine.

“His signal achievement was the 1971 budget overhaul remembered as the ‘Minnesota Miracle.’ Building on recommendations from the Citizens League, DFLer Anderson pushed through a Republican-controlled Legislature a major income and sales tax increase for the sake of a big boost in state aid to schools and local governments. That allowed for both reductions in property taxes and the narrowing of disparities in the quality of education and local government services between rich and poor jurisdictions. It improved the quality of public services in many places, setting the table for prosperity in subsequent decades. Just as miraculous as the scope of that change was the bipartisanship that produced it. Anderson forged a bipartisan consensus through months of negotiation that extended well past the regular legislative session’s allotted calendar.”

Wendell Anderson was an avid environmentalist. The Duluth News-Tribune reported that Anderson was responsible for preserving natural areas, enacting clean-water laws, and creating a state energy agency. Anderson stopped the practice of dumping taconite tailings into lakes. He strengthened the Department of Natural Resources and the Pollution Control Agency.

Anderson was also responsible for the Loaned Executive Action Program (LEAP); this program brought business leaders into state agencies to improve them and make them less inefficient. Former GOP Gov. Arne Carlson, the 37th governor of Minnesota, called LEAP one of Anderson’s most effective ideas and complained Anderson “hasn’t gotten sufficient credit for” it.

After leaving the senate, Anderson returned to private practice as a lawyer. He often appeared on the TV show At Issue as a political analyst, and served as a regent of the University of Minnesota from 1985 to 1997.

Wendell Richard Anderson, February 1, 1933 – July 17, 2016. He is survived by two daughters, a son, and five grandchildren.

[Photo by Jim Mone/AP Images]

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