Father's Day for the Senate's ‘Legacy Caucus’

Bennett Family The last photograph of Wallace Bennett, seen here at his 95th birthday with his son Bob - Bennett family

Senators Bennett
(Republicans-Utah)
Wallace Bennett (1951-1974) and his son, Bob Bennett (1993-Present)
The first time Bob Bennett recalls entering the Senate was also in 1953, when he arrived to work as a summer intern in his father Wallace Bennett's Senate office. He wasn't able to make the trip from Utah for his dad's swearing-in two years before, "Those were before the days of jet airplanes," he explains. He points out that the Senate offices were so small that summer that, as an intern, he was a floater without a desk. Over 50 years later he not only has his own desk, but the same Senate seat his father held.

He proudly shows a photograph of he and "dad" together, and then notes that it is the last photograph taken of his father before he passed away at the age of 95.  Just a year before, Bob Bennett had been elected to the Senate. His father had a fall when he was 92, bruising his brain, leaving him in rough shape, both physically and mentally. On election night 1992, as Bob Bennett was celebrating his victory, he told reporters that his father was not up to making an appearance, when unbeknownst to him, his brother had wheeled his father into the room. As the media approached Wallace Bennett, his son was concerned that he would get confused, until he heard him speak: "Bob and I have made Utah history.  We are the first father and son combination to be elected to the U.S. Senate in this state." The younger Bennett recalls, "The adrenaline got up, he handled himself perfectly, he was completely lucid, and it was a wonderful moment, and so I thought, ‘He does not need a protector.’"

Bennett thinks the greatest advice he got from his father was in reference to education. He was expected to join the family business, his father told him to take business courses but "major in whatever you want, because the reason I'm sending you to college is to learn how to think." And when he asked his father about running for the Senate in 1991, Wallace sat him down and interviewed him, giving him a "fairly direct and exhaustive examination" and eventually offered his blessing.

Both Bob and Wallace were businessmen before entering politics, but Bob Bennett explains, "I was more interested in politics as a young man than dad was," noting he was in Young Republicans, served as his father's chief of staff, and served in the Nixon Administration. But Bob points out that the major difference between the two senators is that his father served in the minority for all but a couple of his 24 years, while he has had the good fortune to serve in the majority for most of his time, including chairmanships.

As for differences on policy, Bob points to one vote: "Looking back on it, my father voted against the Kennedy tax cuts, because he was worried about the impact on the deficit, and I voted for every tax cut that's come along because I think it's helpful to the stimulation of the economy."

The thing Bob finds most satisfying about his father's Senate career is a comment a friend of his heard from a Democratic senator who served with Wallace on the Finance Committee. "I don't know what we'll do without him on the committee, because he was the only senator that understood everything we were doing," the member explained. 

Bob and his wife have six adult children and, when asked if he thinks any of them might try to follow their grandfather and father's path and run for the Senate, he says, "I wouldn't be surprised.  But at the moment, with 19 grandchildren, they're busy."

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