A Texas man who took hostages in a northwestern Indiana realty office and held police at bay for several hours suffered three gunshot wounds before dying, likely from two different weapons, a coroner said Saturday. Roy L.The political obituaries for Rep. Dan Burton, R-5th, have described him as “quirky” and “eccentric.”
Burton, a 29-year congressman who said Tuesday he will not seek re-election, had proposed shielding the House floor with protective glass. He fired a gun into a “head-like object” in his yard to re-enact what he believed to be the slaying and not the suicide of White House counsel Vince Foster.
He suspected a link between autism and childhood vaccinations, and he favored mandatory AIDS testing for all Americans. His frequent golf outings, and how they were paid for, came under media scrutiny. He called then President Bill Clinton a “scumbag” but acknowledged he had fathered a child during an extramarital affair.
Burton, 73, announced the apparent end of his political career not on Capitol Hill but where he began it: the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis, where he had been a member of the House and Senate in the late 1960s, ’70s and early ’80s.
“I wanted to come down here today and tell you that I started my career here, and it’s been a wonderful run; met presidents, kings, princes, been all over the world,” he said on the Indiana House floor. “It’s been an experience that I cherish.
“This will probably be the last time I will be addressing you folks – (I’m) not going to run for Congress again this year,” Burton said.
“I wanted to end my career where it started because I love this place,” he told legislators who include his brother, Rep. Woody Burton, R-Greenwood.
He later told reporters he was leaving Congress because of family health problems.
In a statement, Indiana Republican Party Chairman Eric Holcomb thanked Burton for “his tenacious and unrelenting pursuit of smaller, more effective government. He has never shied away from carrying the torch on issues he passionately believes in.”
Rep. Mike Pence, R-6th, who seeks the GOP nomination for governor, said in a statement that Burton “never wavered in his commitment to a strong national defense, fiscal responsibility and traditional values.”
Sylvia Smith, former Washington editor and columnist for The Journal Gazette, said in an email that Burton “provided a rich – often wacky – source of material for political commentary.”
An insurance agent and real estate broker from Indianapolis, the conservative Burton was first elected to the U.S. House in 1982 in a central-Indiana region that has been among the most Republican congressional districts in the nation. He always won easily in general elections but in recent years faced stiff challenges in Republican primaries.
Candidates who have announced or filed to run in the 5th District in the May 8 GOP primary include Susan Brooks, a former U.S. district attorney and Fort Wayne native; John McGoff, a former Marion County coroner; David McIntosh, a former congressman who grew up in Kendallville; and attorney Jack Lugar.
“It’s a pretty tough slate” of candidates, IPFW political scientist Michael Wolf said. Burton’s decision to not seek re-election allows him “to be sure he leaves on top,” Wolf said.
Burton captured the 2010 Republican nomination despite attracting only 30 percent of the vote in a field of seven candidates.
The 5th District includes Grant, Madison, Hamilton and Tipton counties and parts of Marion, Blackford, Boone and Howard counties. It had included Huntington County, which, because of redistricting, will join northeast Indiana’s 3rd District for this year’s primary and general elections.
Burton said Tuesday he will finish his 15th two-year term in the House. He is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which he chaired from 1997 until 2002.
“He really took it as his job to challenge the Clinton administration,” Wolf said about the oversight panel’s investigations of the White House.
Burton also tangled with the George W. Bush White House over Burton’s demand for the release of Justice Department documents on mob informants.
“He did get under their skin at times as well,” Wolf said.
Burton’s best-known legislation was the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which strengthened the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba.
