John W. Bricker

John William Bricker (September 6, 1893 – March 22, 1986) was an American politician and attorney who served as a United States senator from Ohio from 1947 to 1959, as well as the 54th governor of Ohio from 1939 to 1945. He was also the Republican Party vice presidential nominee in the 1944 presidential election.

Born in Madison County, Ohio, Bricker attended Ohio State University and began a legal practice in Columbus, Ohio. He also served in the United States Army during World War I. He held various public offices between 1920 and 1937, including the position of Ohio Attorney General. Bricker was first elected governor in the 1938 Ohio gubernatorial election and served three terms.

Bricker unsuccessfully sought the 1944 Republican presidential nomination as a conservative. He was defeated by New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey and was instead nominated for vice president as Dewey's running mate. In the general election, Bricker focused his critiques on the New Deal programs and judicial nominees of incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but the Dewey–Bricker ticket was defeated by Roosevelt and Senator Harry S. Truman.

Bricker won election to the Senate in 1946. He introduced the Bricker Amendment, which would have created limitations of the scope of the president's power to enact treaties and executive agreements with foreign governments. Though the Bricker Amendment received support from some members of both parties, it was not passed by Congress. Bricker won re-election in 1952 but was defeated in 1958 by Democrat Stephen M. Young. After leaving office, Bricker resumed the practice of law and died in 1986.

Early life and education Bricker was born on a farm near Mount Sterling in Madison County in south central Ohio. He was the son of Laura (née King) and Lemuel Spencer Bricker. He attended Ohio State University at Columbus, where he divided his time between the debating team, the varsity baseball team, and the Delta Chi fraternity. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from Ohio State in 1916 and from its law school in 1920, he was admitted to the bar in 1917 and began his legal practice in Columbus in 1920.

Public service During World War I, Bricker served as first lieutenant and chaplain in the United States Army in 1917 and 1918. He was subsequently the solicitor for Grandview Heights, Ohio, from 1920 to 1928, assistant Attorney General of Ohio from 1923 to 1927, a member of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio from 1929 to 1932, and Attorney General of Ohio from 1933 to 1937.

He was elected governor for three two-year terms, serving from 1939 to 1945, each time winning with a greater margin of victory. Though most of his campaigning was in New England, the Midwest, and the West, Bricker even visited the then-historically and -heavily Democratic state of Texas, where in Dallas, he called Franklin Roosevelt "a front for the Hillman-Browder Communist Party," referring to the respective leaders of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the Communist Party of the United States of America.

In 1946, Bricker was elected to the United States Senate. He was re-elected in 1952, serving from January 3, 1947, to January 3, 1959.

Governor Dewey was the Republican presidential nominee again in 1948, but Senator Bricker was not his running mate. Dewey chose instead Governor Earl Warren of California in the hope that the 1948 ticket would carry California, which the Dewey-Bricker ticket had failed to do. The Dewey-Warren ticket also lost California, and the absence of Bricker on the second ticket may have been a factor in Dewey's failure to win Bricker's home state of Ohio again. Bricker campaigned with Warren in 1944 in Sacramento, where Bricker attacked the politics of war-time rationing; then in San Francisco Bricker charged that Roosevelt had packed the U.S. judiciary with liberal jurists hostile to the Constitution. Kaiser stated he was "trying to refresh" Bricker's memory. Kaiser had served on the police force as a protege of Bricker's predecessor in the Senate and had complained of losing substantial money on Columbus real estate. An investigation concluded that Kaiser may have fired blanks or else purposely missed Bricker.

Bricker intervened in the 1956 deportation of Dr. Peter Tchen, father of Tina Tchen, former Time's Up CEO and Chief of Staff to Michelle Obama, by introducing a bill to grant him permanent residency.

Bricker voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. In 1958, former U.S. representative Stephen M. Young ran against Bricker. Bricker seemed invincible, but Young capitalized on widespread public opposition to the proposed "right to work" amendment to Ohio's constitution, which Bricker had endorsed. Few thought that Young, 69 at the time, could win; even members of his own party had doubts, particularly Ohio's other senator, Democrat Frank J. Lausche. In an upset amid a national Democratic trend, Young defeated Bricker 52% to 48%. Bricker then retired from public life.

Professional life and death

In 1945, Bricker founded the Columbus law firm Bricker & Eckler. The firm merged with other Columbus-based law firm, Graydon Head & Ritchey and later with Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs to form Bricker Graydon Wyatt. As of 2026, the firm has seven offices in Ohio, and additional offices in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana. It is now one of the ten largest firms in the state of Ohio. The firm has maintained an office and conference room in Bricker's honor in its Columbus office featuring memorabilia from Bricker's political career.

He was married to Harriet Day.

After leaving the Senate, John Bricker resumed the practice of law. He died in Columbus on March 22, 1986, at the age of 92 and is interred at Green Lawn Cemetery.