Joseph C. O'Mahoney

Joseph Christopher O'Mahoney (November 5, 1884 – December 1, 1962) was an American journalist, lawyer, and politician. A Democrat, he served four complete terms as a U.S. senator from Wyoming on two occasions, first from 1933 to 1953 and then again from 1954 to 1961.

Early life and career One of eleven children, Joseph O'Mahoney was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, to Dennis and Elizabeth (née Sheehan) O'Mahoney. His parents were both Irish immigrants; his father, who came to the United States in 1861, worked as a furrier. He received his early education at the Cambridge Latin School. He attended Columbia University in New York City from 1905 until 1907, when he began a career in journalism. He was a reporter on the Cambridge Democrat before moving west to Boulder, Colorado, where he worked for the Herald (1908–1916). While working in Washington, he studied at Georgetown University Law School and received his Bachelor of Laws degree in 1920. O'Mahoney was appointed by Farley to be the First Assistant Postmaster General, serving from March to December 1933. He was re-elected to a second term over Milward L. Simpson in 1940, and defeated Harry B. Henderson for a third term in 1946. In 1952, as Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower won the presidential election in a landslide, O'Mahoney was narrowly defeated for re-election by Governor Frank A. Barrett by a margin of 52% to 48%. He subsequently returned to the private practice of law in Wyoming.

Upon his return to the Senate, O'Mahoney became a strong opponent of the Dixon-Yates contract, which provided for a private company to build a plant to provide power to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to replace the power that the TVA sold to the Atomic Energy Commission. He sponsored legislation to require "concentrated industries" to give public notification and justification of price increases, to prohibit automobile manufacturers from operating finance firms, to grant Alaska and Hawaii statehood, and to require nominees for federal judgeships take an oath prior to confirmation that they would not render decisions contrary to the U.S. Constitution. His advocacy of jury trials in civil rights cases helped obtain enough votes to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957, and he opposed the confirmation of Lewis Strauss as U.S. Secretary of Commerce. One of the last bills he introduced was to abolish the insurance rate-making body of the District of Columbia, which he believed was guaranteeing high rates to insurance companies rather than looking out for the public welfare.

Later life and death After suffering a stroke in June 1959, O'Mahoney decided not to seek re-election in 1960. He made his last speech on the Senate floor on August 29, 1960; he was brought to the floor in a wheelchair by Senator Wayne Morse, who predicted O'Mahoney would be remembered as the "most effective and able" senator to try to protect free enterprise. He resumed his law practice in Washington and Cheyenne.

O'Mahoney died at the Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, at age 78. He is buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Cheyenne.