Christopher “Kit” Bond, whose career at the top of Missouri politics saw him rise from state auditor to governor to four-term U.S. senator, died Tuesday. He was 86.
Bond’s political career spanned four decades, during which he went from young liberal whiz kid to born-again conservative and fierce partisan.
In the Senate, Bond left no doubt that he saw himself as Missouri’s unofficial King of Pork, collecting federal largesse for constituents back home.
He defended “pork” even as others in the Senate moved to prohibit earmarks — pet projects — on spending bills. To critics, he bragged: “In the next batch, I’ll bring my own barbecue sauce.”
In a statement Tuesday, Gov. Mike Kehoe said, “Kit, always with his trademark smile and sense of humor, was a fierce advocate for Missouri throughout his accomplished 40-year career of public service. Kit kept Missouri’s interests at heart, both in office and out, making our state a better place to live, work, and raise a family. Whenever he was thanked for his service, Kit’s response was always, ‘Serving the people of Missouri was the honor of my life.’”
University of Missouri leaders also issued statements Tuesday paying tribute to Bond, and his legacy on the MU campus. While working as a U.S. Senator, Bond secured an estimated $500 million in federal research and infrastructure funding for the UM System and MU. The Christopher S. Bond Life Sciences Center that bears the Missouri politician's name celebrated its 20th anniversary last fall.
MU President Mun Choi called Bond a "tremendous champion" for Missourians and the University.
“His incredible commitment to groundbreaking research in life sciences, agriculture and other critical areas impacted the state and secured our role as a world-class institution," Choi said. "We are grateful for his decades of support and proud to carry on his legacy of service.”
Bond helped build the modern-day Missouri Republican Party into a formidable and often-feared political operation.
The public got a rare, televised glimpse of Bond’s anger on election night in November 2000: He bloodied his fist and pounded the lectern in rage over the defeat of a fellow Republican, Sen. John Ashcroft. Bond accused Democrats of trying to steal the election after they had won a court order keeping the polls open an extra 45 minutes.
“I smelled a big fat rat,” Bond later explained.
Before Bond got involved in politics, the Missouri Republican Party was on life support.
He was born in St. Louis on March 6, 1939, and grew up in Mexico, Missouri, where his maternal grandfather, A.P. Green, created the family fortune making fireproof bricks from the high-silicon clay that underlies the area.
Bond went to prep school at Massachusetts’ elite Deerfield Academy, college at Princeton University and law school at the University of Virginia, where he was first in his class.
He came home to run for Congress in 1968 and lost that race. Another young Republican, John C. Danforth, won his race for state attorney general and gave Bond a job running his consumer protection division.
In 1970, Bond ran again, and this time he won his race for state auditor. In 1972, he was elected governor, defeating Edward L. Dowd, a prominent St. Louis lawyer. Bond campaigned on a reform platform to “throw the rascals out.”
At 33, Bond became the state’s youngest governor, and the GOP was back in business.
Legislative veterans mocked him, calling him “Kid” Bond. But Bond called a special legislative session to reorganize state government. He expanded ambulance service to most of the state and increased education for children with handicaps. He got legislators to pass a Sunshine Law to open up meetings and public records.
In 1976, state Republicans split between Bond and other supporters of President Gerald Ford and former California Gov. Ronald Reagan. The Reagan faction won in Missouri and social conservatives still dominate the state GOP.
Partly as a result, Bond lost his reelection bid in 1976 to Joseph Teasdale, a little-known Democrat who ran a populist campaign accusing the “millionaire” Bond of being too cozy with corporations.
It would be the last time he would lose an election.
Bond then became president of the Great Plains Legal Foundation in Kansas City, which opposes what it considers excessive government regulation.
In 1980, he ran a year-long campaign to salvage his political career and defeated Teasdale in a rematch.
In 1986, Bond narrowly defeated Lt. Gov. Harriett Woods to win the U.S. Senate seat of retiring Democrat Thomas F. Eagleton.
Six years later, he won another nail-biter, and found himself Missouri’s sole Republican statewide victor.
After the party’s 1992 bloodbath at the polls, it fell to Bond to pick up the party’s pieces. He overhauled the state party organization and persuaded donors to contribute $750,000 over the next two years to finance party operations.
Bond won reelection a total of three times, his easiest victory coming in 2004 against Nancy Farmer.
In the 1990s, Bond sued an investment advisor he accused of wiping out his family fortune. In 1994, his elevator scuffle with a television reporter at a charity ski benefit in Utah paid for by lobbyists turned into unwelcome TV fodder.
Bond and his first wife, Carolyn Bond, separated and quietly divorced. In 2002, he married Linda Pell, a Republican consultant in Washington and a native of Kansas City.
In 2008, a U.S. Justice Department investigation concluded that Bond’s office had pushed the White House to dismiss then-U.S. Attorney Todd Graves of Kansas City for political reasons. The report said Bond “declined” to be interviewed.
In a federal corruption investigation that year into lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s activities, a former aide to Bond pleaded guilty to concealing gifts from lobbyists. Bond called it “an unfortunate incident.”
As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bond strongly supported the Bush administration’s surveillance and interrogation policies, even comparing waterboarding to learning to swim.
Bond had a generally conservative voting record, opposing most abortion-rights legislation, supporting the nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court of Robert Bork (unsuccessful) and Clarence Thomas (successful) and supporting the Iraq war.
Bond’s influence in Congress was evident in Missouri’s urban areas, which benefitted from the federal monies he got for public housing, lead paint abatement, university research, and Boeing’s military facilities.
In rural areas, he got funds for bridges, agriculture and other projects.
“Good” local earmarks “do not squander taxpayer dollars,” Bond wrote in a March, 2009 op-ed piece in the Post-Dispatch. The many projects he proudly took credit for funding included: Revitalization of Washington Avenue, redevelopment of the Old Post Office, replacement of uninhabitable housing, funds for transportation and expansion of Community Health Center services.
But with Democrats firmly in control of the Senate in 2008, the subcommittee chairmanships that had given Bond his clout over housing , environmental and other key spending were out of his reach.
With the times changing, he decided the time was right to end his political career. In a speech on the floor of the Missouri House in January 2009, he declared that he had run his last race.
“In 1973, I became Missouri’s youngest governor,” he said. “I do not intend to be Missouri’s oldest senator.”
After he left public office, he became a lobbyist.
