Gene Snyder
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Marion Eugene Snyder (January 26, 1928 – February 16, 2007[1]) was an American politician elected as a Republican to the United States House of Representatives from two different districts in Kentucky.
Snyder was born in Louisville and attended public schools there, having graduated from duPont Manual High School. He studied at the University of Louisville and graduated from the Jefferson School of Law. He began a career as a lawyer in Louisville in 1950. He became the city attorney in Jeffersontown in 1954, a post that he held for some four years. Snyder was elected as magistrate for the first district of Jefferson County in the fall of 1957 and was re-elected in 1961. He also had business interests in farming, real estate, insurance, and construction.
Snyder was elected to the House of Representatives from Kentucky's 3rd congressional district, based in Louisville, in 1962. He was one of the few Republicans to vote against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A Barry M. Goldwater supporter, he was unseated in 1964 after only one term by former Louisville Mayor Charlie Farnsley, amid the gigantic Lyndon b. Johnson-Hubert H. HumphreyDemocratic landslide that year.
Snyder then moved to Oldham County, which was in the neighboring 4th District, and immediately prepared for a run against 11-term incumbent Frank Chelf in 1966. The 4th was rapidly trending Republican because of the influx of new residents from nearby Cincinnati. He took full advantage of this trend and defeated Chelf by almost eight points. He was reelected nine times from this district. In 1984 Democrat Pat Mulloy ran a surprisingly strong campaign and almost unseated Snyder; only Ronald Reagan's landslide win in Kentucky (by almost twenty points) helped Snyder remain in office. Rather than face Mulloy again, Snyder chose not to seek re-election in 1986.
The portion of I-265 in Kentucky is named for Gene Snyder, as is the federal courthouse building in Louisville.
Snyder died in Naples, Florida.
[edit] References
- ^ "Former Congressman Gene Snyder dies", The Courier-Journal. Retrieved on 2007-02-17.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by Frank W. Burke |
U.S. Representatives (District 3) from Kentucky 1963-1965 |
Succeeded by Charles R. Farnsley |
| Preceded by Frank Chelf |
U.S. Representatives (District 4) from Kentucky 1967-1987 |
Succeeded by Jim Bunning |
