John G. Schmitz
John George Schmitz (August 12, 1930 - January 10, 2001) was an ultraconserative member of the United States House of Representatives from Orange County, California, prominent member of the John Birch Society, and the American Independent Party candidate for President of the United States in 1972.
Schmitz was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He obtained his B.S. degree from Marquette University in 1952 and an M.A. from California State University, Long Beach in 1960. He served as a United States Marine Corps jet fighter and helicopter pilot from 1952-1960, and became a lieutenant colonel in the United States Marine Corps Reserve from 1960-1983.
Schmitz was an instructor in philosophy and political science at Santa Ana College (now Rancho Santiago College). His right-wing views attracted the attention of wealthy Orange County conservatives such as fast-food magnate Carl Karcher, sporting goods heir Willard Voit and San Juan Capistrano rancher Tom Rogers. He served in the California state senate from 1964-1970, and was elected to the United States Congress as a member of the Republican Party, serving from 1970 until 1973. He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1972. After George Wallace was shot by a would-be assassin, he replaced Wallace as the unsuccessful American Independent Party candidate for President that year.
He ran again in 1976 for Congress, but lost. He did serve as a member of the California state senate from 1978-1982.
He died in Washington, DC, and was intered at Arlington National Cemetery.
John Schmitz was generally considered one of the most conservative members of the Congress, and was known for his outrageous political comments. In 1965, he called the Watts riots "a communist operation". He considered Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan liberals, and suggested, when Nixon first went to China, that it would be best if he not come back. Some of his remarks had anti-Semitic overtones. In 1978, he advocated a military coup, which caused even the John Birch Society to decide that enough was enough -- they revoked his membership.
In 1982, he chaired a committee hearing on abortion, which led to his issuing a press release headlined "Senator Schmitz and His Committee Survive Attack of the Bulldykes". He referred to his audience at the hearings as having "hard, Jewish, and arguably female faces." Feminist attorney Gloria Allred, who had testified before the committee, sued for $10,000,000, but settled for $20,000 and an apology. Schmitz's apology read, in part, "I have never considered her to be ... a slick, butch lawyeress".
That same year, an infant boy was treated at an Orange County hospital for having hair tied so tightly around his penis that it was almost severed. The baby was placed in protective custody, and the court demanded that the baby's father step forward. It turned out that Schmitz, a purported defender of family values, was the father. The baby's mother, a 43-year-old German immigrant, was his mistress and had two children by the former Congressman. This scandal effectively ended his career.
In 1997, Schmitz's daughter, Mary Kay Letourneau, was arrested for the statutory rape of a teenaged boy she had had an affair (and a child) with. Newspapers reported that Letourneau's father had attempted to find a loophole in United States treaties with Samoa in order to find out if his daughter could be excused from trial (the boy victim in the case was of Samoan extraction.)
The newspapers had a field day with the Schmitz family in the wake of the Letourneau case. Investigators painted a picture of a chilly household with an unemotional mother who stressed appearance over affection. At the time of the scandal, it was revealed that John Schmitz had left politics, and was selling souvenirs at Washington, DC's Union Station. He had bought the home of his hero, Senator Joseph McCarthy.