Baby boomers in Iowa’s Class of 1969 were one of three groups of students, and the most recent, to have a political oddity: A senior year with three governors.
Twice before, Iowa had had governors serving under 60 days: Warren Garst from Nov. 24, 1908, to Jan. 14, 1909, and Leo Elthon, from Nov. 22, 1954, to Jan. 13, 1955. The third time came after the election of 1968, when Gov. Harold Hughes was elected to the U.S. Senate and resigned to take his seat when Congress began its session. Taking Hughes’ place for a whole 15 14 days was Robert D. Fulton. The Waterloo Courier did a profile of him in 2007.
Fulton is still alive and thus, technically, Iowa’s oldest living governor, and the shortest-tenured one. The short biographies I find online give Jan. 1, 1969, as the start of his tenure. The Iowa Official Register (“Red Book”) for 1969-70 (large PDF, p. 273) and through to the most recent say Fulton “served the unexpired term from Jan. 1 to Jan. 16, 1969.” BUT the weird thing is, contemporary news sources say Fulton was sworn in a day later!
The Cedar Rapids Gazette ran a short Associated Press story Dec. 21, 1968 — one column on Page 10 between the high school basketball roundup and the classifieds — that said Hughes would resign “effective Jan. 2” to take his seat in Congress the next day. A short AP story about Fulton being sworn in ran on the cover of the Jan. 2 Gazette. The same AP story got bigger play in the Jan. 2 Webster City Daily Freeman-Journal, which said “sworn in today.” So who, exactly, was governor of Iowa while Ohio State was beating USC in the 1969 Rose Bowl? A silly question, perhaps, but how in the world is there conflicting data here, and how would the official record keepers get it wrong right off the bat?
Today (or technically tomorrow) marks a half-century time span over which Iowa had five people serve as governor: Ray, Terry Branstad, Tom Vilsack, Chet Culver, Branstad again, and Kim Reynolds. (Illinois had eight, some of whom have not been to prison.) Reynolds’ inauguration will come two days after the 50th anniversary of the end of the previous time someone sat in the governor’s office without being elected to the post.
In Fulton’s only major action, giving the Condition of the State address, he advocated for the reorganization (read: consolidation) of Iowa’s 99 counties, calling the system “archaic” and “prejudicial to our state’s progress.” (Journal of the Senate, p. 31) In that light, two weeks was more than enough.