Robert Lee Stump (April 4, 1927 – June 20, 2003) was an American politician who served as a U.S. Congressman from Arizona. He served as a member from the Democratic Party from 1977 to 1983 and then later a member of the Republican Party until the end of his tenure as congressman.
He served four terms in the Arizona House of Representatives from 1959 to 1967, and five terms in the Arizona State Senate, from 1967 to 1976. He served as President of the Arizona State Senate from 1975 to 1976.
Stump wore his party ties very loosely. He considered himself a "Pinto Democrat," the popular name for conservative Democrats from rural Arizona, and his voting record was strongly conservative. His profile was similar to those of conservative Democrats from the South. He voted for Ronald Reagan's tax cuts in 1981. Shortly after that vote, he announced he would become a Republican when Congress reconvened in January 1982. Regardless of his party affiliation, he never faced serious competition at the ballot box. After his initial run for Congress, he only dropped below 60 percent of the vote once, in 1990. He only faced an independent in 1978, and was completely unopposed in 1986.[2]
He briefly considered running for the Senate in 1986 after Barry Goldwater decided to retire.[3]
Described as "quiet" and "assiduously private",[3] Stump kept a fairly low profile for most of his tenure. He had only a skeleton staff; he was known to answer the phone himself at his Washington, D.C. office, and to open his own mail.[3][4][5] Stump usually returned home to work his farm in Tolleson on weekends.
In November 1997, Stump was one of eighteen Republicans in the House to co-sponsor a resolution by Bob Barr that sought to launch an impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton.[6][7] The resolution did not specify any charges or allegations.[7] This was an early effort to impeach Clinton, predating the eruption of the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal. The eruption of that scandal would ultimately lead to a more serious effort to impeach Clinton in 1998.[8] On October 8, 1998, Stump voted in favor of legislation that was passed to open an impeachment inquiry.[9]On December 19, 1998, Stump voted in favor of all four proposed articles of impeachment against Clinton (only two of which received the majority of votes needed to be adopted).[10][11][12][13]
In his 26 years in the House he became a noted member of the House Armed Services Committee, serving as chairman from 2001 to 2003. He'd chaired the House Veterans' Affairs Committee from 1995 to 2001, when he was forced to give that post up due to caucus-imposed term limits. He is one of the few members of the House to chair both committees.[14] He consistently supported increased spending on the military and veterans.[4][5][15] The 2003 military appropriations authorization act was named after him in recognition of his commitment to the military as the Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003.[16]
Stump sponsored bills to make English the official language for government business and to alter laws so that children born on US soil to non-citizen parents would not automatically be citizens.[5] According to Amy Silverson, he was "best known in Congress as a perpetual naysayer, casting votes against almost all spending programs."[3]
Although his district included the entire northwestern portion of Arizona, the great majority of its residents lived in the West Valley. Stump was often accused of addressing himself mainly to the West Valley and ignoring the other portions of his sprawling district, even though the district's center of gravity had moved to the West Valley as early as the 1970s. Indeed, many of his constituents rarely saw him. He maintained his district office in downtown Phoenix, outside his own district, for many years.[3] Although he claimed his farm in Tolleson as his residence in the district, his main residence was in another portion of Phoenix outside the district. However, Stump told The Arizona Republic that he saw the farm as "my place of business," and knew that "nobody ever thought I resided there." He believed that "you declare your residency wherever you want.[19] Stump would have been well within his rights to claim his Phoenix home as his official residence, as members of the House are only required to live in the state they represent.
Bob Hope announcement
After the Associated Pressmistakenly placed Bob Hope's obituary on its web site in June 1998, Stump announced on the floor of the House that the entertainer had died.[20][21] This was quickly denied by his daughter and publicist; Hope outlived Stump by five weeks, dying in 2003 at the age of 100.
Death and legacy
Grave site of Robert Lee Stump and Nancy Stump
He decided not to run for re-election in 2002 due to declining health. He endorsed his longtime chief of staff, Lisa Jackson Atkins, as his successor in what was then numbered as the 2nd District. Atkins had been very visible in the district, to the point that many thought she actually represented it rather than Stump. However, Atkins was defeated in a seven way Republican primary by Trent Franks, who held the seat
until December 2017. Stump died June 20, 2003, of myelodysplasia, a blood disorder and was buried at Greenwood/Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery in Phoenix with full military honors.[3][4][15]
In 2004, the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Prescott, Arizona, was renamed the Bob Stump Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Stump is no relation to the member of the Arizona Corporation Commission of the same name. In 2006, SR 303L was renamed the Bob Stump Memorial Highway.[22]
In 2018, Stump's widow issued a letter, criticizing an Arizona state government politician of the same name for allegedly capitalizing on her late husband's name. The letter was met with a sharp rebuke by the state government politician's mother.[23]
