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Senate Years of Service: 1935-1962 Party: Democrat
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CHAVEZ, Dennis, a Representative and a Senator from New Mexico; born in Los Chavez,
Valencia County, N.Mex., April 8, 1888; attended the public schools; worked as
a grocers clerk as a boy and later in the engineering department of the city
of Albuquerque; travelled to Washington in 1917 with Senator Andrieus A. Jones
and served as clerk in the office of the Secretary of the United States Senate
1917-1920; graduated from the law department of Georgetown University,
Washington, D.C., in 1920; admitted to the bar in 1920 and commenced practice
in Albuquerque, N.Mex.; member, State house of representatives 1923-1924;
elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-second and Seventy-third Congresses (March
4, 1931-January 3, 1935); chairman, Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation
(Seventy-third Congress); did not seek renomination in 1934, but was an
unsuccessful candidate for United States Senator; appointed as a Democrat on
May 11, 1935, and elected on November 3, 1936, to the United States Senate to
fill the vacancy caused by the death of Bronson M. Cutting; reelected in 1940,
1946, 1952, and again in 1958, and served from May 11, 1935, until his death in
Washington, D.C., November 18, 1962; chairman, Committee on Post Office and
Post Roads (Seventy-ninth Congress), Committee on Public Works (Eighty-first,
Eighty-second, and Eighty-fourth through Eighty-seventh Congresses); interment
in Mount Calvary Cemetery, Albuquerque, N.Mex.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography;
Dictionary of American Biography; Crouch, Barry. Dennis
Chavez and Roosevelts Court-Packing Plan.
New Mexico Historical Review 42 (October 1967): 261-80; Lujan,
Roy. Dennis Chavez and the National Agenda: 1933-1946.
New Mexico Historical Review 74 (January 1999): 55-74.
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