Republican who called for Nixon’s impeachment
Lawrence J. Hogan Sr., a combative politician in Prince George’s County, Md., who rose to national prominence in 1974 by being the first GOP member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee to call for President Richard M. Nixon’s impeachment, died Thursday. He was 88. His son, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan Jr., announced the death on Facebook. A spokesman for the governor said the elder Mr. Hogan died of complications from a stroke.
In more than 25 years in county and Maryland politics, Mr. Hogan cultivated an image as a scrappy politician with an instinct for the jugular and as a right-wing Republican who cemented his political career by wooing Democrats.
First as a three-term congressman and later as Prince George’s County executive, Mr. Hogan was dogged by controversy and disdained by some Republicans and Democrats as an opportunist who mounted one bandwagon after another in search of political prominence.
In 1970, Mr. Hogan was reelected to Congress with 60 percent of the vote by embracing the Vietnam War; his opponent, state Sen. Royal Hart, was a peace candidate. Two years later, Mr. Hogan rallied white Democrats to his campaign as he led the fight against busing to integrate the county’s schools.
His most controversial move, one that brought him national attention but severely strained his credibility within the Republican Party, was when Mr. Hogan deserted the Nixon camp the day before the House Judiciary Committee was to begin debate on impeachment in July 1974 and announced at a news conference that he favored removing the president from office.
As syndicated columnist George F. Will wrote at the time: “Mr. Hogan’s announcement was, for the White House, an experience comparable to being slugged on the base of the skull with a sock full of wet sand.”
Mr. Hogan, who was a gubernatorial candidate and was largely unknown in Maryland outside of Prince George’s, followed up with a statewide television broadcast that night. The stand helped cost him the Republican primary — incumbent Democrat Marvin Mandel won the general election— and stalled his political career.