Larry Pressler

Pressler continued his public lectures including a speech at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, Poland, on June 4, 2018, for the 2018 International Security Forum.

Pressler is married to Harriet Pressler. The couple has one daughter and four grandchildren. In 2015, at the age of 73, Pressler converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

During the 2014 campaign, Pressler was endorsed by South Dakota's two largest newspapers, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader and the Rapid City Journal, as well as The Daily Republic in Mitchell. The race also drew some national attention. The Wall Street Journal reported, "Republicans had been expected to easily win the open Senate seat in South Dakota this year, but the race has tightened recently. Earlier this month, Democrats began sending cash to the race after concluding the unusual, four-way race was winnable." The New York Times said, "A race that most had thought was safely Republican is suddenly the focus of national attention, thanks to the surprisingly successful candidacy of former Senator Larry Pressler, a Republican who is running as an independent."

Pressler ultimately lost the 2014 Senate election to Governor Rounds.

In 2013, Pressler was a signatory to an amicus curiae brief submitted to the Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage during the Hollingsworth v. Perry case.

The Native American Times reported in November 2013 that Pressler, at the age of 71, was weighing an independent comeback bid for the seat vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Tim Johnson in the 2014 election. After being approached by a group of citizens asking him to run, Pressler assessed his chances of victory by saying, "I think it's possible but unlikely." At the conclusion of an exploratory tour of South Dakota's 66 counties in late 2013, however, Pressler announced his candidacy and stated confidently, "I intend to win." Pressler faced Republican former Governor Mike Rounds, Democratic congressional aide Rick Weiland, and independent conservative state legislator Gordon Howie in a four-way race.

In October 2012, based on veterans' issues, Pressler endorsed Obama for a second term with an article in The Huffington Post and on national television networks. Pressler campaigned in a bipartisan team for Obama in the fall of 2012, speaking on behalf of the Obama ticket to certain veteran's groups in Virginia.

He taught as a distinguished visiting professor at Sciences Po University, Paris, France, and Reims, France, in the fall of 2012. He chiefly teaches international relations to graduate students.

On November 10, 2009, President Obama named Pressler to the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad. He also serves on the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission.

During the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections he endorsed and voted for Barack Obama. Pressler endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election and Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

Pressler was appointed an official observer of Ukraine's national election in December 2004.

Pressler attempted a political comeback in 2002 by running for South Dakota's open at-large House seat but he essentially discontinued his campaign when Republican governor Bill Janklow unexpectedly entered the race.

During the 2000 presidential election he served on Governor George W. Bush's presidential campaign on its Information Technology Steering Committee, and later served on the Bush Presidential Transition Team in 2001.

Pressler authored and won Congressional and Presidential approval of a sweeping reform of telecommunications legislation through the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Among Pressler's staffers included future U.S. Attorney Kevin V. Schieffer and future state senator Neal Tapio.

He briefly sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, campaigning on Vietnam veterans' issues.

During a sting operation conduced as part of the Abscam investigations in 1980, Pressler refused to take a bribe from undercover FBI agents and reported the bribe attempt. In a front-page story, The Washington Post reported:

He served in the Senate from 1979 to 1997 and was chairman of the Commerce Committee (1995–97). While in the Senate, he also served on the Science and Transportation Committee, Foreign Relations Committee and European and Asian Subcommittees. Pressler ran for a fourth term in 1996 but lost by three points to Democratic Congressman Tim Johnson.

In 1978, he was elected to the United States Senate, succeeding retiring Democratic incumbent James Abourezk and became the first veteran of the Vietnam War to serve in the Senate.

During the 1976 Republican presidential primaries, he criticized the rivalry between President Gerald Ford and former governor Ronald Reagan which he stated would hurt moderate Republicans as both Ford and Reagan were pushing their conservative stances.

In March 1976, Jack Anderson and Les Whitten claimed that multiple articles written by Pressler had been copied in their entirety from The Washington Post and other newspapers. Pressler denied the charge of plagiarism, but admitted that a January 1976 article had "accidentally" included excerpts from The Washington Post .

After winning reelection in 1976 with almost eighty percent of the vote, Pressler stated that he was interested in running for Senate in 1978.

In April 1975, he was accepted as a member of the Congressional Rural Caucus, later supported having open committee meetings for the House Republican Conference, and throughout the year he served as assistant minority leader to Minority Leader John Jacob Rhodes. On April 2, 1975, he was hospitalized at the Bethesda Naval Hospital to be treated for diverticulitis and had surgery in December for it. Later in the month he cosponsored legislation to create a House select committee to reinvestigate the assassinations John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and the attempted assassination of George Wallace. On July 30, the House voted 214 to 213 to increase its salary from $42,500 to $44,600. Pressler and eight other members of the House stated that they would not keep the raise given to members of Congress.

In 1975 Pressler cosponsored a bill that would prohibit the importation of beef and dairy products to improve domestic sales of those products to help farmers and he later asked President Gerald Ford to place a tariff on all imported cheese products. He later sent a letter to Vern Loen, one of Ford's advisors, stating that Harry S. Truman's victory in the 1948 presidential election was due to his support among farmers in swing states. He stated that in order to gain the vote of farmers that Ford should impose tariffs on dairy products while subsidizing exporting dairy products, removing most favored nation trade status for countries that have restrictions on United States beef, dairy, and pork products, and to give equal priority to agricultural products that industrial products were given at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

The House of Representatives voted 212 to 202 in favor of allotting $3.5 billion to foreign aid in the 1975 budget with Pressler voting against it stating that the United States couldn't afford to give money to foreign countries and criticized the $1 billion given to Middle Eastern countries for weapons. On September 2, 1975, he criticized the Sinai Interim Agreement as it would have as it would give $2.8 billion to Israel, $2.3 billion to Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab states, and require the United States to send 100 technicians to observe the Israeli-Egyptian border. On April 28, 1976, he voted against a $3.2 billion foreign military aid increase as it would be given to both sides participating in the Cyprus dispute.

On April 28, 1975, Pressler stated that American military bases in Europe should be relocated to the United States to improve the economy and due to European aggravation against the United States military presence. After President Ford gave his State of the Union Address in 1976 Pressler criticized him for not offering national defense spending cuts.

In 1975 Pressler supported a bill to create a Missing In Action select committee to investigate the 921 cases of soldiers still missing in action from the Vietnam War.

In 1974, he filed to run for the Republican nomination in the 1st District on the last day possible and later won it, but the South Dakota Republican Party told him that he would not be given any campaign funds. Despite the Watergate scandal hurting the Republicans nationally in the 1974 elections Pressler was one of six Republicans to gain a seat held by the Democrats.

During the 1968 House elections Pressler considered running for the Democratic nomination for the 1st Congressional District, but chose not to run.

He joined the United States Army and served in the Vietnam War from 1966 until 1968. After returning from Vietnam as a first lieutenant, he served for several years in the United States Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer. He later attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Harvard Law School where he graduated in 1971. In 1970 he became the business manager of the Harvard Law Record.

Larry Lee Pressler was born in Humboldt, South Dakota, to Loretta Claussen and Antone Lewis Pressler and was raised on his family's farm. In 1961 he was selected as one of four 4-H members to attend the World Agricultural Fair in Cairo, Egypt. At the 1962 National 4-H Club Congress in Chicago, Illinois, he was one of two recipients of the national citizenship award and also selected to meet with President John F. Kennedy on March 4, 1963.

In 1963, he defeated Steve Byrnes with 1,014 to 909 votes and was elected as president of the University of South Dakota's Student Association to serve until 1964. He graduated from the University of South Dakota in 1964 and was later awarded the Rhodes Scholarship. Pressler attended St. Edmund Hall at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar and received a Bachelor of Arts. He returned to the United States and in 1966 completed his Master of Public Administration degree at Harvard University.

Larry Lee Pressler (born March 29, 1942) is an American lawyer and politician from South Dakota who served in the United States House of Representatives (1975–1979) and United States Senate (1979–1997) as a Republican. He remained active in politics following his failed reelection campaign in 1996 and attempted to regain his former seat in 2014 as an independent, but was unsuccessful. He has since supported the Democratic tickets.