My Favorite Bruce Hagen Story

Saturday is Bruce Hagen’s birthday. He would have been 95. He passed away quietly Thursday of old age.

So I want to tell you my favorite Bruce Hagen story. He won’t be able to read it, but if he could have, he’d remember it. I’ve already told it to a few of you, too. Here it is for the rest of you.

It was Election Day 1982, and I was working at the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party’s state headquarters, that day as a driver for people, ostensibly Democrats, who needed help getting to their polling places.

One of my passengers was an elderly lady who was blind. She called our office looking for a ride. She said she had never missed an election, and wasn’t about to start now.

I went and picked her up and took her to vote. We made our way inside, she identified herself to the election judges, who recognized her, and they gave her the ballot.

She handed it to me and said I should just read it to her and she would tell me who she wanted to vote for, and I could mark it.

There were only four statewide races on the ballot that year: U.S. Senate, Congress, Public Service Commissioner and Labor Commissioner, along with a few judgeships and a slew of ballot measures, most of which failed.

We started. “The first race is for U.S. Senator between Quentin Burdick, the Democrat, and Republican Gene Knorr, and Independent Anna Belle Bourgois.”

“Burdick.”

The second race is for Congress between Democrat Byron Dorgan, Republican Kent Jones, and Independent Don Klingensmith.”

“Dorgan.”

“The next race is for Public Service Commissioner, between Democrat Bruce Hagen and Republican Dale Sandstrom.”

There was a pause. And then she said “Sandstrom. He did a good job as Lieutenant Governor, so I’ll vote for him for this one too.”

Obviously she had confused Sandstrom with Wayne Sanstead, who had been Art Link’s Lieutenant Governor before they were defeated in the 1980 election.

This time I paused, wondering if I should correct her. And then I decided, nah, one less vote wasn’t going to hurt Bruce, so I quietly checked Sandstrom.  

She picked Byron Knutson over Ike Hagen for Labor Commissioner, but she didn’t know any of the judge candidates, so we skipped those, and also the ballot measures. She had just come, she said, to vote for her favorite U.S. Senator, Quentin Burdick, and “that young Dorgan fellow.”

And that was that. We turned in her ballot, headed for the car, I took her home, she thanked me, and I went on to my next ride.

Bruce won, of course, although it was the closest of his many PSC elections, just 10,000 votes out of 250,000.

Much later, as I bumped into Bruce and Dale and Wayne, I told them each the story. They all laughed and said I did the right thing.

And now my friend Bruce has gone on to that great Democratic-NPL caucus in the sky, joining a lot of his friends, other great North Dakota leaders of his time—Quentin Burdick, Bill Guy, Art Link, George Sinner, Lloyd Omdahl, George Gaukler, Ruth Meiers, Buckshot Hoffner, Dick Backes, Francis Barth, Tish Kelly, Herschel Lashkowitz, Corliss Mushik, Walter Christenson, Rollie Redlin, and lots of others. My, he’ll enjoy sitting with that bunch.

Finally, here’s a few things I think I know about Bruce without checking the history books:

• His first run for elective office was in 1960, when he was just 30 years old, running for Commissioner of Agriculture and Labor that fall, joining Bill Guy (for Governor), and Lloyd Omdahl (for Secretary of State), and a bunch of others for lesser offices, on the ballot as members of the newly-merged Democrat and Nonpartisan League ticket. Guy won, ushering in a new era of politics in North Dakota. All the others lost.
• He was the Democrats’ sacrificial lamb twice in runs for Congress against Mark Andrews, in 1968 and 1978. The races weren’t close.
• He’s the only Democrat ever elected to the PSC in state history.
• He was North Dakota’s longest-serving statewide officeholder, even surpassing Ben Meier, serving almost 40 years on the PSC, from 1961, when he was first appointed to the office by Gov. Bill Guy after the death of Ernest Nelson, and then winning elections in 1964, 1970, 1976, 1982, 1988, and 1994, until he retired in 2000 at age 70. I’m pretty sure that in all of our state history, only a few Legislators, including Brynhild Haugland, David Nething, Bob Martinson and a bad guy in a federal prison over in Minnesota, served in any North Dakota elective office longer than Bruce. That’s something.

Rest In Peace, Bruce. You stuck. You won.