Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism

by Rachel Maddow

Langer had been convicted of a bold pocket-lining kickback scheme while serving as governor of his state back in 1934. He was hit with a federal charge, convicted, and sentenced to eighteen months in prison. Governor Langer pronounced his federal criminal conviction illegitimate, rejected the court order removing him from office, declared martial law in the state, attempted to declare North Dakota’s independence from the United States, barricaded himself in his office, and refused to leave. After his supporters filled the streets of Bismarck and called for the shooting of his successor, the lieutenant governor, Langer finally gave up the governorship and then managed to win an appeal of his conviction. He was re-elected governor in 1936, and won a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1940. When he got to Washington, his fellow senators weren’t sure whether they should seat him. A special committee made an investigation into his whole corruption, martial-law, secession, armed-revolt thing and found that Langer’s path to the Senate was definitely problematic. The phrase “moral turpitude” was used. The investigating committee found that Langer had exhibited “continuous, contemptuous, and shameful disregard for high concepts of public duty” and was therefore unfit to serve. The full U.S. Senate took the findings under advisement, but in the end they decided that a little coup here or there didn’t necessarily render a man unfit to serve in the highest legislative body in the nation.