Richard Schweiker

PHILADELPHIA — Richard Schultz Schweiker, 89, a political novice who rose from the unlikely incubator of Norristown to become a U.S. congressman, senator and secretary of health and human services, died July 31.

Schweiker died of complications from an infection at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in South Jersey. He had lived in McLean, Va., since 1969.

“I am very, very sad to hear that the former senator has passed away,” said Frank R. Bartle, former Montgomery County Republican chairman.

“He is a great man. He was great for the county, great for the state and great for the nation.”

In 1960, at age 34, Schweiker, then a little-known tile company president, won election to the House, where he served on the Government Operations and Armed Services Committee. He represented Pennsylvania’s 13th District.

He was re-elected to the House in 1962, 1964, and 1966. He authored the Schweiker Act of 1965, which provided cash awards to military personnel who suggested money-saving ideas. The act resulted in substantial savings to taxpayers.

Schweiker ran for the Senate in 1968 against Joseph S. Clark Jr., a well-known incumbent and former Philadelphia mayor. He won by a quarter of a million votes, in part by buying billboards that proclaimed “Vote Clark Out.”

The Senate victory gave Schweiker a higher profile. He won re-election in 1974 with 53 percent of the vote, earning the highest vote total for that era of any senator from Pennsylvania since 1946.

In 1976, he was selected by Ronald Reagan to be his running mate if he was selected by the GOP national convention. Reagan was seeking a more moderate presence on the ticket, but the nomination went to President Gerald R. Ford.