Witwer for U.S. Senator

Blue and white photograph of a man's head and shoulders on a white background in the middle of the button with white text on a blue background around the outer edge

Known as the "father of the Illinois constitution," Samuel W. Witwer was a Chicago lawyer who was born in Colorado in 1908. Witwer unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Paul H. Douglas in 1960. He attended Dickinson College and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1933. He was the Illinois state chairman for the Committee for Constitutional Revision from 1950-1957, and was chosen as president of an Illinois state constitutional convention in 1968. Witwer was board president of Dickinson College for 15 years and director of several civic organizations such as the Chicago Urban League, the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, and Citizens for a Greater Chicago. He died in 1998.