Katana VentraIP

David Durenberger

David Ferdinand Durenberger (August 19, 1934 – January 31, 2023) was an American politician and attorney. Durenberger represented Minnesota in the United States Senate as a Republican from 1978 to 1995. He left the Republican Party in 2005 and became a critic of it, endorsing Democratic presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in 2016 and 2020, respectively.[1][2]

David Durenberger

David Ferdinand Durenberger

(1934-08-19)August 19, 1934
St. Cloud, Minnesota, U.S.

January 31, 2023(2023-01-31) (aged 88)
St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.

Judith McGlumphy
​
​
(m. 1962; died 1970)​
Penny Baran Tuohy
​
​
(m. 1971; div. 1993)​
Susan Bartlett Foote
​
​
(m. 1995)​

6

1956–1963

Early life[edit]

Durenberger was born in St. Cloud, Minnesota, the son of Isabelle Marie (née Cebulla) and George Gephard Durenberger.[3] He was a Roman Catholic of German and Polish descent.[4] His father was the athletic director and a coach at Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and the family lived on campus.[3]


Durenberger graduated from St. John's Prep School there in 1951, and from the university in 1955.[5] He attended the University of Minnesota Law School and earned his Juris Doctor in 1959.[6] At St. John's he was the top-rated cadet in his ROTC class,[7] and after college was a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence Corps in 1956 and a captain in the United States Army Reserve from 1957 to 1963.[5]

Professional career[edit]

After law school, Durenberger was employed by a South St. Paul law firm with strong political connections. It had been founded in 1929 by Republican Harold Stassen, later the governor of Minnesota from 1939 to 1943, and Elmer Ryan, a Democrat who was member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1935 to 1941.[8] When Durenberger joined it was headed by Harold LeVander. The firm took the name LeVander, Gillen, Miller and Durenberger.[5]


LeVander, a Republican, was elected governor of Minnesota in 1966 and took office in January 1967, and Durenberger became his executive secretary from then until the end of LeVander's term in 1971. He then joined the H.B. Fuller Company as in-house counsel, corporate secretary, and manager of international licensing until 1978. He also served as chair of the Metropolitan Open Space Advisory Board from 1972 to 1974 and was on the Minnesota State Ethical Practices Board from 1974 to 1978.[5]

Personal life[edit]

Durenberger's first wife, Judith, died of cancer in 1970. He and his second wife, Penny, separated in 1985.[30] Durenberger married his third wife, Susan, in 1995.[31] He had four sons from his first marriage and two stepchildren.[31]


Durenberger died of heart failure at home in St. Paul on January 31, 2023, at age 88.[31][32]

Writings[edit]

A collection of Durenberger's senatorial files is held by the Minnesota Historical Society. It documents his three terms in the United States Senate and is strongest in its documentation of the third (1989–95). The papers are perhaps most significant for the information they contain about his interest in, and legislative activities regarding, health policy and health care reform issues.[33]


Durenberger's books include When Republicans were Progressive,[34] which traces the history of Minnesota's Republican party from the era of Stassen, a moderate Republican governor who took office in 1939, to the ascent of a more conservative strain within the party in the late 1980s (Durenberger lamented the polarization of more recent politics);[35] Neither Madmen nor Messiahs: A Policy of National Security for America (1984), on defense policy; and Prescription for Change (1986), on health care reform.[36][37]

List of American federal politicians convicted of crimes

List of federal political scandals in the United States

List of United States senators expelled or censured

on C-SPAN

Appearances