Portrait of Richard S. Schweiker

A Digital Research Archive

Richard S. Schweiker

Documenting the life, career, and public record of a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of Health and Human Services.

  • Representative, Pennsylvania's 13th District: 1961–1969
  • Senator from Pennsylvania: 1969–1981
  • Secretary of Health and Human Services: 1981–1983
Richard S. Schweiker

Biography

Richard Schultz Schweiker (June 1, 1926, Norristown, Pennsylvania – July 31, 2015, Pomona, New Jersey), Republican.

Richard S. Schweiker represented Pennsylvania's 13th District in the U.S. House (1961–1969) and the state at large in the U.S. Senate (1969–1981), then served as the 14th U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Reagan (1981–1983). He began his career as a moderate Rockefeller Republican and grew steadily more conservative after Reagan named him his preemptive running mate ahead of the 1976 Republican National Convention — an alliance told in full on the Deep Dives tab. The complete chronological record, including his Senate Intelligence Committee work reviewing the original JFK assassination investigation, is on the Timeline tab.

As Secretary, he spent much of his two years defending the department's budget against the administration's own proposed cuts, and his name went on the 1981 Social Security proposal Congress rejected. The more lasting record is quieter: the plan that became Medicare's prospective payment system for hospitals, the Medicaid waiver that let Katie Beckett be cared for at home and became a national option for disabled children, and the first federal tamper-resistant packaging rules after the Tylenol murders. The full account is the "Two Years at HHS" Deep Dive; the regulations he signed and the lawsuits brought against the department are on the Policy tab.

Claire Schweiker

His wife, Claire Joan Coleman Schweiker, was a Philadelphia native and the valedictorian of her high school class. Before their 1955 marriage, she was the original "Miss Claire" on Romper Room, the pioneering children's educational program then broadcasting out of Philadelphia — one of the show's earliest hostesses, from 1954 to 1956 — and gave it up after she and Richard met and married six months later. Raised, like her husband, in what she called a "strictly Pennsylvania Dutch family that stressed values and service," she would later say the two of them "see our primary purpose in life as serving God."

A 1953 radio and television broadcasting graduate of Temple University — later the first recipient of the school's Alumni in the Media award and a member of its hall of fame — she moved to Washington after her husband's election to the House in 1960. She gave speeches on public service, health, and faith into the early 1990s, served as vice chairman of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation Ball, and was a former president of the District's Republican Wives Club, alongside memberships in the International Club of Washington, the Senate Wives Club, and the Senate Ladies Red Cross Unit. In September 1981, The Washington Dossier put the couple on its cover for a profile titled "For a Healthy America."

Claire Schweiker died April 28, 2013, of respiratory failure at Inova Loudoun Hospital in Leesburg, Virginia, at age 81 — survived by her husband of 57 years, their five children, a sister, and 23 grandchildren.

Legacy: How His Story Gets Retold

His 1976 selection remains the standard historical reference point whenever a presidential candidate considers naming a running mate before securing the nomination. This is a representative sample of that recurring coverage, not an exhaustive news archive.

"A Gamble Gone Wrong"
TIME (cover story) · 1976-08

Contemporary coverage calling Reagan's move "one of the most astonishing and bizarre turnabouts in a campaign full of surprises" after it failed to swing the nomination.

Read it →
Cruz names Fiorina as running mate before the nomination — coverage reaches for the 1976 precedent
NBC News / MSNBC / NPR / TIME / CNBC · 2016-04

When Ted Cruz named Carly Fiorina his running mate before the 2016 nomination was decided, outlets across the board cited the Reagan-Schweiker gambit as the direct historical precedent — and the cautionary tale, since it failed both times.

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"When Ronald Reagan stunned America by picking a liberal running mate"
The Washington Post · 2024-07-11

A Trump-era retrospective using the 1976 episode as the history lesson for modern speculation about unconventional running-mate strategy.

Read it →

Authored Works

Three works he wrote or contributed to, drawn from Wikipedia's own bibliography for him.

How to End the Draft: The Case for an All-Volunteer Army (1967)
Co-author, with Reps. Robert T. Stafford, Frank J. Horton, Garner E. Shriver, and Charles W. Whalen Jr. · National Press

An early, detailed case for shifting the United States to an all-volunteer military, later used as a blueprint for the actual transition.

Accessories After the Fact: The Warren Commission, the Authorities & the Report (1976)
Contributed the introduction · Vintage Books (by Sylvia Meagher)

Written the same year as the Church Committee's review of the original Kennedy assassination investigation.

"Health Care: Making a Good System Better," in A Changing America: Conservatives View the '80s From the United States Senate (1980)
Contributing author · Regnery, edited by Sen. Paul Laxalt and Richard S. Williamson

A chapter-length statement of his health-policy views, published the year before he became HHS Secretary.

Sources

Home Life & Career

Timeline

His life and career year by year, from Norristown and the Navy through Congress, the 1976 campaign, HHS and after.

Sources are cited with each entry.

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Home Life & Career

Deep Dives

Long-form, sourced narratives on the chapters of his career that need more than a timeline entry.

Sources and notes follow each piece.

Home Life & Career

Connections

The presidents, senators and other public figures whose careers crossed his, and what the record shows they did together.

Sources: Congress.gov, Voteview.com (UCLA), and this archive's news collection.

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Home In Congress

Topics

Everything on the site about one subject, from bills and floor speeches to archive folders.

Congress.gov policy areas and Penn State's folder categories.

Legislation, floor-record mentions, and archive folders grouped by subject, drawn from Congress.gov's own policy-area tags and the archive's folder categories rather than a separately curated list. Select a topic to view everything on this site connected to it.

Legislation (49, showing 25)

S. 731 — A bill to amend titles XVIII and XIX of the Social Security Act to strengthen the capabilities of States and the Federal Government to detect medicaid fraud and abuse.
Sponsored · 1979-03-22
S. 526 — A bill to amend title XI of the Social Security Act to provide that a Professional Standards Review Organization shall not be considered to be an agency of the Federal Government.
Sponsored · 1979-03-01
S. 3196 — A bill to amend title XI of the Social Security act to provide that a Professional Standards Review Organization shall not be considered to be an agency of the Federal Government.
Sponsored · 1978-06-13
S. 2078 — A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 and the Social Security Act to provide an exemption from coverage under the social security program through a tax refund procedure, for employees who are members of religious faiths which oppose participation in such program; and to provide a similar exemption on a current basis (pursuant to waiver certificates filed in advance) for employers engaged in farming and their employees in cases where both are members of such faiths; and to make the existing exemption for self-employed members of such families available to certain additional individuals.
Sponsored · 1977-09-09
S. 3001 — A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 and the Social Security Act to provide an exemption from coverage under the social security program, through a tax refund procedure, for employees who are members of religious faiths which oppose participation in such program, and to provide a similar exemption on a current basis (pursuant to waiver certificates filed in advance) for employers engaged in farming and their employees in cases where both are members of such faiths; and to make all existing exemptions for self-employed members of such faiths available to certain additional individuals.
Sponsored · 1976-02-19
S. 563 — A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 and title II of the Social Security Act so as to permit exclusion from social security coverage and refund of social security tax to members of certain religious groups who are opposed to insurance.
Sponsored · 1973-01-26
H.R. 12882 — A bill to provide for the medical and hospital care of the aged through a system of voluntary health in- surance and tax credits, and for other pur- poses; to the Committee on Ways and Means
Sponsored · 1962-08-17
S. 591 — A bill to amend title XVI of the Social Security Act with respect to presumptive disability, earned income in sheltered workshops, benefits for individuals who work despite a severe medical impairment, and the exclusion of certain work expenses in determining substantial gainful activity.
Cosponsored
S. 603 — A bill to amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to provide that States may include coverage under medicaid for individuals who perform substantial gainful activity despite a severe medical disability.
Cosponsored
S. 76 — A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to authorize payment under the medicare program for certain services performed by chiropractors.
Cosponsored
S. 143 — Medicare-Medicaid Anti-Fraud and Abuse Amendments
Cosponsored
S. 708 — A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide payment for rural health clinic services.
Cosponsored
S. 1014 — A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 to provide a tax credit or deduction to individuals who maintain within their homes a dependent aged 65 or older.
Cosponsored
S. 1711 — A bill to amend title XVI of the Social Security Act to provide that an alien may not qualify for supplemental security income benefits unless he not only is a permanent resident of the United States but has also continuously resided in the United States for at least five years.
Cosponsored
S.CON.RES. 24 — A concurrent resolution expressing opposition to proposed curtailment of benefits under medicare.
Cosponsored
S.CON.RES. 2 — A Concurrent Resolution disapproving 5-percent ceiling on social security cost-of-living increases.
Cosponsored
S. 123 — A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for the coverage of certain clinical psychologists' services under the supplementary medical insurance benefits program established by part B of such title.
Cosponsored
S. 169 — A bill to amend title II of the Social Security Act to provide that the amount of an individual's earnings shall, for purposes of the provisions thereof requiring deductions from benefits on account of excess earnings, be deemed to be reduced by an amount equal to the expenses paid by him during the taxable year for medical care for himself.
Cosponsored
S. 308 — A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for the coverage, under the supplementary medical insurance benefits program established by part B of such title, of one routine physical checkup each year and for preventive care for individuals insured under such program.
Cosponsored
S. 278 — A bill to amend title II of the Social Security Act to permit the payment of benefits to a married couple on their combined earnings record.
Cosponsored
S. 388 — Social Security Administration Act
Cosponsored
S. 451 — A bill to amend XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for coverage under part B of medicare for routine exfoliative cytology tests for the diagnosis of uterine cancer.
Cosponsored
S. 445 — A bill to assure that an individual or family, whose income is increased by reason of a general increase in monthly social security benefits, will not, because of such general increase, suffer a loss of or reduction in the benefits the individual or family has been receiving under certain Federal or federally- assisted programs.
Cosponsored
S. 560 — A bill to amend title II of the Social Security Act to increase the amount which individuals may earn without suffering deductions from benefits on account of excess earnings.
Cosponsored
S. 525 — A bill to amend the Social Security Act to freeze medicare deductibles.
Cosponsored

Archive folders at Penn State (121, showing 25)

S.2157: Amend Title XX of Social Security Act, 1975
Legislation — Aged, Means Test · Box 40, Folder 2
Projects, undated
Legislation — Aged, Means Test · Box 40, Folder 3
S.2720: Ammendment #1911: Use of Medicare Cards for Reduced Mass Transit Fares, 1980
Aged, Miscellaneous · Box 40, Folder 4
S.1269: Medicare Mass Transit Bill, 1979
Aged, Miscellaneous · Box 40, Folder 5
S.2868: Older Americans Tax Counseling Assistance Act, 1974
Aged, Miscellaneous · Box 40, Folder 6
S.582: Senior Citizens Not on Welfare, 1973
Aged, Miscellaneous · Box 40, Folder 7
S.775: Establish National Institute on Aging, 1973
Aged, Miscellaneous · Box 40, Folder 8
S.2157: Amend Title XX of Social Security Act, 1975
Aged, Miscellaneous · Box 40, Folder 9
S.1269: Medicare Card Trans. Bill, 1979
Aged, Miscellaneous · Box 40, Folder 10
S.CON.RES.86: Oppose Increase in Medical Costs for Aged, 1976
Aged, Miscellaneous · Box 40, Folder 11
H.R.1115: (Comm. Amt.) Trans/Elderly to Feeding Sites, 1974
Aged, Miscellaneous · Box 40, Folder 12
Projects, undated
Aged, Miscellaneous · Box 40, Folder 13
S.2850, #2449: Elderly, 1978
Aged, Older Americans Act · Box 40, Folder 14
S.1425: Amend Older Americans Act of 1965, 1975
Aged, Older Americans Act · Box 40, Folder 15
S.962: Community Service Employment Program for Aged, 1975
Aged, Older Americans Act · Box 40, Folder 16
S.4138: Older Americans Act of 1965, 1974
Aged, Older Americans Act · Box 40, Folder 17
S.50: Older Americans Act of 1965, Strengthen and Improve, 1973
Aged, Older Americans Act · Box 40, Folder 18
S.444: Older Americans Act, 1972
Aged, Older Americans Act · Box 40, Folder 19
S.3391: Older Americans Act, 1972
Aged, Older Americans Act · Box 40, Folder 20
S.3181: Establish Office of Aging, 1972
Aged, Older Americans Act · Box 40, Folder 21
Projects, undated
Aged, Older Americans Act · Box 40, Folder 22
S.114: Amend Internal Revenue Code, 1977
Aged, Taxes/Tax Credits · Box 40, Folder 23
Church Amendment: Allow Taxpayers Over 65 to Claim "Retirement Income" or "Elderly Credit", 1977
Aged, Taxes/Tax Credits · Box 40, Folder 24
H.R.3477, #190: Tax Reduction and Simplification, 1977
Aged, Taxes/Tax Credits · Box 40, Folder 25
Projects, undated
Aged, Taxes/Tax Credits · Box 40, Folder 26

Home In Congress

Legislation

The bills he sponsored and cosponsored in the House and Senate, 1961–1980.

Sources: Congress.gov (Library of Congress), with House-years bills from the Congressional Record.

Congress.gov's bill database reliably covers 1973 (the 93rd Congress) onward; his House years (1961–1969) are represented unevenly as a result. Bills marked from the floor record were identified instead through the Congressional Record's bill-introduction announcements for that period — they carry no committee, cosponsor, or related-bill data, but supplement the earlier record. The Speeches page covers the remainder of that period. Select any bill to view its details.

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Home At HHS

HHS Regulations

The Federal Register documents he signed or approved as Secretary of Health and Human Services, 1981–1983.

Source: the Library of Congress's scans of the Federal Register.

Every Federal Register Document Bearing His Signature

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Home At HHS

HHS Litigation

Published court opinions captioned with his name, as every case against the department was while he was Secretary.

Source: the Caselaw Access Project, Harvard Law School Library.

Published Court Opinions Naming Him as a Party

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Home In Congress

Voting Record

Every recorded roll-call vote he cast: House 1961–1969, Senate 1969–1981.

Source: Voteview.com (UCLA).

DateChamberBillDescriptionHis VoteResult
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Home In Congress

Speeches & Floor Record

His floor statements and other appearances in the Congressional Record, 1961–1983, with full transcripts where available.

Source: GovInfo.gov's digitized Congressional Record.

Full Floor Record

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Home Coverage & Media

In the News

Newspaper coverage that names him, 1955–1995.

Sources: The New York Times, Penn State's Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive, and the Library of Congress.

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Home Coverage & Media

Photographs

Public-domain photographs, and a guide to the photograph collection in his papers.

Sources: the U.S. Senate, the Library of Congress, the National Library of Medicine, and Penn State.

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Home Coverage & Media

Video & Audio

Footage of him from C-SPAN, the Reagan Library and documentaries about the Church Committee.

Sources: C-SPAN and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

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Home For Researchers

Archive Finder

A searchable guide to the boxes and folders of his papers at Penn State.

Source: Penn State's finding aid for the Richard S. Schweiker papers.

This site covers what is digitized and publicly searchable. For personal correspondence, internal drafts, press statements, and other material not represented elsewhere here, the primary source is the physical collection below. Search a topic to identify the box and folder that hold it, so a research visit can begin with a precise list rather than an open-ended search.

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