American Politician. Anderson was an Illinois Republican who mounted a serious third-party bid for the White House in 1980. Born John Bayard Anderson, as a child he worked in his father's grocery store. The valedictorian of his high school class, he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the debate team at the University of Illinois, where he graduated in 1942. After Army service in Europe during World War II, he completed a law degree at Illinois in 1946, earned a master of laws degree from Harvard in 1949 and practiced law in his home town. In 1956, Anderson was elected state's attorney of Winnebago County, and four years later, he won the seat of retiring congressman Leo Allen. After entering Congress in 1961, Anderson followed Republican Party orthodoxy and was a supporter of Sen. Barry Goldwater's presidential bid in 1964. Anderson's signature legislative achievement came in April 1968, days after riots sparked by the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Congress passed the Fair Housing Act which would prohibit racial discrimination in housing. He supported the Equal Rights Amendment, freedom of choice on abortion and food-stamp programs. His reversal of support for the Vietnam War by the early 1970s and his early call for President Richard Nixon's resignation during the Watergate scandal placed him in sharp relief against a growing conservatism in the Republican Party. In a field that included Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Anderson campaigned in the Republican presidential primaries in 1980, finishing in second-place in the Massachusetts and Vermont primaries. His best-known campaign proposal was a national 50-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax that would be used to reduce employee Social Security taxes. The federal gas tax at the time was 4 cents. As an independent, he faced an uphill battle to get on the ballot in all 50 states, and to secure campaign funding. He ultimately finished third, with 7 percent of the popular vote and no electoral votes. Reagan won the election. After his career in elective office, Anderson taught constitutional law at Nova Southeastern University near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In the early 2000s, he was president and chief executive of the World Federalist Association, now known as Citizens for Global Solutions, a group formed to promote strengthening the United Nations and forming an international court to try crimes of terrorism or genocide. As chairman of the Center for Voting and Democracy and its program FairVote from 1996 to 2008, he backed a constitutional amendment to dissolve the Electoral College. He also proposed automatic voter registration for all high school seniors.