Hansen was elected Mayor of Alameda in 1961 and supported its merger with Pocatello the following year. Following the merger, Hansen served as a Pocatello City Commissioner until 1965.
He was an unsuccessful candidate in the primary for the U.S. Senate in 1962, but won a seat in the House two years later in the 2nd district, ousting Democratic incumbent Ralph Harding. He was one of the few Republican challengers to unseat a Democrat in the wake of Lyndon B. Johnson's 44-state landslide that year.
He again ran for the U.S. Senate in 1968, but lost by a wide margin to two-term incumbent Frank Church, who would serve four terms. Hansen ran a third unsuccessful Senate campaign in 1972, losing the primary to 1st district congressman Jim McClure.
In 1974, Hansen sought to take his House seat back. He defeated his successor in Congress, three-term incumbent Orval Hansen in the August primary and won the general election to return to the U.S. House. As in 1964, Hansen was one of the few bright spots in a disastrous year for Republicans; in this case, anger at Watergate. In Washington, Hansen was known as one of the most conservative members of Congress, and a particularly vocal critic of the Internal Revenue Service.
Hansen went to Tehran in 1979 amidst the Iran hostage crisis to try to negotiate with the hostage takers through the fence of the U.S. Embassy. No hostages were released. In 1980 Hansen published a book titled To Harass Our People: The IRS and Government Abuse of Power.
Hansen was reelected four times. However, in 1984, his Democratic opponent from two years earlier, Richard Stallings, defeated him by less than 200 votes[2] even in the midst of Ronald Reagan's 49-state landslide that year. Hansen tried unsuccessfully to challenge the election result.
Corruption scandals
Campaign finance law violations
In 1974, Hansen became the first member of Congress to be convicted of violating a 1971 campaign finance law requiring disclosure of all financial contributions to his campaign. A federal judge found him guilty of not disclosing all his loans and profits, and sentenced him to pay a fine.[3]
Failure to file income tax forms
In October 1976, it was revealed by the Lewiston Morning Tribune that Hansen had failed to file his income tax returns for several years. The first instance was in the spring of 1969 when Hansen had a pending USDA appointment and a routine background check by the FBI had found the omission. The director of the IRS office in Boise was ordered by higher ups in the Treasury Department to open the office on a Saturday (May 3, 1969) so that Hansen could travel to Boise from Washington, D.C. to file the delinquent taxes for years 1966, 1967 and 1968 and pay what was owed. Hansen was also late filing for 1970, 1971, 1973 and 1975.[4] A month later Hansen still managed to win reelection, although by the smallest margin in November 1976 among his many elections to Congress, until his defeat in 1984.
Filing false disclosure statements
In 1983, Hansen was indicted by a federal grand jury on four charges of filing false financial disclosure statements. He was accused of concealing more than $245,000 in loans and $87,000 in profits from silver speculation, much of it in his wife's name.
Violation of Ethics Act
In 1984 Hansen was convicted of violating the 1978 Ethics in Government Act. He had failed to disclose $334,000 in personal loans to his campaign. He was sentenced to six months in prison and fined $40,000. Appealing all the way to the US Supreme Court, his conviction was vacated and the fine returned to him.[5][6][7]
Bank fraud
In 1992, Hansen was in prison again on charges of defrauding two Idaho banks and 100 individuals in a $30 million investment scheme. He was sentenced to four years in prison.[8]
