James Lloyd Sundquist

Mr. James Lloyd Sundquist was a political scientist, historian, and author. He passed away in February, 2016 due to natural causes at the age of 100. While in college he began his career as a newspaper reporter but turned to public administration, earning an M.S. from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University and devoting his life to public service and political science scholarship. In 1937, while working for the Salt Lake Tribune, Jim met and married Beth Ritchie of Salt Lake, with whom he spent the next 45 wonderful years until her untimely death in 1982. After Syracuse, in 1941, the couple moved to Arlington, where Jim began a 24-year career in government service and political activity. His first positions were as efficiency expert in the Bureau of the Budget and Office of Defense Mobilization and as speech writer on the White House staff. He became successively top aide to Democratic National Committee chairman Stephen Mitchell, New York Governor W. Averell Harriman, and Sen. Joseph Clark, and then for two years deputy undersecretary of agriculture. In 1965 he joined the Brookings Institution, where as senior fellow and director of governmental studies, he wrote prolifically on the American political system. He produced six books and numerous articles, earning national awards for scholarship in political science. His Making Federalism Work (1969), The Dynamics of the Party System (1973) and The Decline and Resurgence of Congress (1981) appeared on many university reading lists.