John G. Schmitz

John George Schmitz (August 12, 1930 – January 10, 2001) was an American politician who served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives and California State Senate from Orange County, California. He was also a member of the John Birch Society. In 1972 he was the candidate for president of the United States of the American Independent Party, later known as the American Party. Schmitz was notable for his extreme right-wing sympathies and for his slurs against African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics, women, Jews and homosexuals. By one measure, he was found to be the third-most conservative member of Congress between 1937 and 2002, and the ultraconservative John Birch Society, of which Schmitz was a longtime leader, later expelled him for extremist rhetoric. On October 25, 1971, Schmitz composed an introduction to the highly controversial book None Dare Call It Conspiracy written by Gary Allen with Larry Abraham. In 1982, after it was revealed—and Schmitz admitted—that he had engaged in an extra-marital affair and fathered two children with one of his former college students, Schmitz's career as a politician effectively ended, as did his wife Mary's as a conservative political commentator. His seven children with his wife include politicians John P. Schmitz and Joseph E. Schmitz, and teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, convicted in 1997 of child sexual abuse. Schmitz died in 2001 at the age of 70 from prostate cancer; the former Marine lieutenant colonel was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.