Description
Marion Eugene Snyder (January 26, 1928 – February 16, 2007)
Snyder was elected to the House of Representatives from Kentucky's 3rd congressional district, based in Louisville, in 1962. He was one of the few Republicans to vote against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, although he later voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. A Barry M. Goldwater supporter, he was unseated in 1964 after only one term by former Louisville Mayor Charlie Farnsley, amid the gigantic Lyndon B. Johnson-Hubert H. Humphrey Democratic landslide that year.
Snyder then moved to nearby Oldham County, which was in the neighboring 4th District, and prepared for a run against 11-term incumbent Frank Chelf in 1966. The 4th by that time was rapidly trending Republican because of an influx of new residents from Cincinnati; it had absorbed most of the Kentucky side of the Cincinnati metro area in the 1960s round of redistricting. He took full advantage of this trend and defeated Chelf by almost eight points. He was re-elected eight times from this district with almost no difficulty. In 1984, however, Democrat Pat Mulloy ran a surprisingly strong campaign and almost unseated Snyder; only Ronald Reagan's landslide win in Kentucky (by almost twenty points) helped Snyder remain in office. Rather than face Mulloy again, Snyder chose not to seek an 11th term in 1986. The seat then went to the Republican Jim Bunning, who in 1983 had been the unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial nominee against Martha Layne Collins.
In 1982, Congressman Snyder secured federal funds to build a beltway around Louisville. For this reason, a portion of I-265 was named for him. The federal courthouse building in Louisville and a general aviation airport near Falmouth, Kentucky (K62) also bear his name.
Snyder died in Naples, Florida in 2007.
