3. Wilbur Mills
During the Great Depression, Wilbur Mills served as a county judge in
Arkansas and initiated government-funded programs to pay medical and
prescription drug bills for the poor. Mills was elected to the House of
Representatives in 1939 and served until 1977, with 18 of those years
as head of the Ways and Means Committee.
In the 1960s, Mills
played an integral role in the creation of the Medicare program, and he
made an unsuccessful bid for president in the 1972 primary.
Unfortunately for Mills, he's best known for one of Washington's
juiciest scandals.
On October 7, 1974, Mills' car was stopped
by police in West Potomac Park near the Jefferson Memorial. Mills was
drunk and in the back seat of the car with an Argentine stripper named
Fanne Foxe. When the police approached, Foxe fled the car.
Mills
checked into an alcohol treatment center and was reelected to Congress
in November 1974. But just one month later, Mills was seen drunk
onstage with Fanne Foxe. Following the incident, Mills was forced to
resign as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and did not run for
reelection in 1976.
Mills died in 1992, and despite the scandal, several schools and highways in Arkansas are named for him.





