Representative Glenn Poshard

Glendal William Poshard (born October 30, 1945) is an American educator and former politician who served as an Illinois State Senator and U.S. Representative from Illinois, holding five consecutive terms in Congress from 1989 to 1999. A member of the Democratic Party, he contributed to the legislative process during a significant period in American history, representing the interests of his southern Illinois constituents while developing a reputation as a socially conservative, fiscally progressive populist. He later became a candidate for governor of Illinois and served as president of the Southern Illinois University system.

Poshard was born on October 30, 1945, in Herald, Illinois, a small community in the southern part of the state. He grew up in modest circumstances in rural Illinois, experiences that would later inform his populist political outlook and his emphasis on public education and economic opportunity. He served in the United States Army with the 1st Cavalry Division, spending time in South Korea during his military service. Following his discharge, he returned to Illinois and pursued higher education at Southern Illinois University, an institution that would remain central to his professional life.

A three-degree graduate of Southern Illinois University, Poshard received a bachelor’s degree in secondary education in 1970, a master’s degree in educational administration in 1974, and a Ph.D. in the administration of higher education in 1984. After completing his undergraduate studies, he worked as a high school teacher and coach, reflecting his early commitment to youth and public education. From 1975 to 1984 he served as director of the Southern Illinois Educational Service Center in Benton, Illinois, where he oversaw regional educational programs and services for local school districts. This combination of classroom experience, administrative leadership, and advanced academic training in education laid the groundwork for his later roles in both state government and university administration.

Poshard’s formal political career began in the early 1980s. In the 1982 Democratic primary, he challenged incumbent State Senator Gene Johns but was unsuccessful. After Johns’s death in 1984, local Democratic leaders appointed Poshard to fill the vacancy in the Illinois State Senate. The appointment was contested politically: Johns’s widow, Eve Johns, sought the appointment and, after being passed over, ran as an independent in the general election. With no Republican candidate emerging from the primary, local Republican leaders nominated State Representative Robert Winchester. In the 1984 general election, Poshard prevailed with 47,230 votes to Winchester’s 39,173 and Eve Johns’s 5,862. He was reelected in 1986 by a commanding margin over Republican Richard Simmons of Marion. Poshard served in the Illinois State Senate from August 1984 until January 2, 1989, when he resigned to take his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. His Senate seat was subsequently filled by State Representative Jim Rea, chosen by local Democratic leaders from a field of fourteen applicants.

In 1988 Poshard ran for the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois’s 22nd Congressional District and was elected to the 101st Congress, beginning his service in January 1989. Following the 1990 Census, Illinois lost a congressional district, and Poshard’s 22nd District was merged with the neighboring 19th District represented by fellow Democrat Terry L. Bruce. The newly drawn district contained roughly 40 percent of Bruce’s former constituents and 30 percent of Poshard’s. Despite being heavily outspent in the Democratic primary—approximately $800,000 to $200,000—Poshard secured large majorities in the far southern portion of the district and won the nomination with about 62 percent of the vote. He went on to be reelected to another three terms, serving in the House from January 3, 1989, to January 3, 1999. During his five terms in Congress, he was known as a social conservative and fiscal progressive populist: he opposed abortion, same-sex marriage, and the death penalty largely on religious grounds, and he was a critic of free trade agreements. At the same time, he supported campaign finance reform and economic policies aimed at working- and middle-class voters. The National Taxpayers Union ranked him 13th out of 256 Democrats in the 103rd Congress, reflecting his attention to fiscal issues. He sponsored the Illinois Wilderness Act of 1990, which created the Garden of the Gods Wilderness, and he cosponsored major legislation including the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century and the Credit Union Membership Access Act. He also voted against the proposed Flag Desecration Amendment. While in Congress, Poshard twice appeared on Roll Call’s “Obscure Caucus” list, an indication of his low national media profile and his focus on district needs over personal publicity.

Poshard chose not to seek reelection to the House in 1998 and instead ran for governor of Illinois as the Democratic nominee against Republican Secretary of State George Ryan. In that race he was, in some respects, more socially conservative than Ryan, a moderate Republican, which attracted support from some social conservatives who typically voted Republican but cost him support among liberal voters, particularly in Chicago. Consistent with his long-standing views on campaign finance reform, Poshard refused corporate and special interest contributions and imposed strict limits on individual donations, leaving him at a significant financial disadvantage; Ryan outspent him by roughly a four-to-one margin. During the campaign Poshard was among the first to publicly raise concerns about Ryan’s ties to the “licenses for bribes” scandal and other alleged corruption in the Secretary of State’s office. His attacks drew criticism from some, including prominent Democrats such as former Senator Paul Simon, who viewed them as overly harsh. Poshard lost the 1998 gubernatorial election by a 47–51 percent margin. In subsequent years, however, he was partly vindicated when Ryan was indicted in 2003 on 22 counts of racketeering conspiracy, mail and tax fraud, and making false statements related to public corruption during his tenure as Secretary of State and governor; Ryan was later convicted and sentenced to six and a half years in prison. In his concession speech on election night in 1998, Poshard urged his supporters to remain engaged in public life, stating that “no purpose is served by anger or resentment” and that “tomorrow we go back to work.”

After leaving Congress in 1999, Poshard returned to higher education and public service. That year he was hired by Southern Illinois University Carbondale as Vice Chancellor of Administration, a position he held until his appointment to the SIU Board of Trustees. On February 10, 2004, Governor Rod Blagojevich appointed him to the SIU Board for a term commencing January 23, 2004, and ending January 17, 2005; he was confirmed by the Illinois Senate on February 26, 2004. Later that year, on November 16, 2004, Blagojevich appointed Poshard chair of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board for a term ending July 1, 2007. Poshard resigned from that board after becoming president of the Southern Illinois University system. During 2004 he also served, without pay, as interim general manager of the Rend Lake Conservancy District, which supplies water to more than 60 southern Illinois communities. At the conclusion of his initial one-year term, Blagojevich reappointed him to a six-year term on the SIU Board of Trustees, and Poshard was later elected chairman of the board. He resigned from the board in 2005 when he became a candidate for the SIU system presidency.

On November 14, 2005, the SIU Board of Trustees adopted a resolution authorizing a contract with Poshard to serve as president of the Southern Illinois University system, and on December 8, 2005, it formally approved the contract. He assumed office as SIU system president on January 1, 2006. His tenure was marked by efforts to strengthen the university’s regional role and infrastructure, but it was also overshadowed by controversy. In 2007, allegations surfaced that portions of his 1984 doctoral dissertation had been taken from other sources without proper attribution. The faculty senate at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville called for his resignation, but a university committee that Poshard himself appointed reviewed the matter and concluded that the instances constituted “inadvertent plagiarism” rather than intentional misconduct. Poshard remained in office and retired from the SIU presidency after the 2013–2014 academic year. In recognition of his long association with the institution and his leadership of the SIU system, Southern Illinois University Carbondale named its Transportation Education Center at Southern Illinois Airport the Glenn Poshard Transportation Education Center on October 7, 2022.

Beyond his formal governmental and academic roles, Poshard has been active in philanthropy and local governance. After leaving Congress, he and his wife, Jo, founded the Poshard Foundation for Abused Children, which has raised more than $100,000 annually to support services for abused children and victims of domestic violence throughout southern Illinois. The foundation has been involved in numerous projects, including leading efforts to build a new $600,000 women’s shelter in Cairo, Illinois, which opened in December 2003. In 2016, Poshard was appointed to the John A. Logan College Board of Trustees following the death of Trustee Bill Alstat; he was elected to the position in 2017 and reelected in 2021. In February 2017, the board of trustees of Morthland College voted unanimously to hire him as president of the small Christian college, effective February 13, 2017. After approximately two months, citing serious undisclosed problems with the college’s finances and personnel, Poshard resigned effective April 26, 2017. A U.S. Department of Education investigation into financial mismanagement at Morthland, initiated before his hiring, ultimately led to the college’s closure in 2018.

Poshard has remained involved in Democratic Party politics in Illinois. In the 2022 Democratic primary, he was elected unopposed as Democratic State Central Committeeman for Illinois’s 12th Congressional District. In that role he serves as one of the district’s two representatives to the Democratic Party of Illinois, alongside Central Committeewoman Vivian Robinson. Throughout his career—as state senator, U.S. representative, gubernatorial candidate, university administrator, and party official—Glenn Poshard has been closely identified with southern Illinois, public education, and a populist approach to economic and political reform.