Representative William J. Janklow

William J. Janklow served as a Representative from South Dakota in the United States Congress from 2003 to 2004. A member of the Republican Party, William J. Janklow contributed to the legislative process during 1 term in office.

William J. Janklow’s service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history. As a member of the House of Representatives, William J. Janklow participated in the democratic process and represented the interests of constituents.

William John Janklow (September 13, 1939 – January 12, 2012) was an American lawyer and politician and member of the Republican Party. He holds the record for the longest tenure as the governor of South Dakota: sixteen years in office. Janklow had the third-longest gubernatorial tenure in post-Constitutional U.S. history at 5,851 days. Janklow’s career was tainted, but not significantly impeded, in 1974 by accusations of raping 15-year-old Native American Jancita Eagle Deer at gunpoint in 1967, an act for which Janklow was locally disbarred. The FBI reopened the case in 1975 when Janklow was appointed by Gerald Ford to the board of the Legal Services Corporation, but investigations were closed at the request of the White House. Jancita and her mother Delphine died shortly thereafter, of apparently unrelated homicides. Janklow served as the 25th Attorney General of South Dakota from 1975 to 1979 before being elected as the state’s 27th Governor. He served two terms, from 1979 to 1987. He was elected again in 1994, and served as the 30th Governor another two full terms, from 1995 to 2003. Janklow was elected in 2002 to the United States House of Representatives, where he served for a little more than a year. He resigned in 2004 after being convicted of manslaughter for his culpability in a fatal automobile crash.