George E. Sangmeister, 76; three-term Democratic congressman from Illinois

George E. Sangmeister, a former U.S. representative from Illinois whose loss to an extremist in the 1986 Democratic primary race for lieutenant governor made him part of the state’s storied political lore, died Sunday of complications from leukemia at a hospital in Joliet, Ill. He was 76.

The Democrat was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for three terms representing Illinois’ 11th District from 1989 to 1995. He had been a member of the Illinois House of Representatives and Illinois Senate.

The only setback in Sangmeister’s political career came when he lost the 1986 primary race for lieutenant governor to Mark Fairchild, a supporter of the ultra-right, anti-communist Lyndon LaRouche. The defeat -- coupled with another LaRouche supporter winning the Democratic candidacy for secretary of state -- stunned voters and garnered national attention. At the time, the Democratic Party called the election “a fluke” caused by uninformed voters and a lack of vigilance by politicians.

The upset forced Adlai E. Stevenson III to disavow his nomination as the Democratic gubernatorial candidate and mount an unsuccessful third-party challenge to then-Republican Gov. James R. Thompson.

“I think the party back then took for granted that he would win that spot and spent very little money on that campaign,” said Ken Grey, a friend of Sangmeister and a fellow partner at the law firm of McKeown, Fitzgerald, Zollner, Buck, Hutchison & Ruttle. “With the Sangmeister name on there, they assumed he’d be elected. It was a strategic error.”

Sangmeister was born Feb. 16, 1931, in Frankfort, Ill., and served as an Army infantryman in the Korean War. After working his way through Elmhurst College and John Marshall Law School, he served as a justice of the peace and county magistrate.

As a congressman, he led efforts to establish the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery south of Chicago and the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, the nation’s first designated tall-grass prairie. He was a member of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs and sponsored a 1994 bill acknowledging Dec. 7 as Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

Sangmeister, who retired from politics in 1995, is survived by his wife, Doris; a son; a daughter; and four grandchildren.