Bourke Hickenlooper (July 21, 1896 - September 4, 1971), was a member of the Republican Party, first elected to statewide office in Iowa as lieutenant governor, serving from 1939 to 1942 and then as Governor from 1943 to 1944. Hickenlooper was first elected to the United States Senate in 1944. He served in the Senate from 1945 to 1969. Born in 1896 in Blockton, Iowa, Hickenlooper's college education at the University of Iowa was interrupted by his service in the U.S. Army. He served as an officer in France during World War I. After his military service Hickenlooper continued his education at the University of Iowa, where he received a law degree in 1922. He practiced law in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
In the Senate, Hickenlooper was known as part of the most conservative and isolationistic members of the Republican Party, and as possibly one of the most conservative American congressmen. He became one of the most powerful Republicans in the Senate, serving as the Republican Policy Committee Chairman from 1962 to 1969. In this position, he had an intense rivalry with Everett Dirksen, the liberal Senate Republican leader at the time. Hickenlooper opposed civil rights legislation including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, largely because Dirksen was working on this legislation in collaboration with liberal Democrats and attempting to get Republicans to support it, which would threaten Hickenlooper's power. He died in 1971 in Shelter Island (town), New York.
