the precipitating causes of poverty and the low standard of living in urban ghettos. Campaign finances were also an issue, with controversy erupting over Brewster's receipt of $15,000 in campaign contributions from his Senate staff and their families. On November 5, 1968, Mathias was elected, garnering 48% of the vote to Brewster's 39% and perennial candidate George P. Mahoney's 13%. First term (1969–1975): conflict with Nixon Mathias began his first term in the Senate in January 1969 and laid out his legislative agenda soon thereafter. He was appointed to the District of Columbia committee, where he argued in favor of home rule in the district and providing D.C. residents full representation in both chambers of Congress. Both were positions he carried over from his career in the House. In December 1970 he finally gained passage of legislation creating the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park. He also served as chair of the Special Committee on Termination of the National Emergency from 1971 to 1977, which produced Senate Report 93-549. Over the course of his first term, Mathias was frequently at odds with his conservative colleagues in the Senate and the Richard Nixon administration. In June 1969, Mathias joined with fellow liberal Republican Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania in threatening a "rebellion" unless the Nixon administration worked harder to protect African American civil rights. He also warned against Republicans using the "Southern strategy" of attracting conservative George Wallace voters at the expense of moderate or liberal voters. Mathias voted against two controversial Nixon Supreme Court nominees, Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell, neither of whom was confirmed. Mathias was also an early advocate for setting a timetable for withdrawal of troops from Vietnam, and was against the bombing campaigns Nixon launched into Laos. In October 1972, Mathias became the first Republican on Ted Kennedy's Judiciary subcommittee and one of only a few in the nation to support investigation of the Watergate Scandal, which was still in its early stages. Mathias' disagreements with the administration became well-known, causing columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak to name him the "new supervillain... in President Nixon's doghouse". Evans and Novak also commented that "not since [Charles Goodell] was defeated with White House connivance has any Republican so outraged Mr. Nixon and his senior staff as Mathias. The senator's liberalism and tendency to bolt party lines have bred animosity in the inner sanctum". Due to their