in Colorado. He then unsuccessfully ran for governor in 1912 and 1914. President Woodrow Wilson appointed Costigan as a member of the United States Tariff Commission in 1917, a position he held until March 1928, when he began practicing law again. He was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat in 1930. Oscar L. Chapman managed his campaign. He served from March 4, 1931, to January 3, 1937. Jones–Costigan amendment to the Sugar Act In 1934 he co-sponsored the Jones–Costigan amendment to the Agricultural Adjustment Act, protecting the U.S. sugar industry, including sugar from Colorado beets. It was a cause of deep interest to Costigan and his wife. It reformed the sugar industry, prohibited the hiring of workers under 14, and set a maximum eight-hour work day for those 14 to 16. Mabel, a member of the National Child Labor Committee advisory council, was particularly concerned about the practice of employing children to work in sugar beet fields. Costigan–Wagner Bill Costigan and New York Democratic Senator Robert F. Wagner sponsored a federal anti-lynching law in 1934. In 1935, Senate leaders tried to persuade President Franklin D. Roosevelt to support the Costigan–Wagner Bill. Roosevelt was concerned about a provision of the bill that called for the punishment of sheriffs who failed to protect their prisoners from lynch mobs. He believed that he would lose the support of the white voters in the South by approving it and lose the 1936 presidential election. The Costigan–Wagner Bill received support from many members of Congress but the Southern bloc managed to defeat it in the Senate. The national debate that took place over the issue again brought renewed attention to the crime of lynching. By the mid-1930s, the rate of the crime had finally dropped to mostly below 20 annually. Several organizations held 1935 New York anti-lynching exhibitions in support of the bill. Personal life He married a fellow high school classmate, Mabel Cory on June 12, 1903. He was class president and she was class secretary. She was involved in church, educational, and community affairs. She was an expert on Sunday school primary work and was a lecturer and story-teller. Mabel was the president of the Woman's Club of Denver and chairwoman of the industrial committee of the Colorado State Federation of Women’s Clubs. She campaigned for child labor law, particularly interested in prohibiting the practice of using children in sugar beet