council on December 30, 1984, to become county recorder. Clay ran for a seat on the Lake County Commission from the 1st district, defeated incumbent Commissioner N. Atterson Spann Jr. and four other candidates in the Democratic primary, and defeated Republican nominee Fredrick Congress general election. Richard Blastick succeeded Clay as county recorder. On October 10, 1989, he announced that he would run for reelection to the county commission and won in the 1990 election. On December 8, 1986, an assassination attempt was made against Clay when a sniper shot him three times in the shoulder and lower back after waiting outside his home. Two men were reported to have been involved in the attempted assassination. On December 12, he was sworn in on to the county commission earlier than the normal date so that Spann Jr., who would take over if Clay died, would not take over. Later an attack was made against Lake County Councilman Andrew Smith when two shotgun blasts were fired into Smith's home and Smith believed that the attack was related to the assassination attempt against Clay. During his tenure as commissioner he was called a "traitor to the Democratic Party" by Representative Paul Hric for replacing county workers who were members of the Democratic Party with members of the Republican Party. During the 1988 Democratic presidential primaries Clay ran as a delegate for Jesse Jackson despite attempts made by former Mayor Hatch and Jackson's presidential campaign to prevent them from appearing on the ballot. Clay won election as a delegate, but the Democratic National Committee's credentials committee selected Hatcher, who was the vice-chair of Jackson's campaign, to go to the convention instead of Clay while Barnes was sent to the convention instead of the Jackson-supported Carlos Tolliver. However, another decision was made where Barnes, Clay, Hatcher, and Tolliver would all attend the convention with half-voting power. Clay ran to serve as chair of the Gary Democratic Precinct Organization and won on March 13, 1993, after defeating incumbent chair Richard Comer, who also served as Deputy Mayor. Death and legacy Clay died on June 4, 2013, in Gary. In 2014, a section of U.S. Route 20 that went through Gary was renamed in honor of Clay. Political positions Clay called for the United States House of Representatives to impeach President Richard Nixon in 1974. Clay wrote a letter to President Gerald Ford informing him of