Walter Paul Helmke, Jr. (born 1948) is an American politician, and the former president of the Washington, DC-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. He held this position from July 2006 to July 10, 2011. He is a former mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana and a former president of The United States Conference of Mayors. Education Helmke was class president and a graduate of Fort Wayne's North Side High School. He attended Indiana University, where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and president of the student government in 1969–70, and of the Yale Law School. While at Indiana University, where he majored in political science, he was elected president of the student body. Helmke attended Yale at the same time as former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and was an acquaintance of each. Political career Helmke defeated Fort Wayne Democratic incumbent Mayor Winfield C. Moses, Jr. in 1987. Helmke won re-election in 1991 and 1995. He did not seek re-election in 1999. In 1980, Helmke ran in the Republican primary for the then Fourth Congressional District open seat in Indiana to replace Dan Quayle who was running for U.S. Senate; he was defeated by Dan Coats, who later went on to serve as U.S. Senator from Indiana. In 1998, he won the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate to replace retiring incumbent Republican Dan Coats, but lost to Democrat Evan Bayh in the general election. In 2002, Helmke unsuccessfully challenged incumbent U.S. Representative Mark Souder in the Republican primary for the Third Congressional District in Indiana. As mayor, he was known for reaching out to minorities, appointing an openly gay woman to a human relations commission. Family politics His father, Walter P. Helmke, had been elected as an Indiana state senator and county prosecutor. The senior Helmke was the Republican nominee for U.S. Congress in Indiana's Fourth District in 1974. Mayor Helmke's grandfather, Walter E. Helmke, had also served as Allen County Prosecutor and had been the Allen County Republican County Chairman. Walter E. Helmke was also one of the leading candidates for the Republican nomination for Governor of Indiana in 1948 but was defeated at his party's state convention. Walter E. Helmke also has the Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne main research facility building named after him. Mayor Helmke's brother, Mark Helmke, is a former reporter for the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel.