Lee H. Hamilton is director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University.

Hamilton represented Indiana’s 9th Congressional district for 34 years, beginning in January 1965. He served as chairman and ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, chaired the Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, the Joint Economic Committee, and the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress.

As a member of the House Standards of Official Conduct Committee, Hamilton was a primary drafter of several House ethics reforms.  Hamilton served on the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. He was appointed to the National War Powers Commission and served as co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, a forward-looking bipartisan assessment of the situation in Iraq, created at the urging of Congress. Hamilton served as vice-chair of the 9/11 Commission and co-chaired the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, which was established to monitor implementation of the Commission’s recommendations. He was co-chair of the Independent Task Force on Immigration and America’s Future and also served as a member of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, the U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century (the Hart-Rudman Commission), and the FBI Director’s Advisory Board.

Hamilton is a graduate of DePauw University and Indiana University School of Law. Before his election to Congress, Hamilton practiced law in Chicago, Illinois, and Columbus, Indiana.