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George William Norris (July 11, 1861 - September 2, 1944) was a U.S. political figure.
Norris was born in Sandusky, Ohio and he graduated from Baldwin University. Norris was elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican in 1902. Norris was elected to the United States Senate by the Nebraska legislature for a term which began in 1913, one of the last Senators so elected as the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratifed that year, changed the method of their election to that of direct statewide vote such as is employed today. A political progressive, Norris supported this reform and also the conversion of state legislatures to the unicameral system, which was eventually implemented in 1934 in Nebraska (but in no other state as of 2004). Norris opposed entry into World War I and he advocated the idea of converting government-built munitions factories and their related facilites into factories which would be used for peaceful purposes. One such project was a large hydroelectric facility located at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Norris fought the sale of this project by the government to private interests; eventually it served as the basis for the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority. In appreciation, the first dam built specifically for and by the TVA on the Clinch River in East Tennessee was named Norris Dam in his honor; the nearby planned community became the town of Norris, Tennessee and the highway leading to it the Norris Freeway. Norris supported Democratic Presidential candidate Al Smith in 1928 and Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. Norris was re-elected to the Senate as an Independent in 1936 but he was defeated in 1942 by Kenneth S. Wherry.
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