Senate
In 1976 Wallop successfully unseated three-term Democratic U.S. Senator Gale W. McGee, winning 55 percent of the vote to obtain a seat in the United States Senate.
He made a campaign pledge to serve only two terms, although he went on to serve three. During his Senate tenure, Wallop supported strong national security, tax reform (including reductions in estate and gift taxes), and other elements of Reagan conservatism.
While in the Senate, Wallop served on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Select Committee on Intelligence. From 1981 to 1983, he served as chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics.
In his first term, Wallop authored the legislation that established the Congressional Award program to recognize outstanding volunteerism among America's youth. The 1977 Wallop Amendment to the Surface Mining Control Act was hailed by property rights advocates for forcing the federal government to compensate property owners whose ability to mine was undercut by regulation. Three years later, Wallop successfully amended the Clean Water Act to protect states' interests.
His bill to cut inheritance and gift taxes in 1981 was a key component of President Ronald Reagan's tax reform package and is remembered as one of the most substantive changes to tax policy that decade, and four years earlier, Wallop was partially responsible for phasing out President Jimmy Carter's windfall profits tax.
In 1977, Wallop was one of nine Senators to vote against the Senate adopting a stringent code of ethics intended to assist with the restoration of public confidence in Congress.
In 1982, Wallop was re-elected by a 14-point margin over Democrat Rodger McDaniel, a Wyoming state legislator. In his second term, Wallop supported the 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative, a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack from nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
In 1988, Wallop won his final term by just 1,322 votes over his opponent, Democratic state senator John Vinich. Wallop's last term was characterized largely by his participation in the foreign policy and trade debates of the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was a member of the Helsinki Commission and traveled extensively in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union as an arms control negotiator. Wallop was also a strong advocate of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and U.S. participation in the World Trade Organization.
From 1990 to 1994, he was the ranking Republican member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and in 1992, was a key force behind passage of the far-reaching Energy Policy Act.
In 1994, Wallop opted out of a race for a fourth term. He was succeeded by Republican Craig Thomas. Upon his retirement from the Senate, The Economist wrote of Wallop: "Although his detractors have steadily grown in number, even Democrats grudgingly admitted to liking his candor and his willingness to be stupendously politically incorrect."
