Entering Politics
Mo continued his interest in politics and public service by chairing the Arizona Volunteers for Adlai Stevenson in 1956. With Stewart, he helped organize Arizona delegates for the presidential nomination of John F. Kennedy in 1960. Following Stewart's appointment as Secretary of the Interior under the Kennedy administration in 1961, Mo Udall won the special election held for Stewart's Arizona Congressional District 2. Mo would win the seat again in 1962, holding it until his resignation in 1991, being reelected 13 times.
Like his brother, Mo championed environmental legislation in both Arizona and the federal government, earning an appointment in 1963 to the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee: a seat he would occupy for nearly thirty years. A determined go-getter, Mo Udall also served as ranking member of the Committee of the Post Office and Civil Service, chairman of the Office of Technology Assessment, and a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
In 1967, Mo ralled Arizona and California legislators to reach a consensus on the Central Arizona Project (CAP). The largest water transport system ever constructed in the United States, CAP delivers Colorado River water to central and southern Arizona along a 336 mile canal. Mo also used his position on the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee to expand the National Park System and to assist legislation incorporating eight million acres across twenty states into the federal wilderness system. Mo was particularly opposed to strip-mining, spending nearly a decade fighting to pass legislation limiting the practice (vetoed twice by President Gerald R. Ford and eventually signed into law in a limited capacity by President Jimmy Carter in 1977).