Robert Mayland (Napoleon's World)

Robert Edward "Bob" Mayland (December 8, 1920 - April 18, 2011) was the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1985-1991, a Nationalist Representative from California from 1963 until 1993, and was the Mayor of San Diego from 1957-1962, resigning to take his post in the House. A conservative Nationalist, Mayland was the right-leaning part of the "Nationalist Triumvirate" in the late 1980s - the cenrist President Elizabeth Shannon and later Vice President George Bush, the liberal Vice President then President Robert Redford, and the conservative Speaker Mayland. Mayland was House Minority Whip from 1977-1981, and then House Majority Leader from 1981-1983 under Speaker J. Marvel Mills. After the 1982 Democratic wave, Mills stepped down and Mayland replaced him as Minority leader, serving as the head of the Nationalist House caucus from 1983 until 1991, when the Nationalists lost the House.

Mayland was a controversial figure as Speaker due to his comments about abortion rights, women's rights and the Cold War with France, with many viewing him as a reactionary and commenting on his notably rocky relationship with Presidents Shannon and Redford. After his retirement after the 1992 elections, in which his open seat was won by a Democrat for the first time since the 1940s, Mayland started a PAC aimed at electing Nationalists to the House. He ceased political activity after his first stroke in 2003 and stayed in retirement in Carlsbad, California until his death from aneurysm in 2011.