Edward J. "Ed" Gearty (born March 17, 1923 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, died September 25, 2009) was a Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 DFL politician, a former legislator

Legislator

A legislator is a person who writes and passes laws, especially someone who is a member of a legislature. Legislators are usually politicians and are often elected by the people...

, and a former President of the Minnesota Senate.

Gearty served on the Minneapolis Park Board before being elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives

Minnesota House of Representatives

The Minnesota House of Representatives is the lower house in the Minnesota State Legislature. There are 134 members elected to two-year terms, twice the number of members in the Minnesota Senate. Each senate district is divided in half and given the suffix A or B...

in 1962. He served four terms in the House before winning election to the Senate in 1970. While in the Senate, Gearty served as chair of the Governmental Operations and Elections committees. He was elected President of the Senate in 1977, and served in that role until his retirement.

In private life, Gearty worked as an attorney in private practice. He was married, and had one daughter. He died in 2009.