On 20 March, 2015, Robert W. Kastenmeier died. A Wisconsin native, Kastenmeier was inducted into the United States Army in 1943, during his service he would visit Hiroshima, Japan, shortly after it had been destroyed by the dropping of the first atomic bomb. When his service was completed, he would return to Madison and graduate from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1952. He would go on to serve in Congress, representing Madison, from 1959 to 1991.
During his time in Congress, Kastenmeier made national news as an early critic of the US war in Vietnam. He pushed for Congressional hearings, and when Congress refused, he held hearings of his own in Wisconsin and inserted the testimony into the Congressional Record. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, he played a key role in the Impeachment Proceedings of President Nixon when he convinced his colleagues that the articles of Impeachment should be debated and voted on one by one, rather than all as a group. He would also become a nationally recognized expert on copyright law.