The Dick M. Jacobs Papers document Jacobs's political and professional activities from 1980 to 1993. Records in the collection are divided into three series: Biographical Material, Political Activities, and the Taxpayers Association of Michigan.
Dick Morrell Jacobs was born December 26, 1938, in Owosso, Michigan. After graduating from Central Michigan University in 1962 with a B.S. in Liberal Arts, Jacobs held sales positions in various Michigan-based companies. He began his own construction-supply marketing firm, D.M. Jacobs and Associates, in Grand Blanc, Michigan, in 1971. Jacobs shut down the company's operations in 1984 and joined Management Recruiters as a consultant from 1985 to 1987. The following year, he launched a consulting and recruiting firm, Data Research, in Holland, Michigan, where he served as president until his death in 1993.
Even before beginning his own career in politics, Jacobs was an active member of the Libertarian Party. Issues related to taxes received much of his attention. From 1980 to 1982, he wrote a weekly column for the Grand Blanc News Weekly, "Citizens Taxpayer" that discussed taxes and government issues. He assisted fellow libertarian Robert Tisch in drafting and promoting Tisch's initiative tax cut amendment to Michigan's Constitution in 1980. The next year, Jacobs established the Jacobs Tax Reduction Committee and created his own initiative petition tax cut amendment. In 1990, he founded the Taxpayers Association of Michigan, a statewide, nonprofit and nonpartisan organization. One of the projects that the association sponsored was an initiative petition to limit politicians' terms, which was co-written by Jacobs and passed in November 1991. In 1992, Jacobs co-authored another such petition, "Citizens to Lower and Limit Taxes." The group did not obtain the signatures necessary to secure its placement on the ballot, however.
Jacobs ran for public office five times between 1982 and 1992. In 1982, he ran for governor of Michigan as a libertarian but was defeated. He tried to unseat Donald Riegle from the United States Senate, again representing the Libertarian Party, in 1988. The 1990 election found Jacobs briefly switching his allegiances to the Republican party and entering the state Senate race. He was eliminated from the race during the primaries. Undeterred by the loss, Jacobs entered the gubernatorial race as an independent, the result of a write-in campaign. Once more, he was defeated in the election. He ran for office a final time in 1992, as a libertarian in the congressional race.
In 1986, Jacobs was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Despite a bleak prognosis, the political activist managed to survive nearly twice as long as expected and wage several campaigns for public office. Jacobs accepted no radiation for the cancer; instead, he received some degree of treatment at the Immunology Research Centre in the Bahamas. Jacobs died June 26, 1993, at his home in Holland, Michigan, at the age of 54.
