President Obama said today he plans to nominate Jim Leach, a former Republican congressman, as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Mr. Leach, who left Congress in 2007 after representing Iowa for 30 years, founded and co-chaired the Congressional Humanities Caucus, which promotes the humanities in the House of Representatives.

He also served as chairman of the House Banking and Financial Services Committee from 1995 to 2001 and chairman of the House International Relations Committee’s subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs from 2001 to 2006.

Mr. Leach is vice chairman of the board of the Century Foundation, a think tank in New York, and has served on the boards of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; the Kettering Foundation; ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative reporting group; and the Social Sciences Research Council. Since leaving Congress, he has taught at Princeton University and served as interim director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics.