TODAY’S OBITS
• Mary Daugherty • Francis N. McKee • Kenneth G. Ryder • Dorothy Hellerman Steever • John F. Ferry • Dorothy E. Kissinger • Claudia Marie Brown-Varela • Margaret L. Hampton • Louise McFate • Barbara A. Sharpe • Sonya Perich
FAIRFAX, VA. » Joseph M. McDade, an 18-term Republican congressman who was known for bringing federal dollars home to his northeastern Pennsylvania district and who was acquitted in 1996 on a bribery charge, has died. He was 85.
A statement from his family says he died Sunday at his home in Fairfax, Virginia.
McDade was the longest-serving Republican in the House when he was indicted in 1992 on charges he accepted gifts from defense companies in exchange for helping them win lucrative contracts. He was acquitted after a seven-week trial, but not before losing the opportunity to become chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
Constituents stood behind the congressman who had helped steer money to local manufacturers to replace a collapsed coal industry and who had fought hard for Tobyhanna Army Depot, one of the region’s largest employers, when the Pentagon considered closing it.
Many Scranton-area buildings, a recreational trail and a park built atop an abandoned coal mine bear his name. The honors even continued after left office; in 2003, the local airport’s terminal building was named for him.
One of his most well-known endeavors, the Steamtown National Historic Site, was also one of the most criticized. The federal government spent more than $70 million to turn an abandoned train yard into a National Park Service site celebrating the nation’s railroad history.
Critics lambasted the project, which sits next to a shopping mall. They noted the park service didn’t ask for the money and that many of the site’s coaches and locomotives had nothing to do with Scranton.
But McDade and local leaders saw the park as a way to bolster Scranton as a tourist destination.
The federal indictment on bribery, conspiracy and racketeering charges came six months before the 1992 election, but McDade faced no opposition. He won again in 1994 with 66 percent of the vote.
Government prosecutors accused McDade of expecting illegal gifts in exchange for his support. They alleged that he accepted campaign contributions, trips, free flights, golf equipment, vacations and scholarships for his son from three companies in return for government contracts.
The indictment cost him the chance to become chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, one of the most powerful positions in the House, when Republicans regained power in 1994. He had been the panel’s longtime top-ranking Republican, but the House GOP rules barred members under criminal indictment from holding leadership posts.