Longest-serving member in Congress and vital legislator, John Dingell Jr. dies at 92
DETROIT — Former U.S. Rep. John David Dingell Jr., who was one of the U.S House’s most powerful chairmen and helped write and pass some of the most consequential legislation in the nation’s history, died Thursday, according to reports and statements from elected officials including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. He was 92.
Dingell, of Dearborn, served nearly 60 years in the House, making him the longest-serving member in Congress’ history. He stepped down in early 2015.
His death followed hospitalizations for various health problems in recent years. On Wednesday, sources close to his family said he had entered hospice with cancer. That was after his wife, U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Democrat who replaced him in Congress, posted on social media that rather than being in Washington, she was “home with John and we have entered a new phase.”
“He is my love and we have been a team for nearly 40 years. I will be taking each day as it comes,” she said in the post. Five months earlier, in September 2018, Dingell had suffered a mild heart attack and was briefly hospitalized.
Known in Washington and metro Detroit as “Big John” or “the truck” for his hard-charging personality, Dingell was an iconic presence in both.
An erudite, gentlemanly presence, Dingell, in his heyday atop the House Energy and Commerce Committee, brimmed with self-confidence and legislative savvy. At 6-foot-3, he towered over witnesses and was as feared and revered as any member of Congress. Throughout his career, he remained an advocate of Michigan manufacturing, its signature auto industry and its natural resources.
After retiring at age 88, Dingell surprisingly embraced Twitter, reveling in the brevity of the form. He had more than 252,000 followers as he made playful, often sarcastic comments on culture (”Staff has now informed me of what a Kardashian is. I’m only left with more questions”), Michigan sports (”Say what you will about the Lions, they’ve nearly perfected walking backward between plays while the flags are being picked up”) and politics.
Following the conflict in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 in which white nationalists brawled with protesters wanting to pull down a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee — after which President Donald Trump said there were “very fine people” on both sides — Dingell tweeted, “I signed up to fight Nazis 73 years ago and I’ll do it again if I have to.”
He will always be known first and foremost, however, for a remarkable legislative tenure that lasted 59 years — spanning all or part of 11 presidencies — during which time he cast tens of thousands of votes and helped write or otherwise played a role in passing the most significant measures of the era, including Medicare, the Civil Rights Act, the Clean Water and Clean Air acts, the Endangered Species Act and more.
In 2010, he helped pass the Affordable Care Act, modeled in part on legislation dating to that first proposed by his father, a New Deal Democrat whose career the younger Dingell set out to model his own on — and ended up surpassing.
“One of the most consequential members of Congress in the last century” is how congressional scholar Norm Ornstein described Dingell, noting he had a hand in “virtually every major social policy advance” since the 1960s. He was mentioned alongside congressional giants such as House Speakers Sam Rayburn and Tip O’Neill, as well as the late Sen. Robert Byrd, whom Dingell surpassed as the longest-serving member in 2013.
He referred to himself as “just a dumb Polish lawyer” — the family name was altered from Dzieglewicz — but such self-appraisal beggared the facts: For decades, Dingell was considered among the most effective members of Congress in terms of working his will and wasn’t afraid to take on presidents, Cabinet officials, industrialists or even leaders of his own party to do so.
He was not beloved by all. Some environmentalists considered him too close to the auto industry and an enemy to anti-pollution efforts, but he was still praised as a conservationist. For decades, he ran counter to his party’s policy and defended gun rights, even sitting for a time on the National Rifle Association’s board, but he was also an advocate for policies to help society’s most vulnerable citizens. Some who ran afoul of him considered him ruthless and arrogant, a bully; his many friends and allies — Democrat and Republican — described him as generous, trustworthy and loyal.
Dingell joined Congress as a Democrat in a postwar era when that party’s dominance in the House was a given and survived to see the institution he loved crippled by partisan factions and an intransigence that he loathed. His own career saw him expand exponentially the scope of the Commerce Committee and lead oversight efforts that would see the breakup of AT&T and run several Reagan-era officials out of office.