Democrat is now longest-serving woman in House

TOLEDO, Ohio — The longest-serving woman in the history of the U.S. House, Marcy Kaptur, still returns from Washington most weekends to the modest single-story home where she grew up in Toledo.

How the 71-year-old Democrat, a daughter of two factory workers, has managed to stay in office so long can be linked to an unwavering connection to her working-class roots.

Now in the House just over 35 years, Kaptur set the mark last week for the longest tenure by a woman — surpassing Edith Nourse Rogers, a Massachusetts Republican who served until her death in 1960.

“It sounds like a lot of time until you’ve done it, and then it seems like a wink,” Kaptur said Friday.

She’s perhaps best known for her early backing of a World War II veterans memorial. Kaptur credits the idea to a mail carrier from her district who asked her at a fish fry to explain why Washington lacked a World War II memorial.

She then introduced a bill to create a memorial, which opened on the National Mall in 2004.

Never much of a fundraiser but willing to go against party leaders on issues such as free trade and abortion, Kaptur sits on the powerful House Appropriations Committee but never ascended to leadership positions in Congress.

She also rejected attempts to recruit her to run for Ohio governor in 2006 and turned down Ross Perot’s offer to be his vice presidential running mate in 1996.

Kaptur said she has stayed in the House because on the national level “it’s the closest you can stay to the people.”