[msb-alumni] John Conyers, Former Detroit Congressman, Dies at 90
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 15:52:21 -0400
BlankU.S. Rep. John Conyers, civil rights icon and former dean of Congress,
dies at
90 Kathleen Gray and Todd Spangler , Detroit Free Press
U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a civil rights icon who, during five decades in
Congress
co-founded the Congressional Black Caucus and pushed to establish a national
holiday
to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., died Sunday of natural causes at the
age of
90. His death comes after a long and illustrious career that spanned more than
50
years and 27 terms in office, but ended in 2018 with a sudden resignation
amidst
claims of sexual harassment and verbal abuse of employees and misuse of
taxpayer
funds to cover-up those claims.
Conyers' tenure was a remarkable 53-year-run during which the lawmaker,'the son
of a
well-known labor lawyer in Detroit, compiled a near-record legacy of civil
rights
activism, longevity and advocacy for the poor and underprivileged. He died with
the
sixth-longest tenure in congressional history.
"For a long time he was black America's congressman," said Sam Riddle, a
longtime
family friend and consultant to the Conyers family, who confirmed the death
Sunday.
"On the streets of Detroit, he'll be mourned."
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan in a statement said he "was deeply saddened"
by'Conyers'
death.
"One of my most special memories was spending time with him at Gordon Park on
12th
Street and Clairmount on the 50th anniversary of the violence of 1967 as he
recounted
the story of his courageous efforts to calm the angry crowds," Duggan said. "He
has
fought for a better Detroit for more than half a century."
From co-founding the Congressional Black Caucus to leading the fight in
Congress to
enshrine Martin Luther King's birthday as a national holiday, John
Conyers'impact on
our city and nation will never be forgotten," Duggan said.
Michigan Gov.'Gretchen Whitmer called Conyers a "lifelong Detroiter who was
deeply
committed to the city and to those he represented. "His impact on our state,
whether
by spearheading reforms in criminal justice and voting rights in Congress or
through
his lifetime of civil rights activism, will not be forgotten," Whitmer said in
a
statement.
Conyers was born in Detroit and graduated from Northwestern High School. After
a tour
of duty with the U.S. Army during the Korean War, Conyers returned home to earn
bachelor's and law degrees from Wayne State University. His law practice and
work in
the auto plants in Detroit led him to the office of former U.S. Rep. John
Dingell,
D-Dearborn, where he worked as a legislative assistant for three years.
But by 1964, at the age of 35, Conyers went after a seat of his own in
Congress,
winning the first of 27 general elections and serving portions of Detroit and
some
surrounding Wayne County suburbs for the next five decades.
He may not have had many bills that carried his name -- only 26 of the 712
bills he
introduced became law, according to the Library of Congress -- but he fought
for
issues of civil rights and social justice, including seeking reparations for
the
descendants of African-American slaves, modifying the mandatory sentences for
those
convicted of non-violent drug crimes, defending assaults on the Voting Rights
Act,
reforming laws that put juvenile offenders in prison for life and calling for
investigations into police brutality of African-American men.
And he was the key sponsor of the bill, introduced each session for 20 years,
that
designated the third Monday of January as a federal holiday in honor of Martin
Luther
King Jr. Conyers introduced the bill four days after King was assassinated in
1968,
but it wasn't signed into law until 1989.
In the thick of the civil rights battles, Conyers walked alongside King and
other
leaders of the movement in Selma, Ala., to bring equal voting rights to blacks.
In 2015, during his 50th year in Congress, Conyers told the Washington Post
that King
was one of the most important historical figures in history. "I felt the civil
rights
movement was a powerful chapter in American history, King to me is the
outstanding
international leader of the 20th century without ever holding office," he said.
"He
advanced us forward even though there was a terrible loss of life and violence
and
injustice. But Martin Luther King Jr. moved us in a way that changed history."
He moved among those involved in the disturbance in Detroit in August 1967,
urging
calm. And he burnished his civil rights record even more by hiring icon Rosa
Parks
after she moved from Alabama to Detroit. The secretary and receptionist job in
Conyers' Detroit office was a job she held until her retirement in 1988.
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat who won election to Conyers' seat after his
resignation, on Twitter called Conyers "our Congressman forever".
"He never once wavered in fighting for jobs, justice and peace," Tlaib tweeted.
"We
always knew where he stood on issues of equality and civil rights in the fight
for
the people. Thank you Congressman Conyers for fighting for us for over 50
years."
U.S. Rep. Brenda, D-Southfield, also took to Twitter to mourn Conyers' passing:
"John
Conyers spent a lifetime in public service dedicated to civil rights and
justice for
people of color in America. His legacy will continue to impact generations to
come."
Republican Congressman Fred Upton of St. Joseph also praised Conyers, calling
him "a
legend on the House Judiciary Committee" who witnessed and helped write
history.?
"His positive work on Civil Rights legislation began to move the country in the
right
direction and made our nation a better place today," Upton tweeted.
U.S. Senator Gary Peters, D-Michigan, said that while serving in Congress with
Conyers, he saw firsthand his dedication and passion. "From being in Selma,
Alabama,
on Freedom Day during the Civil Rights Movement 'to co-founding the
Congressional
Black Caucus, chairing the House Judiciary Committee and becoming Dean of the
House
of Representatives Congressman Conyers dedicated his life to fighting for civil
rights," Peters said.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, noted that Conyers, "believed in justice
and
equality for all. John Conyers spent his life championing those causes,"
Dingell said
in a statement. "he fights John Conyers fought will be remembered for
generations."
Michigan Congressman Dan Kildee noted that Conyers rose to become the longest
serving
African American in Congress and "dean of the U.S. House of Representatives."
"Throughout his life, John Conyers helped to advance many important causes,
including
expanding voting rights and equal rights for all Americans," Kildee said.
Mary Barra, chairman and CEO of General Motors, in a statement said Michigan
and the
country "have lost a true servant of the people. John Conyers was a powerful
advocate
for equal rights and he was a distinguished member of Congress for more than 50
years," Barra said.
Kary Moss, executive director of the ACLU of Michigan, said Conyers was
"indispensable to the city on Sept 11, 2001, helping to prevent backlash
against our
Muslim community. "RIP," Moss tweeted. "He was of Detroit and for Detroit."
In the end, Conyers would fall to the #MeToo movement. It was a scandal that
was a
swift and crushing fall from grace.'Facing a rising chorus of voices demanding
he
step down because of the sexual harassment claims, Conyers, D-Detroit, refused
to do
so for several months in 2017.
Conyers resigned in early December 2017 after an article on BuzzFeed.com
detailed a
secret settlement of more than $27,000 with a former staffer who accused him of
making sexual advances toward her and paying her out of funds from his
taxpayer-supported office.
Within days, several other women had come forward with accusations against
Conyers,
who, despite his express denials that he harassed anyone, saw House leaders and
members of his own party abandon him, with three of the four Democrats in the
Michigan delegation calling for him to resign.
In addition to Marion Brown, the staffer who received the settlement, six other
women
claimed they either experienced or saw him touching and rubbing women in his
office,
making sexual advances toward them or making inappropriate remarks. One of them
filed
a lawsuit against him early this year and then withdrew it, saying she didn't
want to
hurt Conyers' reputation.
Another woman, Washington lawyer Melanie Sloan, also told the Free Press that
Conyers
had verbally mistreated her, forced her to babysit his children and, on one
occasion,
showed up at a meeting with her at his office in his underwear -- though she
didn't
consider it sexual harassment.
From accusation to resignation, Conyers' colleagues went from being warily
supportive, urging caution while an investigation by the House Ethics Committee
was
completed to issuing outright calls for his resignation, even from at least one
fellow member of the Congressional Black Caucus, which he helped to create in
1971.
U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, who is the third-ranking Democrat in
the
House and had been a colleague of Conyers' on the Congressional Black Caucus
since
1993, called for him to resign shortly after similar calls by House Speaker
Paul Ryan
and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Conyers' lawyer, Arnold Reed, of Southfield, had reiterated on several
occasions that
the congressman was not ready to resign and wanted to see the ethics
investigation
completed. But with allegations swirling not only over the harassment claims
but his
use of taxpayer funds to pay at least one settlement, he abruptly stepped down
as the
ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, a position he had held for
more
than two decades.
Then -- with media reports that some members of the caucus were privately
urging him
to resign -- he suddenly quit Washington, missing several votes, including one
mandating sexual harassment training for members, as he headed back to Detroit
and
his family.
During his time in office, which he won with huge margins every two years like
clockwork, Conyers was considered one of the most liberal members of Congress,
with a
100% rating from the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood and the
Human
Rights Campaign. The conservative Freedom Works gave him a 15% rating, while
the Club
for Growth and Americans for Prosperity give him ratings of 8% and 6%
respectively.
Conyers, however, had already come under scrutiny twice from the House Ethics
Committee in Congress for possible transgressions in his office. In 2017, the
committee confirmed it was continuing to look at whether he had wrongly paid
his
former chief of staff more than $50,000 for time she didn't work. Conyers said
he was
only paying her for accrued leave time and severance as part of a separation
agreement reached after she pleaded'guilty to a misdemeanor charge of receiving
stolen property unrelated to her job.
In 2003, the Free Press reported on complaints from six unnamed Conyers aides
who
said they were forced to work on various campaigns, including a failed
legislative
campaign for Conyers' wife, Monica, on government time.'A
follow-up Ethics Committee report, however, focused on allegations that the
congressman used staff to babysit his sons, help his wife with her law studies
and
chauffeur him to private events. Conyers' office denied the accusations and
eventually reached a deal to ensure staff knew where their responsibilities
began and
ended.
In 2014, Conyers nearly didn't get the chance to run for reelection because of
irregularities in the petitions he filed to run for office. Wayne County Clerk
Cathy
Garrett said he had used ineligible people to gather signatures, but a federal
court
disagreed and the Legislature passed a law that people who collected signatures
didn't need to be registered voters.
Free Press Washington Bureau reporter Todd Spangler contributed to this report.
*****
Longtime congressman co-founded Black Caucus . John Otis.
John Conyers Jr., who became the longest-serving African American in Congress,
co-founded the Congressional Black Caucus and helped create a national holiday
in the
name of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. but whose career rapidly crumbled at 88
when
he resigned amid sexual harassment allegations, died Oct. 27 at his home in
Detroit.
He was 90. His spokeswoman Holly Baird confirmed the death. Additional details
were
not immediately available.
A liberal Democrat from what is now Detroit's 13th Congressional District, Mr.
Conyers was first elected in 1964, becoming one of five African Americans in
the
House. His overwhelmingly Democratic constituents reelected him 26 times over a
period spanning 10 presidents, from Lyndon B. Johnson to Donald Trump.
As the longest-serving member at the time of his resignation, Mr. Conyers
earned the
title "dean of the House of Representatives," and this job security allowed him
to
promote liberal, sometimes controversial causes that won him a national
following.
He co-sponsored the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibited discrimination
at the
ballot box.
His fierce criticism of the Vietnam War led to clashes with Johnson and landed
him on
President Richard M. Nixon's "enemies list" of political opponents.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Conyers voted against the
USA
Patriot Act because he said it would roll back civil liberties. He later
suggested
that President George W. Bush should be impeached, saying he misled the country
ahead
of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Mr. Conyers's twilight years were marred by allegations of sexual harassment.
According to legal documents published by the online publication BuzzFeed in
November
2017, several of his female staff members claimed that he had approached them
to
request sex and that he had engaged in unwanted touching and other impropriety.
One
former staff member received a settlement of more than $27,000 from Mr.
Conyers's
office after alleging in 2015 that he fired her for not accepting his sexual
advances.
The congressman denied wrongdoing. But after the House Ethics Committee opened
an
investigation and numerous representatives called for him to step down in
November
2017, Mr. Conyers quit his post as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary
Committee.
The next month, he announced his resignation after 52 years in office.
"My legacy can't be compromised or diminished in any way by what we are going
through
now," Mr. Conyers declared defiantly. "This, too, shall pass."
Before the scandal, Mr. Conyers had been an inspiration to African Americans
from
Detroit to the Deep South and had become, in effect, a member of Congress at
large.
"In many districts around the country, black voters did not feel represented by
their
leaders, so they would reach out to African American congressmen like Conyers,"
said
Michael Fauntroy, who interned for Mr. Conyers in the early 1980s and is now an
assistant professor of political science at Howard University.
Mr. Conyers, in turn, urged skeptical African Americans to get involved in
politics.
One of his early mottos was: "Register, vote, run for office. It's power that
counts."
To better harness that power and secure passage of legislation on poverty,
racism,
human rights, unfair tax policies and health care, Mr. Conyers and 12 other
African
American House members founded the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971.
Mr. Conyers strongly backed the Rev. Jesse Jackson's 1984 campaign for the
Democratic
presidential nomination and was an early supporter of candidate Barack Obama,
who was
then a Democratic senator from Illinois.
Yet Mr. Conyers also could be caustic about fellow Democrats to demonstrate
that he
was not blindly loyal to anyone. In 1979, he described President Jimmy Carter
as a
"hopeless, demented, honest, well-intentioned nerd who will never get past his
first
administration."
Decades later, Mr. Conyers criticized Obama for making foreign policy too
dependent
on military muscle. His intention, Mr. Conyers said of Obama, was "to make him
a
better president."
He presented himself as an emeritus member of the Washington establishment and
had
participated in many high-profile political battles.
Mr. Conyers was the only member of the House Judiciary Committee to take part
in
impeachment proceedings against Nixon in 1974 for the Watergate bugging scandal
and
coverup, and against President Bill Clinton in 1998 for lying about his affair
with
White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky. Mr. Conyers considered Nixon a criminal
and
helped draft articles of impeachment against the president before he resigned.
However, he called the effort to impeach Clinton a Republican coup d'etat and
"the
most tragic event in my career." He voted "no" when the House voted to impeach
Clinton.
Eight years later, Mr. Conyers became the first African American to chair the
Judiciary Committee.
All along, Mr. Conyers was a master of the politics of symbolism. He hired
civil
rights activist Rosa Parks, who worked in his Detroit office for 20 years. He
introduced numerous bills calling for reparations for the descendants of
slaves, an
issue that resonated among black people but did not gain traction in Congress.
More successful was his 15-year struggle to recognize King, the civil rights
defender. Four days after King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, and with the
support of his widow, Coretta Scott King, Mr. Conyers proposed the first of
many
bills calling for a federal holiday in his honor. The proposal met resistance
from
Republicans, notably Sen. Jesse Helms (N.C.), who accused King of Communist
sympathies and complained that only one other holiday, Columbus Day, was named
after
a person.
Mr. Conyers kept pushing, millions of people signed petitions and entertainer
Stevie
Wonder pitched in with the hit single "Happy Birthday."
President Ronald Reagan in 1983 signed legislation setting aside the third
Monday in
January as Martin Luther King Jr. Day; the day was chosen because it was near
King's
Jan. 15 birthday.
In a 2008 interview, Mr. Conyers called it "far and away the thing I am most
proud
of."
But as the Detroit Free Press, his hometown paper, once described it, "For
every
brilliant move, there's a dud."
Mr. Conyers was famous for missing votes on the House floor. Critics claimed
that his
effectiveness was dulled by growing arrogance and a refusal to compromise. He
was
prone to gaffes, prompting Time magazine political columnist Joe Klein to call
him
"foolishly incendiary."
When Mr. Conyers ran for mayor of Detroit in 1989, challenging Democratic
incumbent
Coleman A. Young, he announced his bid by saying, "Move over, Big Daddy, I'm
home."
Mr. Conyers finished third in the primary and then lost again in 1993.
Mr. Conyers could be a demanding boss. In addition to the allegations that he
sexually harassed staff members, the House Ethics Committee investigated him
for
pressuring staff members to babysit his children and to chauffeur him to
private
events in government vehicles. After an investigation that lasted more than two
years, the panel announced a deal in 2006 in which it dropped the inquiry in
return
for Mr. Conyers's promise that he would not ask his staff members to do
nonofficial
work for him.
In 2009, Mr. Conyers's wife, Monica Esters Conyers -- a former campaign staff
member
36 years his junior -- was convicted of bribery while serving on the Detroit
City
Council and was sentenced to 37 months in prison.
John James Conyers Jr. was born in Detroit on May 16, 1929. He served in the
Army
Corps of Engineers during the Korean War. With the help of the G.I. Bill for
veterans, he graduated from Detroit's Wayne State University in 1957 and its
law
school in 1958.
His interest in public affairs was partly because of his father's position as
an
international representative for the United Auto Workers and, for a time, Mr.
Conyers
worked as a labor lawyer. He also was a legislative assistant to Rep. John D.
Dingell
(D-Mich.), one of the few House members to serve even longer than Mr. Conyers.
In the early 1960's, local Democratic Party elders considered Mr. Conyers too
young
to pursue federal office. Despite their opposition, Mr. Conyers ran in the 1964
Democratic primary for what was then Detroit's 1st Congressional District and
won by
a mere 45 votes. He then scored a landslide victory in the general election.
Mr. Conyers, who is survived by his wife, a brother and two sons, John III and
Carl,
would later fend off challenges from candidates who hadn't yet been born when
he was
first elected.
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