Saturday, July 18th, 2020
Long-time Representative Arthur Carney dead at 89
Representative Arthur Carney (D-OR), the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives in history, passed away late last night in his Forest Grove, Oregon home at the age of 89. An ambulance was dispatched to Carney's residence at approximately 10:15 PM local time after the congressman collapsed and hit his head on a table. He was declared dead by responding paramedics, with an autopsy pending to determine whether Carney died as a result of blunt force trauma from hitting the table or was instantly killed by what appears to be a massive cerebral hemorrhage he suffered that caused him to collapse.
Carney was running for a record 27th term in Congress to represent Oregon's 1st congressional district that includes most of northwest Oregon. An unabashed New Deal-style liberal, Carney's durability and strong advocacy for both organized labor and tough business regulations had made him a bête noire for generations of Oregon conservatives. His seniority and knowledge of House procedure gave him outsize power as Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which he had chaired since the Democrats returned to the majority after the 2006 election.
Born in 1930 to poor parents in Everett, Washington, Carney joined the United States Air Force immediately after graduating high school in 1948. After leaving the Air Force in 1951, Carney used his G.I. Bill education benefits to attend the University of Oregon, where he eventually earned a law degree. After practicing law in Forest Grove and other areas of Washington County, Oregon, Carney was recruited to run against incumbent congressman Wendell Wyatt (R) in 1968. Running a fierce campaign, Carney pulled off a narrow upset over Wyatt despite the latter's incumbency and Richard Nixon's victory in the state. After two difficult challenges in both 1970 and 1972 (which saw Wyatt nearly retake the seat during Nixon's landslide defeat of Democratic candidate George McGovern), Carney's popularity in the district made subsequent contests increasingly pro forma, with Republicans not even bothering to nominate candidates against him on three occasions between 1990 and 2006.
Having been a member of "the people's house" for 51 years and 6 months, Carney has set or broken numerous records. He is the longest-serving representative in history, and is behind only legendary former senators Carl Hayden (D-AZ) and Joseph Furman (R-SC) in the list of total time served in Congress. Since the retirement of former congressman Harry Wade (D-CA) in 2018, Carney was the last remaining member of Congress to have held office in the 1960s as well as the last member of Congress to serve while Lyndon B. Johnson was president. Carney held office under 11 different presidents (from Johnson to Sam Seaborn) and was known to have met both Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy
—meaning that he encountered an astonishing 13 presidents in his lifetime, over one-quarter of all the presidents in American history. In his role as Dean of the House, Carney will be succeeded by Representative Thom Grunder (D-MN), who first took office in 1973.
Known on Capitol Hill as a devoted grandfather and great-grandfather, Carney is survived by his second wife Anne Carney, his four children (all by his late first wife Marjorie), 11 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Per party rules, the Oregon Democratic Party will nominate a candidate to replace him on the ballot at a special convention. Governor Walter Collins (R) is expected, per Oregon law, to announce a special election for the remainder of Carney's final term to take place alongside the election to represent the district for a new term. House Democrats similarly will meet to vote on his successor as chair of the Energy and Commerce committee at a special party caucus.
