Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. John Dingell hold the gavel used by Dingell as speaker pro tempore when Medicare passed in 1965 during the announcement on the Democrats' health care plan in October 2009. At the right is House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. | Charles Dharapak/AP Photo Congress Presidents, lawmakers pay tribute to John Dingell Presidents and politicians on Thursday paid tribute to John Dingell, the longest serving member of Congress, as a leader who had an extraordinary record of legislative achievement — with a work ethic and sense of humor to match. “Today, we have lost a beloved pillar of the Congress and one of the greatest legislators in American history," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said of Dingell, who died Thursday at 92, in a statement. "John Dingell leaves a towering legacy of unshakable strength, boundless energy and transformative leadership." Former President Barack Obama, whom Dingell sat next to when he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, said the lawmaker's legacy "reminds us that change does not always come with a flash, but instead with steady, determined effort." "Over the course of the longest congressional career in history, John led the charge on so much of the progress we take for granted today," Obama said in a statement. "He had a long tradition of introducing legislation on the first day of each new Congress to guarantee health care for every single American. Because of him, we’ve come closer to that vision than ever before. And when we finally achieve it – and we will – we’ll all owe him our gratitude." Former President George W. Bush said he spoke to Dingell on Thursday and thanked the former congressman "for being an example to those who have followed him into the public arena." "He was a gentleman who showed great respect for our country and her people," Bush said in a statement. "He represented his district with decency and honor." Summing up the Michigan Democrat's legacy, former President Bill Clinton said: "There are few major legislative triumphs since 1955 that he didn’t have a key hand in passing." President Barack Obama hugs Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) after presenting him with the Medal of Freedom during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on Nov. 24, 2014. | Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer remembered his friend as a "giant," adding that Dingell "was a man of indefatigable spirit who loved life, the lovely Deborah his wife, and the House of Representatives." "None of us who were close to him will ever forget John’s positive attitude, his humor, his pride in both his Polish roots and his service in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II, his love of America, and his abiding belief in working across the aisle to achieve results through consensus." House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Dingell left "a lasting impression with everyone he met." Fellow Michiganders remembered Dingell, who first came to Capitol Hill as a page when his father, John Dingell Sr., was elected to Congress, as a gritty, determined lawmaker who found a way to forge deals with Republicans. "The Congressman’s grit, humility and humor taught us all that we can disagree without being disagreeable, while still finding common ground and working together to get things done," Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wrote on Twitter. Oregon Republican Rep. Greg Walden, who chaired the Energy and Commerce Committee before Democrats retook the House in November, added: "The U.S. House of Representatives and the nation lost one of its most faithful servants. John Dingell, the Dean, was a giant in Congress for decades – a true man of the House. He loved this institution; he loved the Energy and Commerce Committee." For a new generation of lawmakers who were unable to serve with Dingell, the retired "Dean of Congress" shared his thoughts and wit with the world through Twitter, where he opined to his more than 250,000 followers on everything from the Kardashians and Michigan football to President Donald Trump. "One day I hope to be as cool as @JohnDingell," Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Penn.) wrote on Twitter. One of his former colleagues, Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) poignantly recalled the advice the elder gave him when he was first elected. "When I got to Congress, John sat me down to give me advice: 'You’re not important. It’s what you can now do to help others that’s important," Deutch said. 'If you never forget that, you’ll do fine.' "John never forgot, and he helped millions. A very fine life indeed." CORRECTION: This article has been updated to correct Rep. Greg Walden's statement.<doc-sep>No member of Congress saw more history than John Dingell, the longest-serving United States Representative in history, who died Thursday at age 92. On health care especially, something of an ancestral calling for the Michigan Congress member, he oversaw remarkable progress. First elected in 1955, Dingell wielded the gavel in 1965 when Congress passed Medicare into law, guaranteeing health insurance as a right to every American citizen over age 65. He voted for Medicaid and later the Children’s Health Insurance Program. He watched key health reform efforts, like those championed by the Clintons in the 1990s, fail — and lost his prized chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee shortly afterward. But his career closed with a victory: When President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law in 2010, Dingell sat at his side. All told, Dingell played a role in the creation of three major government health care programs: Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. Taken together, those three programs now cover about 40 percent of the American population. For the Michigan Congress member, national health insurance was a family matter: Every year, he would reintroduce a bill first proposed by his father during World War Il for a single-payer health care program. Dingell traced that remarkable history in a string of tweets — his Twitter account was the frequent source of amusement among the Washington press corps — while Republicans debated in 2017 whether to repeal the most recent Democratic health care law. In 1943, my father was one of the first people to introduce comprehensive health care reform in Congress, a single-payer system for all. — John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 21, 2017 But his effort wasn't as successful in '43. The Wagner-Murray-Dingell bill to create a national health program ultimately died in committee. — John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 21, 2017 He never would get to see universal health care become law. He passed in 55 and I decided to run to replace him, vowing to keep up his work. — John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 21, 2017 In 1957--and every Congress thereafter--I'd reintroduce my father's bill & work to create a national program to take care of those in need. — John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 21, 2017 I was a pup at the time, but I began working with my colleagues on Medicare legislation. Cecil King. Aime Forand. My dear friend John Moss. pic.twitter.com/Q033Fw2XGV — John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 22, 2017 It took years to work through, but then-Speaker McCormack brought our bill to the floor in 65 and gave me the honor of gaveling its passage. pic.twitter.com/Zg1R2I86xu — John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 22, 2017 It was an accomplishment but was not my end goal. I continued to reintroduce my father's bill every year. As pieces of it slowly became law. — John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 22, 2017 Over the years we'd create the National Institutes of Health, the Children's Health Insurance Program, & many other efforts to improve care. — John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 22, 2017 We took another shot in the 90s but again came up short. You know who knew damn well how complicated health care could be?@HillaryClinton. — John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 22, 2017 Nevertheless, we persisted. It was an honor to work with so many great champions of our nation in helping to craft the Affordable Care Act. — John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 22, 2017 Was Obamacare perfect? Hell no. The only perfect law was handed to Moses on stone tablets by God himself. Obamacare was an important start. — John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 22, 2017 7 years ago this week, I sat with @POTUS44 & others as decades of our collective hard work became law. Or as @JoeBiden called it: a big deal pic.twitter.com/PbO1R4L4oF — John Dingell (@JohnDingell) March 22, 2017 But even Dingell never realized the full completion of the progressive health care reform project and the truly universal health care system he strived for over many decades in the Capitol. For all his remarkable accomplishments, as Dingell was painfully aware, the dream is still not fully realized. Millions of Americans live without health insurance. Even for those who have it, medical care is often unaffordable. The United States spends more money on health care than any other developed country, and yet deep inequities persist. We are living in a time of new optimism that America might actually pass single-payer health care, or something very close to it. Dingell’s wife Debbie, who succeeded him in Congress when Dingell retired in 2015, has co-sponsored the House’s most recent Medicare-for-all bill, now a litmus test for any aspiring Democrat who seeks the White House in 2020. The party caught up to the Dingell family 75 years after John’s father first introduced his single-payer bill. John Dingell’s work has ended, and he will soon be laid to rest at the Arlington National Cemetery. But the work he gave so much of his life to goes on.<doc-sep>Former Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, who served in Congress longer than any member in history and left his mark on the major civil rights, environmental and health care laws of the last century, died Thursday at age 92. His wife, Rep. Debbie Dingell, who succeeded him in office after his retirement in 2015, confirmed his death, saying in a statement he “died peacefully today at his home in Dearborn.” “He will be remembered for his decades of public service to the people of Southeast Michigan, his razor sharp wit, and a lifetime of dedication to improving the lives of all who walk this earth,” Mrs. Dingell said. Known as a master legislator, the World War II Army veteran and onetime prosecutor chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee at the height of his power in the House, skillfully—and at times ruthlessly—wielding its gavel to shape legislation involving wide swaths of the American economy. He relished the panel’s broad jurisdiction in his 16 years at its helm. “If it moves, it’s energy. If it doesn’t, it’s commerce,” he said when asked about the reach of the committee, which oversees the production and delivery of energy, interstate businesses, telecommunications, food and drug safety, public health, and environmental issues. Another oft-repeated Dingellism: “You may have the votes, but I have the gavel.” John David Dingell Jr. was a creature of the U.S. House of Representatives from early childhood, having spent much of his youth in Washington at the feet of his father, Rep. John Dingell Sr. The elder Dingell represented the Detroit-area district for 22 years beginning in 1933, when his son was six years old. After his father died in 1955, John Jr., then age 29, was chosen in a special election to represent the district, and was re-elected 29 consecutive times after that, a tenure so long that some election years he had to court new constituents when his district’s lines were redrawn to reflect the state’s population shifts. With Debbie Dingell now in the seat, a Dingell has been in Congress for nearly 86 years. It was during his years as Energy and Commerce Committee chairman that he became known to colleagues on Capitol Hill as “Big John,” a nickname that reflected not only his physical stature but the expansiveness of his power. For years he insisted on also running the panel’s oversight and investigations subcommittee. In that capacity, he interrogated, some would say intimidated, officials from agencies across the government in hearings on regulation of the accounting profession, wasteful spending by federal contractors, and regulators who had dropped the ball on health, safety or environmental protections. His letters asking questions of government agencies were known as “Dingell-grams,” questionnaires so detailed and specific that the Environmental Protection Agency had to assign one person to the sole job of answering them. “He was a tireless advocate for the people,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md. ), a close friend of Mr. Dingell, said Wednesday. In the 59 years and 21 days Mr. Dingell served, he made a cause of universal health care, and, following in the footsteps of his father, introduced a bill at the beginning of every new Congress to provide universal health care to all Americans. The closest Congress ever came to that goal was passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, which required insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions and expanded the Medicaid program for the poor. Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) ended the House vote on that bill using the same gavel Mr. Dingell wielded to preside over the House passage of the Medicare program in 1965. While a social liberal, he went against the party grain on some issues, including gun-control legislation. A big-game hunter whose office walls were adorned with stuffed trophies of his harvest, he understood the parts of his constituency who enjoyed his state’s hunting culture. As a conservationist, he also fought hard for environmental legislation, including the Endangered Species Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. But as a Detroiter, he was a reliable protector of the automobile industry, taking positions that reflected the importance of cars to his district, his state and its workers. He even married into it; Debbie Dingell, then Debbie Insley, was a descendent of the founders of Fisher Body and a lobbyist for General Motors Corp. when the two met in 1977. They were married in 1981. (Mr. Dingell’s first marriage to Helen Henebry, with whom he had four children, ended in divorce in 1972.) Newsletter Sign-up Notes on the News Today’s headlines, news in context, and good reads you may have missed, with Tyler Blint-Welsh. PREVIEW His closeness to the auto industry—some environmentalists called him “Dirty Dingell” or “Tailpipe Johnny”—was seen as a factor in his unceremonious removal from the committee’s chair. In 2008, after Barack Obama was elected president, Democrats determined to enact strict climate change legislation supported a coup by Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) to take over the panel. Mr. Waxman, then 69, saw the Michigander as an obstacle to what was an historic opportunity to enact legislation to curb greenhouse gases and built enough support to replace him. Mr. Waxman also retired from Congress in 2015. Mr. Dingell at the time urged his colleagues not to feel sorry for him, but the episode was nonetheless stinging for someone who had made the committee his legislative home for so many years. The power of a committee gavel was a reason he had eschewed any talk of a bid for a position in the House leadership over the years, even though he probably had the clout and respect in the House to make one. Such was his loyalty to the panel that even when Republicans controlled the House, he worked to protect its prerogatives. In a tribute marking Mr. Dingell’s 50 years in Congress in 2005, Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas told a story of how, during a tense House-Senate conference committee, Mr. Dingell quietly coached him—despite their policy differences—on how to ensure that the House would control the final product by asking for specific papers associated with the bill.<doc-sep>John Dingell, a gruff Michigan Democrat who entered the U.S. House of Representatives in 1955 to finish his late father's term and became a legislative heavyweight and longest-serving member of Congress, died on Thursday. He was 92. "Today the great State of Michigan said farewell to one of our greatest leaders. John Dingell will forever be remembered as 'The Dean' of Congress not simply for the length of his service, but for his unparalleled record of legislative accomplishments," Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer wrote in a post on Twitter. Whitmer tweet Dingell served 59 years in the House before retiring in 2015 because, as he said to a Michigan business group at the time, he could no longer "live up to my own personal standard" for serving in Congress. On Wednesday, Dingell's wife, Debbie Dingell, who was elected to succeed him, said on Twitter that she skipped Tuesday's State of the Union address in Washington to be with him as his health declined. The Detroit News reported he was in hospice care after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, which he had decided not to treat. On Wednesday, Dingell dictated a tweet for his wife to write: "I want to thank you all for your incredibly kind words and prayers. You're not done with me just yet." Dingell tweet Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow wrote in a post on Twitter: "We have been incredibly lucky to have you and will miss you dearly."<doc-sep>
(CNN) — Former Rep. John Dingell, the longest serving member of Congress on record and a politician whose voice loomed large even after he left Capitol Hill, passed away Thursday. He was 92. “It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of John David Dingell, Jr., former Michigan Congressman and longest-serving member of the United States Congress,” the office of his wife, Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Michigan, said in a statement. “Congressman Dingell died peacefully today at his home in Dearborn, surrounded by his wife Deborah. He was a lion of the United States Congress and a loving son, father, husband, grandfather, and friend. He will be remembered for his decades of public service to the people of Southeast Michigan, his razor sharp wit, and a lifetime of dedication to improving the lives of all who walk this earth.” The Michigan Democrat was a lion in the House for decades and a longtime committee chairman. In more recent years, he became known for his witty Twitter account and criticism of President Donald Trump’s administration. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday ordered the flags at the US Capitol to be flown at half-staff in honor of Dingell. “John Dingell was a giant legislator on behalf of the people,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. He described Dingell as a “tireless advocate” who fought for clean air, clean water, consumer protections and financial regulations throughout his nearly six decades in Congress. Dingell served in the House of Representatives for 59 years and 22 days, from 1955 to 2015. According to the House historian’s office, he served with 11 presidents and cast 28,551 votes. Of that time, he served on the Energy and Commerce Committee for nearly 58 years, making Dingell the longest serving member on any congressional committee. He served as chairman of the committee for more than 15 years. Dingell, whose district was home to the Ford Motor Company, had long been a strong supporter of the auto industry but also stressed environmental issues over the years. He played a key role in helping pass signature pieces of legislation such as the Civil Rights Act, Medicare, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare. “I think he will go down in history as one of the most impactful members of the United States Congress,” said Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries of New York. “And he’s a great tweeter as well.” With the expansion of Twitter, Dingell became known for his commentary on current events through snarky and sometimes hard-hitting tweets that often went viral. He built a following of more than 250,000 users, dwarfing that of many current members of Congress. Trump has been the subject of his criticism in recent years, but more broadly, Dingell has been knocking what he describes as a decline in institutionalism. “In my six decades in public service, I’ve seen many changes in our nation and its institutions. Yet the most profound change I’ve witnessed is also the saddest,” he wrote in a December op-ed for The Atlantic. “It is the complete collapse in respect for virtually every institution of government and an unprecedented cynicism about the nobility of public service itself.” Dingell favored abolishing the Senate, where legislation faces a higher threshold for passage, and combining the two chambers into one. “It will take a national movement, starting at the grassroots level, and will require massive organizing, strategic voting, and strong leadership over the course of a generation,” he wrote. “But it has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? ‘Abolish the Senate.’ I’m having blue caps printed up with that slogan right now. They will be made in America.” John David Dingell Jr. was born July 8, 1926 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He was exposed to politics at an early age when his father was elected to the House in 1932. The young Dingell then served as a House page and attended the Capitol Page School from 1938 to 1943. “We saw some rather great things,” Dingell said in a 2012 oral history interview with the office of the House historian. “The President (Franklin D. Roosevelt) declared war the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor (December 8, 1941).