John Dingell Is Gone, but His Politics Are Back

Before John Dingell was a piece of history, he was a witness to it. Dingell, a teenage congressional page, was on the floor of the U.S. House when President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for a declaration of war on Japan, saying the attack on Pearl Harbor a day earlier made December 7, 1941, “a date which will live in infamy.”

Almost exactly 14 years later, Dingell would be back in the House, this time as a lawmaker representing the Detroit area. He stayed for more than 59 years—the longest tenure in congressional history. Dingell would see the Red Scare of the 1950s, the golden age of civil-rights legislation, and the end of the Cold War. He would vote for the passage of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act, pushing toward his father’s