Former Iowa Congressman Jim Leach dies at 82
Source: Tristates Public Radio WIUM/NPR
Published December 12, 2024 at 10:20 AM CST
Iowa’s longtime U.S. Rep. Jim Leach has died at 82 years old. Leach was born and raised in Davenport and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977 until 2007. He was a Republican, but broke from his party in 2008, when he endorsed Barack Obama for president over John McCain.
Leach was a state champion wrestler and attended Princeton University, Johns Hopkins and The London School of Economics. He served in the U.S. Foreign Service and resigned a commission in protest of Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre during the Watergate Scandal. He would return to Iowa in the mid-70s.
He represented his home state in the U.S. House for 30 years. While he was generally conservative on fiscal issues, he was progressive on foreign policy during his 15 terms in office. He was one of six Republicans who voted against the use of force in Iraq in 2002 and voted against extending the Bush-era tax cuts in 2003. He also supported abortion access up to the third trimester of pregnancy, but didn't believe the public should fund it.
Leach later changed his affiliation to the Democratic Party in 2022 and began backing many of Iowa’s Democratic candidates over their GOP counterparts. In an interview on IPR’s River to River from that year, Leach said it was the events on Jan. 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol that spurred him to cross the aisle again.
Read more: https://www.tspr.org/tspr-local-news/2024-12-12/former-iowa-congressman-jim-leach-dies-at-82
Another buried story. Political junkies might recall "Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act" (basically deregulated the financial investment industry including weakening the Glass–Steagall Act) -
S.900 - Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
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