Jerry Lewis, California Republican who led House Appropriations Committee, dies at 86

By Matt Schudel,

Jerry Lewis, a prominent Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives who used his position on the Appropriations Committee to designate hundreds of millions of dollars for earmarked projects in his district in Southern California, drawing the attention of investigators, died July 15 at his home in Redlands, Calif. He was 86.

The death was confirmed by his son Dan Lewis, who said the cause had not been determined.

Mr. Lewis, who was once the third-ranking Republican in the House, served 34 years in Congress after he was elected in 1978. With his immaculately sculpted white hair and crisp suits, he looked like the classic Central Casting image of a congressman.

He had a conservative voting record throughout his career, but he embodied an earlier political tradition of camaraderie and cooperation, often working closely with Democrats on the Appropriations Committee or in the California delegation.

“He was very much an old-school Republican and a believer in civility and bipartisanship,” John J. Pitney Jr., a onetime staffer for Mr. Lewis and now a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College in California, said in an interview.

Mr. Lewis won a seat on the Appropriations Committee soon after arriving in Washington. By 1990, he was one of the most powerful Republicans in the House, holding the No. 3 position as conference chairman.

After the 1992 election, he was pushed out of that leadership role by Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.), a more confrontational conservative and a close ally of then-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who entered Congress the same year as Mr. Lewis.

“Newt was heard saying that the biggest mistake he had made since coming to Congress was not finding someone more conservative to run against Jerry Lewis,” Mr. Lewis told the Baltimore Sun in 1999. “Dick Armey raised his hand and said, ‘I’ll do it.’ ”

Pitney said Gingrich and Mr. Lewis “represented divergent views of what the Republican Party should be. Gingrich saw politics as war by another means. Jerry saw politics as a way to solve problems.”

When the GOP took control of the House after the 1994 election — and Gingrich was named House speaker — Mr. Lewis became a so-called “cardinal” as the chairman of an appropriations subcommittee. He first led a subcommittee that controlled spending on NASA, veterans’ affairs, the Environmental Protection Agency, federal housing and other programs. He later chaired the subcommittee overseeing defense spending.

From those perches, he became a master of the earmark, in which specific spending directives are attached to appropriations bills. Mr. Lewis’s sprawling district, which included San Bernardino, Riverside and Redlands and extended to the Nevada border, benefited from his largesse. Millions of dollars went to military installations, colleges, medical facilities, highway projects and forestry and flood-control efforts.

Between 1998 and 2003, Loma Linda University in Mr. Lewis’s district received an estimated $167 million in federal funds, according to CBS News, more than any other college in the country. Buildings, swimming pools, research facilities and community centers throughout the region bore Mr. Lewis’s name.

Critics accused him of practicing pork-barrel politics, doling out federal dollars to favored institutions back home in California. Mr. Lewis said he was just doing his job.

He became a prolific fundraiser for GOP congressional candidates, tapping military contractors for donations. In 2005, Mr. Lewis achieved “the highlight of my career” when he was named chairman of the full House Appropriations Committee.

“My goal as chairman is not just to create a huge funnel to San Bernardino and Riverside counties,” he said. “But I have a feeling we will in California manage to get our share.”

After Mr. Lewis secured $15 million to help welfare recipients in San Bernardino County fix up old houses, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) cited the earmark as classic pork-barrel politics. When John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) became House speaker in 2011, he banned earmarks altogether. (The practice was restored this year.)

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics often cited Mr. Lewis for steering federal money to potential campaign donors. Beginning in 2006, he came under federal scrutiny for his connections to a lobbying group that included several former staffers and a California Republican, Bill Lowery, who had previously served with Mr. Lewis on the Appropriations Committee.

After a four-year investigation, which cost Mr. Lewis $1 million in legal fees, no charges were filed.

Mr. Lewis lost his Appropriations chairmanship after the Democrats reclaimed the House in the 2006 election. He did not seek reelection in 2012, retiring as the longest-serving congressional Republican in California history.

Charles Jeremy Lewis was born Oct. 21, 1934, in Seattle and moved with his family to San Bernardino a year later. His father was an engineer, his mother a homemaker.

Mr. Lewis, who was known as Jerry from an early age, was a star swimmer and basketball player in high school. He graduated in 1956 from the University of California at Los Angeles and later opened an insurance agency in San Bernardino.

He served on the school board and worked on the staff of U.S. Rep. Jerry Pettis (R-Calif.) before being elected to the California legislature in 1968. He helped write landmark environmental legislation and sponsored one of the country’s first shield laws, protecting journalists from being forced to disclose confidential information in court.

Mr. Lewis’s first marriage, to Sally Lord, ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife since 1986, Arlene Willis, who was also his longtime chief of staff, of Redlands; four children from his first marriage; three stepchildren; two brothers; and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

During his years in Congress, Mr. Lewis often swam 100 laps a day in the House swimming pool. A onetime lifeguard, he rescued then House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) from potential drowning while swimming in Hawaii in the 1980s.

Mr. Lewis bore a striking resemblance to actor Peter Graves, but he was linked throughout his life to the comedian and director Jerry Lewis, who died in 2017.

“Jerry Lewis the movie actor will always be known better than I am,” Mr. Lewis said in 2004, but the two knew each other and worked together to support children’s hospitals in California. The congressman’s Capitol Hill office often received fan mail intended for the other Jerry Lewis. From time to time, the comic actor would call Mr. Lewis’s office, just to say hello.

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