U.S. House of Representatives
Tenure Dingell was sworn in as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives on December 13, 1955. Dingell was instrumental in the passage of the
Medicare Act, the Water Quality Act of 1965, the
Clean Water Act of 1972, the
Endangered Species Act of 1973, the
Clean Air Act of 1990, and the
Affordable Care Act, among others. He also helped to pass the
Civil Rights Act of 1964. During his tenure in Congress, he voted in favor of the
1957 Civil Rights Act, the
Civil Rights Act of 1960, the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the
Civil Rights Act of 1968. He voted as well for the
24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the
Voting Rights Act of 1965. Dingell was generally classified as a moderately liberal member of the Democratic Party. Throughout his career he was a leading congressional supporter of
organized labor,
social welfare measures and traditional
progressive policies. At the beginning of every Congress, Dingell introduced a bill providing for a
national health insurance system, the same bill that his father proposed while he was in Congress. Dingell also strongly supported
Bill Clinton's managed-care proposal early in his administration. On some issues, though, Dingell reflected the values of his largely Catholic and working-class district. He supported the
Vietnam War until 1971. While he supported all of the
civil rights bills, he opposed expanding school desegregation to Detroit suburbs via
mandatory busing. He took a fairly moderate position on abortion. He worked to balance clean air legislation with the need to protect manufacturing jobs. As well, in the early 1980s, he was a prominent politician who used "
Japan bashing", blaming "little yellow men" for domestic automakers' misfortune, further fostering anti-Japanese racism in Detroit and contributing to the environment that led to the
Killing of Vincent Chin, an American man of Chinese descent killed in the Detroit suburbs by two autoworkers who mistakenly thought he was Japanese. An avid sportsman and
hunter, he strongly opposed
gun control, and was a former board member of the
National Rifle Association of America. For many years, Dingell received an A+ rating from the NRA.
Michael Barone wrote of Dingell in 2002: Dingell was
Dean of the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2015. On December 15, 2005, on the floor of the House, Dingell read a poem sharply critical of, among other things,
Fox News,
Bill O'Reilly, and the so-called "
War on Christmas". Along with
John Conyers, in April 2006, Dingell brought an action against
George W. Bush and others alleging violations of the
Constitution in the passing of the
Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. The case (
Conyers v. Bush) was ultimately dismissed for lack of
standing. After winning re-election in 2008 for his 28th consecutive term, Dingell surpassed the record for having the longest tenure in the history of the House of Representatives on February 11, 2009. In honor of the record, Michigan Governor
Jennifer Granholm declared February 11, 2009, to be John Dingell Day. Dingell was one of the final two
World War II veterans to have served in Congress; the other was
Texas Representative
Ralph Hall. Dingell left office on January 3, 2015. As of that date, Dingell had served with 2,453 different U.S. Representatives in his career. Dingell served in Congress for more than 59 years, retiring as the longest-tenured member of Congress in the history of the United States. His wife,
Debbie Dingell, successfully ran to succeed him in the
2014 election.
Energy and Commerce chairman A longtime member of the
House Energy and Commerce Committee, Dingell chaired the committee from 1981 to 1995 and from 2007 to 2009. Dingell was well known for his approach to congressional oversight of the executive branch. He subpoenaed numerous government officials to testify before the committee and grilled them for hours. He insisted that all who testified before his committee do so under oath, thus exposing them to
perjury charges if they did not tell the truth. He and his committee uncovered numerous instances of corruption and waste, such as the use of $600 toilet seats at
the Pentagon. He also claimed that the committee's work led to resignations of many
Environmental Protection Agency officials, and uncovered information that led to legal proceedings that sent many
Food and Drug Administration officials to jail. with
pączki in 2006 After serving as the committee's ranking Democratic member for 12 years, Dingell regained the chairmanship in 2007. According to
Newsweek, he had wanted to investigate the
George W. Bush Administration's handling of port security, the Medicare prescription drug program and
Dick Cheney's energy task force. Dingell lost the chairmanship for the
111th Congress to Congressman
Henry Waxman of California in a
Democratic caucus meeting on November 20, 2008. Waxman mounted a challenge against Dingell on grounds that Dingell was stalling certain environmental legislation, which would have tightened
vehicle emissions standards—something that could be detrimental to the
Big Three automobile manufacturers that constitute a major source of employment in Dingell's district. Dingell was given the title of Chairman Emeritus in a token of appreciation of his years of service on the committee, and a portrait of him is in the House collection.
Baltimore case In the 1980s, Dingell led a series of congressional hearings to pursue alleged scientific fraud by
Thereza Imanishi-Kari and Nobel Prize-winner
David Baltimore. The
National Institutes of Health's fraud unit, then called the
Office of Scientific Integrity, charged Imanishi-Kari in 1991 of falsifying data and recommended that she be barred from receiving research grants for 10 years. She appealed the decision and the
Department of Health and Human Services appeals panel dismissed the charges against Imanishi-Kari and cleared her to receive grants. The findings and negative publicity surrounding them made David Baltimore decide to resign as president of
Rockefeller University (after Imanishi-Kari was cleared he became president of the
California Institute of Technology). The story of the case is described in
Daniel Kevles' 1998 book
The Baltimore Case, in a chapter of
Horace Freeland Judson's 2004 book
The Great Betrayal: Fraud In Science, in a 1993 study by
Serge Lang, updated and reprinted in his book
Challenges, and in
Kevan Mackay's 2025 documentary
17 Pages.
Robert Gallo claims From 1991 to 1995 Dingell's staff investigated claims that
Robert Gallo had used samples supplied to him by
Luc Montagnier to fraudulently claim to have discovered the
AIDS virus. The report concluded that Gallo had engaged in fraud and that the NIH covered up his misappropriation of work by the French team at the
Institut Pasteur. The report contended that: The report was never formally published as a subcommittee report because of the 1995 change in control of the House from Democratic to Republican. Other accusations against Gallo were dropped, and while Montagnier's group is considered to be the first to isolate the virus, Gallo's has been recognized as first to prove that this virus was the cause of AIDS.
Environment at the 2011 Ypsilanti Independence Day Parade Dingell was a member of the
Congressional Wildlife Refuge Caucus. Dingell opposed raising
mandatory automobile fuel efficiency standards, which he helped to write in the 1970s. Instead, he indicated that he intended to pursue a regulatory structure that takes
greenhouse gas emissions and oil consumption into account. In June 1999, Dingell released a report in which the
General Accounting Office cited concurrent design and construction was the reason for production of high levels of explosive
benzene gas. In a statement, Dingell asserted that "mismanagement by the
United States Department of Energy and
Westinghouse led to an extraordinary, and pathetic, waste of taxpayer money. All we have to show for $500 million is a 20-year delay and the opportunity to risk another $1 billion to make a problematic process work." In July 2007, Dingell indicated he planned to introduce a new tax on carbon usage in order to curtail greenhouse gas emissions. The policy has been criticized by some, as polling numbers show voters may be unwilling to pay for the changes. A
Wall Street Journal editorial claimed that vehicle emissions standards that he supported will not yield any substantial greenhouse gas emissions savings. As one of his final votes, Dingell voted against the
Keystone XL pipeline on November 13, 2014.
Private sector ties Dingell was closely tied to the
automotive industry, as he represented
Metro Detroit, where the
Big Three automakers of
General Motors,
Chrysler, and the
Ford Motor Company, are headquartered. Dingell encouraged the companies to improve
fuel efficiency. During the
automotive industry crisis of 2008–10, Dingell advocated for the
bailout the companies received. During the electoral span of 1989 through 2006, intermediaries for the aforementioned corporations contributed more than $600,000 to Dingell's campaigns. Dingell also held an unknown quantity, more than $1 million in 2005, in assets through General Motors
stock options and savings-stock purchase programs; his wife, Debbie Dingell, is a descendant of one of the Fisher brothers, founders of
Fisher Body, a constituent part of General Motors. She worked as a
lobbyist for the corporation until they married. She then moved to an administrative position there.
Committee assignments 's
presidential bid •
Committee on Energy and Commerce •
Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade •
Subcommittee on Communications and Technology •
Subcommittee on Energy and Power (
ex officio) •
Subcommittee on Environment and Economy •
Subcommittee on Health •
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (
ex officio) == Electoral history ==