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Traficant was my friend
By Rep. JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr.
Several years ago the Washington Post Style Section featured an article that said if Congress was a color today, it would be beige, meaning it just didn’t have colorful members as in the past.
The writer quoted former Rep. Billy Tauzin of Louisiana as saying “We all miss Jim Traficant.”
Every year our nation seems to grow more bland, homogenized and, yes, beige as most people feel a need to conform and sound, act, dress and even think alike.
I think that is why Jim Traficant stood out so much. Jim was different. He was unique. He was special.
I am now finishing my 26th year in the U.S. House. For 15 of those years, I served with Jim Traficant, and we served on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee together.
In most ways we were very different. He was a Democrat, I am a Republican. I have lived in East Tennessee all my life; he lived in Youngstown. I was a criminal-court Judge for 7 Ω years before coming to Congress. He did not think highly of most judges. But he was my friend.
For many years, Larry King had a national late-night radio program in addition to his TV show. One time he invited Jim to be on and asked him to get some Republican to come with him.
He asked me. But after we had been on for awhile, during one of the breaks, King laughed and said next time, he was going to get some other members, because Jim and I obviously liked each other too much and agreed too often.
When Jim served as chairman of the Public Building and Grounds Subcommittee, I was his ranking Republican. Before we teamed up, that subcommittee had been a rubber stamp for billions in federal construction projects and rentals.
Jim and I started asking all kinds of questions about sweetheart deals, high rents, and ridiculous square-foot building costs. I believe we saved hundreds of millions for U. S. taxpayers.
When I chaired the Aviation Subcommittee, I put a $4 million authorization for the Youngstown Airport in the FAA bill because Jim convinced me that the project had merit and his city needed help.
Jim was so grateful; he thanked me one day in a C-Span interview and in congressional testimony. During a recess, our Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas and Rep. Steve LaTourette of Ohio gave me a hard time, saying I hadn’t given them any money.
Jim was a good legislator, because he was popular with his colleagues (not the leadership), and he was persistent.
A GUTSY BULLDOG
And he had guts. Boy, did he have guts. No other member would have had the courage to fight for John Demjanjuk as he did. And, in the end, the Israeli Supreme Court admitted that he was in the right.
Jim’s one-minute speeches at the start of each session were classics. He had his finger on the pulse of the people so well that the gallery almost always broke into applause. I have never heard them do that for any other member.
He was a bulldog when it came to legislating or fighting for what he thought was right. But, unfortunately, he was bullheaded in his determination to represent himself in court.
I had practiced law with one of the best trial lawyers in Tennessee. I got him to agree to represent Jim for free. But Jim was bound and determined to represent himself.
Shortly before his trial, a Youngstown TV station asked to interview me. In that interview, I said I didn’t know all the facts, and that if Jim had done something wrong, I guessed he would have to be punished.
But I told them that what had impressed me the most about Jim was the way he treated what some would call the little people, the ordinary working people of the Capitol, like the police, the tour guides, the elevator operators, etc.
These blue-collar workers that many people didn’t even notice loved Jim Traficant. The man had a lot more good in him than bad.
And I know from our conversations and from his entire career, before and during his years in Congress, that he had a special love for his hometown and the forgotten people of the Mahoning Valley.
I had planned to visit Jim in prison until our friend Steve LaTourette told me he had gone there and Jim refused to see him, possibly not wanting one of his former colleagues to see him as a prisoner.
Sadly, I never had a chance to renew the relationship we had when we served together. But I hope the people of Youngstown and the surrounding area know that Jim Traficant did many good things in his life.
There has been so much turnover in the House since Jim was there that very few members now ever had the opportunity to serve with him.
But as one of the few still in Congress who did, I can tell you that I will always miss Jim Traficant.
Republican John James “Jimmy” Duncan, Jr. has represented Tennessee’s 2nd Congressional District since 1988.