Don Young represented Alaska in the U.S. House of Representatives and was the longest-serving Republican in House history.
- Died: March 18, 2022 (Who else died on March 18?)
- Details of death: Died while traveling home to Alaska at the age of 88.
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Political career
After serving in the U.S. Army in the 1950s, Young settled in Alaska, where he became a tugboat captain and taught fifth grade. He was elected mayor of Fort Yukon, Alaska in 1964, and he rose from that position to the state House of Representatives and then the state Senate. Young ran for the U.S. House of Representative in 1972, but he lost the election to incumbent Nick Begich. However, Begich was in a plane crash shortly before the election; his body was never found, and he was presumed dead. After Begich was declared dead in December, a special election was held and Young was elected to fill his spot, becoming Alaska’s lone member in the House.
Young was reelected 24 times, setting a record as a Republican in the House and becoming one of the longest serving representatives in U.S. history. He was the only representative still serving who had served during the Nixon administration and the only one who had been elected during the 1970s. Young became known for his conservative policies alongside a willingness to reach across the aisle for bipartisan cooperation. Young served on the Committee on Natural Resources, which he renamed the Committee of Resources while he chaired it in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He was also a longtime member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and he often championed infrastructure projects for Alaska.
Notable quote
“There’s no Alaskan right now that isn’t somehow touched by what I’ve been able to do in Congress. And people say, ‘That’s kind of presumptuous.’ But you think, everyone gets a Permanent (Fund) Dividend check. That was my bill.” —from a 2019 interview for Alaska Public Radio
Tributes to Don Young
Full obituary: Anchorage Daily News
