Rep. Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat who represented the Rochester area in Congress for over 30 years, died on Friday, following a fall last week in which she sustained a concussion. Eighty-eight at the time of her death, Slaughter had been the oldest member of the House, a distinction that now falls to Texas Rep. Sam Johnson, who is retiring this year.
Slaughter, who was a distant relative of Daniel Boone, came to western New York from Kentucky in the 1950s, and won seats in the Monroe County Legislature and New York Assembly in the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1986, then-Assemblywoman Slaughter challenged conservative one-term GOP Rep. Fred Eckert, a vocal supporter of Ronald Reagan, in what was then New York's 30th Congressional District. Slaughter assembled a huge volunteer army and ousted Eckert by a tight 51-49 margin, running ads that labeled him "Congressman No" for his votes against school lunches and sanctions on South Africa's apartheid regime.
Slaughter had little trouble winning re-election afterward for decades. However, the 2012 round of redistricting changed her district quite a bit: Slaughter lost territory around Buffalo and was left in a seat based entirely in Rochester’s Monroe County. Not only was the new 25th District considerably less Democratic than its predecessor (the 28th), Slaughter also only represented about 40 percent of of its constituents.
While the congresswoman was still very well known in the Rochester area, Republicans smelled an opportunity and recruited Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks, who had just decisively won re-election. Slaughter was taken off the campaign trail for a time after she broke her leg in a fall, but she continued to boast that she’s always “had the stamina of three people” and joked that her slogan could be “Vote Louise. She has a leg up.” Polls showed a close race for a time and Republican outside groups spent heavily, but Slaughter won 57-43 as Obama was carrying the seat 59-39.
National Republicans left Slaughter alone during the 2014 GOP wave, so it was a huge surprise on election night when she was locked in a close race with Mark Assini, a little-known town supervisor. The race wasn’t called for a week, and Slaughter won re-election just 50.2 to 49.7. The following cycle, Slaughter took nothing for granted and easily dispatched Assini in a rematch by a 56-44 margin as Clinton was winning her seat 56-39. She had announced that she would seek another term just weeks before her death.
Slaughter, who never lost her Kentucky drawl, was known both as one of the nicest denizens of Capitol Hill and, at the same time, a fierce fighter for liberal causes. Slaughter was the co-author of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, and she also was known as a mentor for female lawmakers. In 2008, Slaughter also co-authored successful legislation to prevent insurance providers from discriminating on the basis of genetic information—an issue of great importance to her as the only microbiologist in the House. (She earned a master’s degree in 1953, at a time when very few women were studying the sciences.)
Slaughter became the first woman to chair the Rules Committee when her party took back the House in 2006, and she used her powerful role to help Democrats pass important pieces of legislation during the first two years of Obama’s presidency. In 2010, as Slaughter was helping pass Obamacare, she recounted that she had received a death threat, and that a rock was used to smash her district office window.
Slaughter remained an influential member of Congress even in the minority. In 2012, months after “60 Minutes” ran a story exposing the fact that insider trading was completely legal for members of Congress, Slaughter made a renewed push to require public reports of any stock transactions by members of Congress. This proposal, known as the STOCK Act, had attracted little support in the past, but Obama helped change that after he called for reform in his State of the Union. The bill was signed by Obama months later.
The congresswoman was born a McIntosh in Lynch, Kentucky, in 1929, the daughter of a housewife and a blacksmith for a coal mine. She married Bob Slaughter in 1957. The couple had three daughters: Megan, Amy and Robin, and seven grandchildren. Bob Slaughter died in May 2014, aged 82.