Deaths: California Democrat Ron Dellums, who served in the House from 1971 to 1998 and as mayor of Oakland from 2007 to 2011, died Monday at the age of 82.
Dellums, a former Marine who served on the Berkeley City Council, quickly drew national attention when he first sought his East Bay seat in 1970. Dellums challenged Rep. Jeffrey Cohelan in the primary and argued that he hadn't done enough to oppose the Vietnam War.
Dellums, who rallied labor, students, and people of color, unseated Cohelan 55-45, and his easy general election victory made him the first African-American to represent Northern California in Congress. During that campaign, GOP Vice President Spiro Agnew branded Dellums as an "an out and out radical" who had to be "purged from the body politic," and the congressman ended up on Richard Nixon's Enemies List.
Dellums made a name for himself as an ardent and confrontational opponent of the war. Notably, when Dellums' calls for a House investigation into alleged war crimes were ignored, he drew national attention by holding his own informal hearings. He would also advocate for what he knew would be perceived as radical left-wing ideas that had no chance of passing Congress in order to shift the overall debate to the left. However, Dellums was still able to win over allies and rise to serve as chair of the House Committee on the District of Columbia and the Armed Services Committee. Notably, he was both the first black member and first anti-war activist to head Armed Services.
Dellums also played a key roll in creating and passing the 1986 Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act to sanction apartheid South Africa. Congress overrode Ronald Reagan's veto, making this the first time in the 20th Century that Congress had ever overrode a president's veto on foreign policy. Dellums decided to resign in 1997, and he endorsed state Sen. Barbara Lee, a former staffer who still represents Oakland and Berkeley today.
Dellums headed a lobbying firm for the next eight years, but he ventured back into politics in 2006 when he ran to succeed once-and-future California Gov. Jerry Brown as mayor of Oakland. Dellums ended up winning 50-33, but while he was credited for enlarging the police department and helping direct key projects to the city, he was later forced to lay off police officers. Dellums was also criticized for now spending enough time at City Hall, and the IRS cited him and his wife for owing $239,000 in income taxes. Dellums ended up not seeking a second term in 2010.