Gerry Connolly Dead at 75
Congressman becomes third to die in office this year and sixth in just over a year
Today, 75 year old Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia died of the esophageal cancer he’d been diagnosed with last year. Connolly, you may recall, was recently picked by congressional Democrats to serve as ranking member on the high-profile Oversight Committee, passing up Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Connolly joins five other members of Congress who also died in office over the past 13 months:
Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona (77), who died of lung cancer on March 13,
Rep. Sylvester Turner of Texas (70), who died of unknown health reasons on March 5
Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey (87), who died after weeks of respiratory issues on August 21, 2024,
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (74) of Texas, who died of pancreatic cancer on July 19, 2024, and
Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (65) of New Jersey, who died of unknown health reasons on April 24, 2024.
You might’ve noticed something about this list: they’re all Democrats.
That’s not a coincidence.
The Democratic Party is unique in prioritizing seniority in whom it awards powerful congressional leadership positions. The practice speaks to a deep seated attitude among the party of deference to party elders and belief in a system that rewards seniority over merit.
Gerry Connolly made explicit reference to this in an interview with CNN back in December, following public backlash against his committee assignment.
“I’ve never had my chance to be a ranking member or a chairman of a full committee,” Connolly said, going on to stress his many years of experience:
“This is it. And I've got the bona fides and credentials over 16 years that my colleagues, you know, looked at, examined, validated, and decided that's what we need. We need the best general we can put on the battle ground with four more years prospectively of Donald Trump.”
Several weeks earlier, Connolly had announced that he had esophageal cancer, a disclosure he made just one day after winning reelection in November, as I reported then. An oncological surgeon I interviewed stressed the bleak prognosis for Connolly’s illness, observing his physical appearance (extreme weight loss, sunken temples, muscle loss) as characteristic of terminal illness. I reported all of this — except the surgeon’s grim assertion that Connolly wouldn’t survive the year, which seemed a bit too speculative.
That didn’t go over so well with Democratic Party leadership, whose angry response epitomized their almost religious reverence for their party elders.
Then-head of the Virginia Democratic Party, Susan Swecker, told me to “delete yourself,” declaring that Connolly “is going to kick cancer’s ass.”
Democratic Party influencers and other hangers on echoed these sentiments in posts condemning me. Do they seriously think a journalist’s responsibility to report the truth magically disappears when that truth happens to be awkward or uncomfortable?
By April this year, after just weeks of serving atop the Oversight Committee, Connolly announced that he was stepping down from the committee and would not be seeking reelection, citing his cancer.
At this point, I did actually receive some apologies from people who had thought my reporting was insensitive but now could see that I was trying to warn people about a real problem.
I’ve gotten some of the same today. But most of Democratic officialdom seems to have learned nothing, continuing to shoot the messenger. Senator Gary Peters’ digital director, Henry White, said that my reporting was nothing more than an attempt to cultivate a small group of followers. “I hope cultivating a loyal audience of several dozen reply guys was worth it bud,” he said.
For those not familiar with how Washington works, his “worth it” remark is a veiled threat not to help me with any future stories; a reference to the access I was sacrificing by reporting on this stuff. (Access to exclusives is the carrot government uses to reward coverage it likes and the stick it uses to punish undesirable coverage, a game I don’t play.)
Ironically, White’s own boss, Gary Peters, shares my concern about the gerontocracy. He shocked Washington in January when he announced that at age 66 — a spring chicken by Senate standards — he had decided to not seek reelection. His statement was a principled broadside aimed directly at the gerontocracy (for which I thanked him):
“When I was first elected to Congress in 2008, I always knew there would come a time to pass the torch to the next generation of public servants and allow them the opportunity to bring fresh energy and ideas to the nation’s capital. Our founding fathers envisioned members of congress as citizens serving their country for a few terms and then returning to private life. I agree.”
Perhaps someone could send that thoughtful statement to his digital director.
I don’t talk about it much, but it is actually uncomfortable for me to write about these things. It certainly doesn’t make me any friends in Washington. But more than that, as a reporter you often find yourself having to choose between being polite and being honest. That can be especially difficult the better you get to know the subject of your reporting and their humanity inevitably shines through.
In the case of Connolly, an image that came to mind every time I wrote about him was this picture of him with his dog, a Bichon Frise named Abigail, who he adopted from an animal shelter, something he encouraged people to do. Obviously politicians sometimes get dogs for optics reasons but his smile in the photo was authentic. He loved that dog.
This is the side of Connolly that popped into my head like an intrusive thought whenever I was ranting about his hubris, reminding me that nobody is all good or all bad. It’s also what occurs to me when I think about how harmful it is not just to the public, but to the politicians themselves, when we let them debase themselves by clinging to power and spending their final days in that miserable chamber instead of with their families. Or dogs.
We the people deserve better, but so do they.
After the Democrats lost the White House due to Joe Biden’s refusal to drop out and allow there to be a serious primary (or to grant Kamala Harris time to actually campaign), I had hoped they would get the message. But if this week has taught us anything — Biden’s cancer announcement coinciding with the publication of Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s book on the White House “cover-up” of his decline while in office — it’s that they still have not gotten the message.
So I’ll keep reporting on it in the blunt way I do, making the problem as difficult to ignore as possible. (I hope you’ll have my back in this by subscribing.)
Rest in peace, congressman. We both deserved better. I hope you get to see your dog again.
— Edited by William M. Arkin
As one of your loyal reply guys, thank you for talking about this uncomfortable stuff. It is wonderful that you call it as you see it and as it appears to exist.
That kid from the school shooting needs to be in charge of the DNC. They need to nominate better candidates