Rep. Joseph Moakley; Longtime Lawmaker

WASHINGTON —  Rep. J. Joseph Moakley of Massachusetts, an ardent Democrat and the longest-serving House member from New England, died Monday at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. He was 74 and had been suffering from leukemia.

Moakley, in his 49th year of elected office, had been hospitalized since May 21, when he was admitted for a blood transfusion.

“He was a bridge to the original New Deal in politics and was inspired by those Democratic leaders,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who had served in the House with Moakley since 1976. “He was the last link to the Roosevelt-Truman era of politics in Massachusetts.”

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said: “I’m sure Joe will be honored and remembered forever as one of the all-time great congressmen for Massachusetts and the nation. Day in and day out, he championed the rights of the people of South Boston and the larger world, and made the lives of millions far better.”

Moakley came from the same tradition of working-class, Irish American politics that produced House speakers John McCormack and Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr., both fellow Massachusetts Democrats.

Moakley played a prominent role in the House, serving for more than 25 years on the Rules Committee, which sets the terms of debate for legislation and has a large say on nearly every issue before the body. He became chairman of the committee in 1989, losing the post when Republicans won control of the House in the 1994 elections.

A self-described bread-and-butter politician, the burly and genial Moakley was rarely identified with major national issues and thrived instead on helping constituents win a Social Security check or admission to a Veterans Affairs hospital.

“The politicians when I was a kid put you to work, put oil in your cellar, put food on your table, helped you get a job, get to school,” he said in 1998. “A politician was . . . like a priest. That’s the way I was brought up.”

Still, Moakley took pride in one particular international achievement. He was tapped in 1989 by then-House Speaker Thomas Foley (D-Wash.) to investigate the murders in El Salvador of six Jesuit priests, their cook and the cook’s teenage daughter.

After concluding that Salvadoran military officials were involved, Moakley led a fight to block further U.S. aid to that country.

Some credited Moakley’s work with helping pave the way for a 1992 cease-fire in El Salvador’s civil war.

John Joseph Moakley was born in Boston and grew up in a South Boston housing project. A onetime amateur boxer, he was just 15 when he lied about his age to join the Navy during World War II, serving in the Pacific.

He attended the University of Miami in Florida on a boxing scholarship after the war and later went to law school in Boston.

Moakley first won office in 1953 as a member of the Massachusetts House, and went on to serve in the state Senate and on the Boston City Council. During those years, he also practiced law.

Moakley lost his first bid for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1970. At the time, his largely Irish American neighborhood was torn by the prospect of school desegregation. Moakley was defeated in the Democratic primary by Louise Day Hicks, a champion of the forces opposing court-ordered busing to achieve integration.

Two years later, Moakley ran again. This time, he beat Hicks by running as an independent in the general election. “He was viewed as a voice of moderation [on desegregation], and that is why he was successful in 1972,” said Markey.

“He thought [court-ordered busing] was a mistake, but he was able to rally the forces that believed that a moderate way had to be found to work through the integration of the Boston school system,” Markey added.

In 1979, Moakley backed an unsuccessful proposed constitutional amendment to ban race-based school busing.

Moakley became a protege of O’Neill, who gave him the seat on the Rules Committee. Moakley, in turn, tutored his own protege: Michigan Rep. David Bonior, who today serves as the No. 2 Democrat in the House.

During his career, Moakley opposed abortion rights but pushed for other liberal Democratic goals, including universal health care, Medicare coverage for prescription drugs and expansion of affordable housing programs.

Some of his proudest achievements involved funneling money to Massachusetts for a cleanup of Boston Harbor and for a new federal courthouse. His efforts also kept federal funds flowing to the so-called Big Dig, a costly and controversial public works project that involves transforming Boston’s central expressway into a tunnel.

Moakley had been showered with honors since announcing early this year that he had a rare and incurable form of leukemia and would not seek a new term, his 16th.

President Bush paid tribute to Moakley during his first address to Congress, and the new federal courthouse on Boston’s waterfront was named for the congressman.

In a reflection of the affection he inspired, bricklayers refused to charge for their work when the government hired them to install a courthouse plaque honoring Moakley.

Moakley’s wife of 39 years, Evelyn, died of cancer in 1996. They had no children.