Portal:Michigan/Selected Biography/2

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John David Dingell, Jr. (born July 8, 1926) is a Democratic United States Representative from Michigan and is currently the Dean (longest-serving member) of the House of Representatives, with a tenure longer than the entire lifetimes of 121 of his current colleagues. He is the 2nd longest serving Representative ever and the 4th longest serving Congressman ever. Since 1955, he has represented a district in the western suburbs of Detroit, currently numbered as the 15th district.

He attended Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he graduated with a law degree in 1952. He was a lawyer in private practice, a research assistant to U.S. Circuit Court judge Theodore Levin, a Congressional employee, a forest ranger, and assistant prosecuting attorney for Wayne County until 1955, when he won a special election to succeed his father, who died in office in the House of Representatives. He has since been reelected 26 times, including a run in 2006 with no major opponent. Dingell is generally classed as a liberal Democrat, and throughout his career he has been a leading congressional supporter of organized labor, social welfare measures and traditional progressive policies.

With the Democrats' victory in the 2006 midterm elections, Dingell became chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a panel he previously chaired from 1981 to 1995.