Walter B. Jones

Walter B. Jones (around 2008)

Walter Beaman Jones Jr. (born February 10, 1943 in Farmville , Pitt County , North Carolina , † February 10, 2019 in Greenville , North Carolina) was an American politician . From 1995 until his death, he represented the Republicans for the 3rd Congressional District of North Carolina in the US House of Representatives . Previously, he was a North Carolina MP for the Democrats .

Family, education and work

Walter Jones was the son of the congressman of the same name Walter Jones (1913-1992), who had represented the 1st Congressional electoral district of North Carolina in the US House of Representatives. The younger Jones attended Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham ( Virginia ) until 1961 and then studied at Atlantic Christian College , now Barton College in Wilson, until 1966 . Between 1967 and 1971, Jones was a member of the North Carolina National Guard .

Jones was married to Joe Anne Jones; they had a daughter. He lived privately in Farmville, a suburb of Greenville . Jones had converted to Catholicism ; his beliefs shaped his political views.

Political career

His father Walter B. Jones Sr. represented East North Carolina in the US House of Representatives from 1966 to 1992. Like him, Walter B. Jones Jr. joined the Democratic Party ; he served in the North Carolina House of Representatives for Greene and Pitt Counties for those five terms from 1983 to 1992 . Meanwhile, he co-owned two small businesses in Farmville. He often stood against the party line, including when he and the Republicans pushed through the removal of the Democratic speaker Liston Ramsey in 1989 .

After the death of his father, Walter B. Jones Jr. stepped up to succeed his seat in the US House of Representatives in 1992, but was defeated in the primary by his party colleague Eva Clayton . He then joined the Republicans and was elected to the United States House of Representatives in Washington, DC , in the 1994 election in North Carolina's 3rd Congressional District, an electoral district that encompassed larger parts of the area previously represented by his father. He succeeded Martin Lancaster on January 3, 1995 . Re-elected in all subsequent elections, he carried out his mandate until his death. When he was last elected in November 2018 - as the only Republican in the House of Representatives - he was safely re-elected without any opposition from the Democrats and had announced that he would not run afterwards.

Jones was most recently a member of the Armed Forces Committee and two of its sub-committees, and was previously a member of the Finance Committee . He saw himself as a servant to his constituencies and did not try to maximize influence; so he was never chairman of a committee.

Jones died on his 76th birthday after being out of Congress for health reasons since September 2018. Politicians from both major parties recognized Jones as an independent, convincing, honest politician.

Positions

Jones was considered Christian-conservative and at times went against the party line, among other things when he voted against his party's tax cut plans in 2017 out of concerns about the rising national debt . In general, he advocated fiscal policy rigor.

His political focus was on defense policy and the military . Jones is considered author of after 9/11 because of the lack of support of the French government applied proposal, the war on terror in the US French Fries called french fries in Freedom Fries (freedom fries) to rename. When he was authorized by Congress in 2002, Jones voted in favor of the Iraq war , but later publicly regretted this decision and criticized President George W. Bush , whom he accused of incorrect information policy towards Congress. In 2007 he was one of two Republican MPs to approve a resolution to withdraw troops from Iraq on September 1, 2008. He signed over 11,000 letters of condolence to the families of those killed in this war, which he himself called penance. In front of his parliamentary office, he hung pictures of all the fallen soldiers who had started active service from Camp Lejeune in his constituency since 2003 .

As a member of the Campaign Finance Reform Caucus , he campaigned to limit the influence of donors on election campaigns and criticized the Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission , which meant that campaign funding was largely released. He had already represented such concerns in the state legislature and in 1992 had campaigned for politicians to be removed from office if they had been convicted of lying in the election campaign.

Web links

• Walter B. Jones in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Brian Murphy: Walter Jones, congressman who worked to atone for his Iraq war vote, is dead at 76. In: The News & Observer , February 10, 2019.

supporting documents

1. ↑ Kate Sullivan: North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones dies at 76. In: CNN.com , February 11, 2019.
2. ^ Brian Murphy: Walter Jones, congressman who worked to atone for his Iraq war vote, is dead at 76. In: The News & Observer , February 10, 2019.