John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.)

U.S. Representative (since January 1964)

Why He Matters

Elected to 23 consecutive terms fromMichigan's 14th district, Conyers was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in the 111th Congress an elder statesman in the Democratic Party. He is the second-longest serving member of the House, trailing only Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) in seniority.

Conyers was one of the 13 founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971, and he is informally known as the dean of that powerful voting bloc. As a leading Democrat in the 111th Congress, Conyers is in a prime position to shape the legislative agenda during the presidency of Barack Obama and is likely to renew his quest for expanded civil- rights protections and greater access to health care.

More on: John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.)

At a Glance
Path to Power
The Issues
The Network
Additional Resources

Corrections?

Background

At a Glance

Career History: Chairman, House Judiciary Committee (January 2007-2011)
Birthday: May 16, 1929
Hometown: Detroit, Mich.
Alma Mater: Wayne State University, B.A., 1957; Wayne State University, J.D., 1958
Spouse: Monica Conyers
Religion: Baptist

Committees: Ranking member, House Judiciary Committee (since January 2011)
DC Office: 2426 Rayburn House Office Building, 202-225-5126
District Office: Detroit, 313-961-5670; Trenton 734-675-4084
Email
Web site

Path to Power

Conyers was born in Detroit, Mich., on May 16, 1929, to John Conyers Sr. and Lucille Simpson and is one of five children. Conyers grew up attending union meetings with his father, who was active in Detroit's labor movement. "He always liked the law and protest speaking, and so I kind of came by that pretty easily," Conyers said.

Conyers' lifelong love affair with jazz music began when he was just a boy, when he would visit Detroit's Palace Theater to take in the sounds of artists such as Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington. Inspired by his musical heroes, Conyers learned to play the cornet, but as an adult he would refer to himself as a "proud, but failed, musician." Conyers sponsored a House resolution that passed in 1987 declaring jazz a "rare and valuable American national treasure."

Read more

After high school, Conyers served for two years in the Michigan National Guard, then joined the U.S. Army and fought in the Korean War. He enrolled at Wayne State University after the Army, earning a B.A. in 1957 and a J.D. in 1958.

Conyers worked as a legislative assistant to Dingell and practiced law for a time before making his move into politics in 1963. Martin Luther King Jr. endorsed his candidacy for the 14th district. Conyers made "jobs, justice and peace" his campaign slogan and won the seat by a mere 108 votes. Conyers said King's endorsement helped swing the race in his favor. "If not for King, I would probably be practicing law or be a judge right now," Conyers said in 2008.

Arriving in Congress

When Conyers came to Congress in 1964 he was one of only six black lawmakers in the House, and he immediately made his presence felt. He sponsored the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and was one of the earliest congressional opponents to the Vietnam War.

Another civil-rights pioneer, Rosa Parks, had helped Conyers during his first House campaign, and in 1965 he hired her to work at one of his legislative offices in Detroit. Parks remained on his staff for more than 20 years, and when she died in 2005, Conyers authored the resolution that made her the first woman to ever lie in honor in the Capitol rotunda.

Shortly after Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, Conyers called King's widow, Coretta Scott King, and asked her permission to introduce a bill that would make the civil rights leader's birthday a federal holiday. King agreed, but the bill attracted few supporters in Congress.

Conyers would continue to fight for the holiday for 15 years until finally, in 1983, the Martin Luther King Holiday Act was ratified with broad, bipartisan support in both chambers. Conyers said the memorial holiday is the proudest achievement of his political career. "I was told by many people that we could never get a holiday for an African American, especially if he were Martin Luther King, who opposed and challenged his government," he said.

Conyers' opposition to the Vietnam War made him a controversial figure in the early '70s, and his office often received death threats. Ray Rickman, a former Conyers staffer, said federal authorities uncovered a plot in 1972 to kill Conyers at an annual NAACP dinner. Conyers attended the event, and a man carrying a firearm was arrested outside the banquet hall.

Conyers was one of the first lawmakers to call for the impeachment of President Nixon, and as a member of the House Judiciary Committee he took part in the Watergate hearings against him. Conyers' name was later discovered on a list of Nixon's enemies compiled by his chief counsel, Charles Colson. Conyers ranked No. 13 on the enemies list, and Colson wrote the following description of him: "Coming on fast. Emerging as a leading black anti-Nixon spokesman. Has known weakness for white females."

Conyers stunned the political world in 1989 when he announced he would challenge long-time Detroit Mayor Coleman Young in the Democratic primary. Conyers said he felt the city needed new leadership, but Detroit residents seemed puzzled by his candidacy, and Coleman won the race easily. Conyers ran for mayor again in 1993 and finished a distant fourth in the primary despite a television ad featuring an endorsement from filmmaker Michael Moore.

Impeachment Role

Conyers played a central role in the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton in 1998. He was the only member of the House Judiciary Committee who had been part of the impeachment hearings against Nixon, and other Democrats turned to him for leadership during the fractious process.

Conyers opposed the effort to impeach Clinton and was an emphatic critic of Whitewater Independent Counselor Kenneth Star. "What Richard Nixon did was try to subvert the executive branch of office through the powers of the presidency. This has never entered Clinton's mind in the wildest stretch," Conyers said at the time.

Conyers tried to ignite another impeachment battle in December 2005 when he called for a special committee to consider whether President Bush committed any impeachable offenses during the run-up to the Iraq war. Republicans jumped on Conyers' proposal and repeatedly mentioned the possibility of impeachment hearings against President George W. Bush in an attempt to rally conservative voters in the 2006 mid-term election.

After Democrats retook control of the House in 2007, Conyers ascended to chair of the Judiciary Committee and abided by Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) dictate that impeachment was "off the table" for President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Wife's Bribery Conviction

Conyers was a life-long bachelor until 1990, when he married Monica Ann Esters, a former intern in his congressional office. They have two sons.

Monica Conyers was elected to a four-year term on the Detroit City Council in 2005 and became the council's president pro-tempore in September 2008. Conyers resigned from the city council on July 6, 2009, after pleading guilty to a federal bribery charge. Prosecutors said Monica Conyers accepted two cash bribes in return for a "yes" vote on a $1.2 billion city contract with Synagro Technologies.

On March 10, 2009, a federal judge sentenced Monica Conyers to more than three years in prison. An attorney involved in the investigation said there was no evidence that John Conyers knew about his wife's bribery deal.

The Issues

Conyers began his political career in the liberal climate of the 1960s, and he has maintained that era's movement mentality during his congressional career. He is known for championing the legislative causes of minorities and the poor, and in recent years he has fought for expanded hate crime protections and sought a federal ban on racial profiling by the police.

Many observers consider Conyers to be one of the most liberal members of the House, and he lived up to that reputation in the 110th Congress, voting with his party 97 percent of the time.

Read more

Iraq War

Conyers was an unwavering opponent of the Iraq war from the beginning. He voted against the 2002 House resolution that authorized the use of force against Saddam Hussein, and in early 2003 he met privately with then-United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to express his opposition to the Bush administration's go-it-alone approach to the standoff.

Conyers' fierce criticism of the war culminated with his push in 2005 to publicize the so-called "Downing Street Minutes." The document, as first reported by the London Times on May 1, 2005, described a secret meeting in June 2002 between high-level British officials to discuss Iraq policy. One official, Sir Richard Dearlove, reportedly said U.S. military action against Iraq was "inevitable," and participants in the meeting discussed how to sell the war to the public. Dearlove said the Bush administration was determined to go to war and that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Liberal activists in the United States responded with outrage. Conyers quickly jumped into the fray, sending President Bush a letter on May 5 signed by more than 120 lawmakers asking him to provide information related to the Downing Street Minutes. Conyers also became the figurehead for an online petition drive to pressure Bush on the issue.

Conyers would eventually hold an unofficial hearing on the Downing Street Minutes in a basement room on Capitol Hill. In late 2005, he released a 237-page report titled "The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retributions and Cover-ups in the Iraq War," and called for the censure of Bush and Cheney.That never happened.

Election Reform

After the 2004 election, Conyers pushed the Government Accountability Office and the FBI to investigate allegations of voter fraud around the country. The chairman was particularly focused on irregularities in Ohio, the state that had effectively decided the presidential election; Conyers said minority voters in Ohio had been subjected to intimidation and suppression campaigns at the polls. "We had more complaints coming in from Ohio than any other state," Conyers said.

Conyers led a Judiciary Committee investigation of the 2004 election and issued a report of the findings that was turned into a book, "What Went Wrong in Ohio: The Conyers Report on the 2004 Presidential Election."

Slavery Reparations

The idea of paying reparations for slavery has long been a political non-starter in Washington, but that hasn't kept Conyers from tirelessly pursuing the issue. He has introduced a bill in the House every year since 1989 that would establish a commission to determine whether African-American descendants of slaves should be compensated by the government.

The legislation - named H.R. 40, in honor of the 40 acres and a mule promised freed slaves during Reconstruction - has never come up for a vote in the House, but Conyers is confident the issue's day will come. "I see this as a subject in incubation that is probably going to continue to grow, until we finally have to approach it and deal with it like all the other controversial issues we deal with," Conyers said.

Ethics

Conyers has had several brushes with ethical controversy during his time in Congress. In 1992, Conyers was identified as one of 24 lawmakers with overdrawn House bank accounts; an ethics committee report revealed he had written 273 bad checks during a nine-month period. A Justice Department investigation later cleared Conyers of any wrongdoing.

The Detroit Free Press ran a report in November 2003 claiming Conyers' aides and former staffers had been working continuously on political campaigns important to him during government time, which is strictly prohibited under House rules. Staffers said they solicited campaign contributions while working in Conyers' offices - a violation of federal law - and some said they were forced to work on Monica Conyers' failed state Senate run in 2002. The House ethics committee opened an investigation into the accusations in 2004.

Former aides Deanna Maher, Sydney Rooks and Dean Christian Thornton filed complaints with the ethics committee in 2006 claiming Conyers had made them baby-sit his sons, chauffeur his family and run his personal errands. Maher said she lived in the Conyers' home for six weeks in 1998, acting as a full-time nanny to the boys while Monica Conyers was away at law school. Rooks said she had been assigned to help Conyers with her law school studies. Sam Riddle, a spokesman for Monica Conyers, dismissed the accusations. "These are simply disgruntled employees who couldn't cut it in the workplace," he said.

The House ethics committee closed its investigation of the allegations in December 2006. Conyers agreed to limit his staff's campaign activities and promised to provide them with annual briefings on House work rules. The committee did not say whether there had been any wrongdoing by Conyers.

The Economy

Conyers voted against the $700 billion bank bailout bill in October 2008. He said the government should have focused on helping people avoid home foreclosures and maintained "there wasn't any concern for the smaller folks and their problems" in the crafting of the legislation.

The Network

Conyers was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). He continues to serve in the caucus, along with fellow founding member, Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.). James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.) are also members and friends.

Additional Resources

Hyde, Justin, and Spangler, Todd, "Michigan delegates reject bailout, 9-6," Detroit Free Press, Sept. 30, 2008
Konieczko, Jill, "Rep. John Conyers," U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 26, 2006
Jones, Mary Lynn F., "Judiciary's ranking Democrat would play key role in any impeachment inquiry," The Hill, March 4, 1998
Davis, Karen A., "Remembering Rosa Parks," The Providence Journal (Rhode Island), Oct. 26, 2005
Merida, Kevin, "Did freedom alone pay a nation's debt?; Rep. John Conyers has a question," Washington Post, Nov. 23, 1999
Lee, Jessica, "Watergate attacker to defend Clinton," USA Today, Dec. 18, 1998
Smith, Michael, "Blair planned Iraq war from the start," The London Times, May 1, 2005
Dvorak, Petula, and Harris, Hamil R., "Washington Prepares to Pay Rosa Parks Rare Tribute at Capitol," Washington Post, Oct. 29, 2005
Burger, Timothy J., "Conyers loss could signal trouble in '94," Roll Call, Sept. 16, 1993
Howell, Arnesa A., "Congressman John Conyers to receive 92nd Spingarn Award," The Crisis, July - August, 2007
"Conyers releases report on alleged Iraq war misconduct," Michigan Chronicle, Jan. 4, 2006
Johnston, David, "Investigator finds evidence of crimes in House bank use," The New York Times, Dec. 17, 1992
Wallison, Ethan, "Conyers, McDermott make plea to U.N.," Roll Call, Feb. 5, 2003
Washington Post Vote Database
Bailey, Ruby L., Christoff, Christopher, and Thurtell, Joel, "Conyers' staff broke rules for campaign work, aides charge," Detroit Free Press, Nov. 21, 2003
Strong, Catherine, "Clinton's key defender in the House," The Associated Press, Nov. 14, 1998
"Detroit Lawmaker Pleads Guilty to Taking Bribes," The Associated Press, June 26, 2009
White, Ed, The Associated Press, "Ex-Detroit councilwoman gets 37 months for bribery," March 10, 2009
Bailey, Ruby L., and Thurtell, Joel, "Aides: Conyers made us babysit," Detroit Free Press, March 2, 2006
Heim, Daniel, "Conyers recalls fight for King holiday," Roll Call, Jan. 16, 2008
Bailey, Ruby L., "House, Senate debate validity of Ohio vote," Detroit Free-Press, Jan. 7, 2005
Price, Deb, "Conyers in new political climate," The Detroit News, Dec. 11, 2006
Bunkley, Nick, "Detroit Council Member Pleads Guilty to Accepting Bribe for Vote," The New York Times, June 26, 2009
Gray, Kathleen, "Conyers to monitor staff," Detroit Free Press, Dec. 30, 2006