Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) died on Sunday at his Detroit home. He was 90.
MLive reports: “Conyers, known as the dean of the House, served in Congress for more than 5 decades. He resigned in December 2017 amid sexual harassment allegations that stunned supporters of the civil rights advocate. Born in 1929, Conyers attended Northwestern High School and returned to Detroit to get degrees at Wayne State University following military service in the Korean War. He first ran for Congress and was elected in 1964, and began serving in 1965. Conyers took office during President Lyndon Johnson’s administration, and was a cosponsor on the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 2015, 50 years after the bill’s passage, Conyers sponsored House legislation to update the act following a U.S. Supreme Court decision that vacated parts of the law.”
The NYT adds: “Mr. Conyers, a Democrat, resigned in 2017 after accusations of unwelcome sexual advances by two women. His lawyers denied the accusations, but both Paul Ryan, a Republican and then the speaker of the House, and Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader at the time and the current speaker, found the complaints credible and demanded that he step down.”
