House’s Longtime Democratic Leader, Victor Fazio, Dies at 79


Victor Fazio, a longtime Democratic Congressman from California who had served as a House leader for several years, died March 16 at his home in Arlington, Va. He was 79 years old.

The cause was cancer, according to a statement from the former congressional office.

Mr. Fazio represented the Sacramento area from 1979 to 1999. As a member of the Home Grants Committee, Davis has helped secure home financing for numerous projects, including a multimillion-dollar environmental institute at the University of California. It also lobbied for funding to preserve the 3,700-acre wetland west of Sacramento as a sanctuary; Dedicated by President Bill Clinton in 1997, the area is known as the Vic Fazio Yolo Wildlife Area.

Known for his humble, bipartisan style, he often partnered with the powerful California Republican representative. Jerry Lewis, who died last year

Perhaps Mr. Fazio’s most difficult period was as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 1994, when Republicans led by Representative Newt Gingrich took control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

Still, due to Mr. Fazio’s ability to work across the aisle, his colleagues chose him as chairman of the House Democratic committee next year.

After retiring from Congress, he worked for a public relations firm in Washington run by Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman. He later joined the Washington office of powerful law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and was regularly named to its annual top lobbyists list by political newspaper The Hill. He retired from Akın Gump in 2020.

Victor Herbert Fazio Jr. was born on October 11, 1942, in Winchester, Mass. His father was an insurance salesman, and his mother was a housewife and clothing store manager.

He earned a BA in history from Union College in Schenectady, NY in 1965, before moving to California on a Caro Foundation scholarship.

He became one of the founders in 1970. California Magazine The magazine, which covers state government and politics, and which served in the California State Assembly before winning the Assembly seat in 1978, is now defunct.

His first marriage to Joella Mason ended in divorce. His second wife, Judy Neidhardt Kern, whom he married in 1983, dead in 2015.

He married Ms. Sawyer in 2017. In addition to him, he is survived by a daughter from his first marriage, Dana Fazio Lawrie; two stepchildren, Kevin and Kristie Kern; and four grandchildren. One daughter, Anne Noel Fazio, died in 1995.



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