Iowa’s longtime U.S. Rep. Jim Leach has died at 82 years old.
Leach was born and raised in Davenport and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1977 until 2007. He was a Republican, but broke from his party in 2008, when he endorsed Barack Obama for president over John McCain.
Leach was a state champion wrestler and attended Princeton University, Johns Hopkins and The London School of Economics. He served in the U.S. Foreign Service and resigned a commission in protest of Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre during the Watergate Scandal. He would return to Iowa in the mid-70s.
He represented his home state in the U.S. House for 30 years. While he was generally conservative on fiscal issues, he was progressive on foreign policy during his 15 terms in office. He was one of six Republicans who voted against the use of force in Iraq in 2002 and voted against extending the Bush-era tax cuts in 2003. He also supported abortion access up to the third trimester of pregnancy, but didn't believe the public should fund it.
Leach later changed his affiliation to the Democratic Party in 2022 and began backing many of Iowa’s Democratic candidates over their GOP counterparts. In an interview on IPR’s River to River from that year, Leach said it was the events on Jan. 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol that spurred him to cross the aisle again.
“Insurrection is absolutely untenable. And then when you have a party in Congress defend it, that’s absolutely bizarre,” Leach said, adding that crossing party lines is necessary to unify a divided nation. “We have to come together as a society, because if we don’t come together as a society, we’re going to have a very difficult time leading ourselves, let alone leading the world.”
That year would mark Leach’s final split with the Republican Party. He registered as a Democrat and was critical of the Republican Party under President Donald Trump. He was concerned with what he saw as deteriorating respect for the rule of law in the GOP, saying, “This is a period in which we need people who know how to respect the law.”
Leach helped negotiate the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention with the United Nations. This gave the Congressman a particular interest in the spread of disease, expertise he would draw on during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
The Congressman noted that around 2004 President Bush signed a national security directive saying that the United States should be prepared for major disease outbreak. In the face of the pandemic, Leach was disappointed that the world's leaders in so many fields hadn't done more.
"Unfortunately, we didn't proceed to do very much in preparation," the Congressman said in an interview with IPR. "The fact that the most sophisticated country in the world wasn't prepared is being noted by people around the world."
However, Leach remained optimistic that the experience in 2020 would improve research and treatment techniques.
"I think that given the enormous expenses provided, the time period of traditional disease control can be beaten by quite a bit," he said. "It’s going to be an issue for us for a long time. But it might prepare us for other pandemics going forward."
Leach managed to hold his office despite a changing political landscape. His district turned increasingly blue over his 30 years, regularly voting in Democrats to other positions. However, Leach remained popular, and only narrowly lost his final election by about 6,000 votes.
After his time in Washington, D.C., Leach was the public affairs chair at the University of Iowa for three years. He received eight honorary degrees and decorations from two foreign governments. He also chaired the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2009 to 2013 and was elected to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Waterloo.
This is a developing story. We will update with more information as it becomes available.
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