Former Democratic Speaker and long term Congressman Tom Foley died earlier today

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/19/us/politics/thomas-foley-former-house-speaker-dies-at-84.html?_r=0
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Thomas S. Foley, who as speaker of the House sought to still the chamber’s rising tide of partisan combat for five years before it swept the Democratic majority, and Mr. Foley himself, out of office in 1994, died on Friday in Washington. He was 84.

Jeffrey R. Biggs, Mr. Foley’s former press secretary, confirmed the death. Mr. Foley’s wife, Heather, told The Associated Press that the cause was complications of a stroke he suffered last December. She said he was hospitalized with pneumonia in May and had been under hospice care at his home virtually since then.

When he became speaker on June 6, 1989, Mr. Foley, from Washington State, appealed to “our friends on the Republican side to come together and put away bitterness and division and hostility.” He promised to treat “each and every member” fairly, regardless of party, and by most estimations he lived up to that promise to a degree unmatched by his successors.

Mr. Foley, well-read, fastidiously dressed and courtly, succeeded for a time in making the House a more civil place, winning praise from many Republicans for his fairness. But by 1994 Republicans had hardened, painting the Democratic-controlled House as out of touch and corrupt.

Their strategy worked. That year, Republicans won their first majority in the House in 40 years, and Mr. Foley became the first speaker since the Civil War to be defeated for re-election in his own district. (Speaker Galusha A. Grow of Pennsylvania lost his seat in 1862.)

Mr. Foley had gotten a taste of that partisanship a few days before becoming speaker. The Republican National Committee and an aide to Mr. Gingrich had sought to portray him as homosexual, an accusation Mr. Foley and gay members of the House denied. The R.N.C. put out a memo labeled “Tom Foley: Out of the Liberal Closet,” equating his voting record with that of Barney Frank, an openly gay representative from Massachusetts. The Gingrich aide urged reporters to investigate Mr. Foley’s sexuality.