Rep. John Murtha, influential Pennsylvania lawmaker, dies at 77

WASHINGTON — Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a gruff ex-Marine who used his immense power in military spending to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to his hard-luck district and who became an outspoken critic of the Iraq War, died Monday. He was 77.

He died in an Arlington, Va., hospital, where he was being treated for complications of gallbladder surgery, his office said. Rep. Murtha's death came two days after he became the longest-serving congressman in Pennsylvania history.

Elected in 1974 and the first Vietnam combat veteran to serve in Congress, Rep. Murtha voted in 2002 to authorize use of military force in Iraq. But he evolved into a leading foe of the war as it was conducted under the administration of President George W. Bush.

"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised," Rep. Murtha said in November 2005 as he demanded an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Rep. Murtha's long involvement in Pentagon issues and his history of hawkishness made the criticism all the more influential.

Rep. Murtha was alternately respected and feared by his colleagues on Capitol Hill as he used his influence to funnel hundreds of millions of federal dollars into his hard-luck district, where prosperity had vanished with the decline of the coal and steel industries.

Rep. Murtha used his position as the ranking Democrat on the Appropriation Committee's military subcommittee to reward or punish colleagues in both parties, depending on whether they went along with the special items, or "earmarks," that he tucked into bills for the benefit of his 12th Congressional District. More often than not, they did.

Rep. Murtha often told balking legislators, as he recalled in an interview in 2006. "If you vote against this bill, you won't have any input at all the next time."

Nor did he apologize for the political horse-trading in which he was so adept. "Deal making is what Congress is all about," he said.

As an ally of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Rep. Murtha helped navigate her rise to speaker of the House. Pelosi, in turn, backed him in his unsuccessful contest against Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland to become House Democratic leader.

While Rep. Murtha steered huge sums to his district and was able to rake in money for his campaigns, he lived modestly in Johnstown, Pa., where he owned a carwash.

Rep. Murtha, who served five years in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives before going to Washington, was a protégé of Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill of Massachusetts, who may not have coined the phrase that "all politics is local" but surely embraced it. So did John P. Murtha, who once boasted on a campaign billboard that "The 'P' stands for power." (It actually stood for Patrick.)

When he drew fire from the political right for his shift on Iraq, Rep. Murtha said his criticism of the war in no way lessened his support for the Americans fighting in it.

"I don't take a back seat to anybody for my service to my country," Rep. Murtha said in a recent interview with his local newspaper, The Tribune-Democrat. But he said the killing of Iraqi civilians, even if accidental, and the abuse of Iraqi prisoners had undermined U.S. efforts.

Rep. Murtha told The Tribune-Democrat that he had trusted people in the Bush administration too much when it came to Iraq. "I gave them the benefit of the doubt," he said. "That was a bad mistake."

A slogan in his first campaign for Congress was "One Honest Man Is Enough." Yet he barely survived the 1970s Abscam sting operation that ruined several politicians in the early 1980s. Rep. Murtha was shown on videotape turning down money from an undercover FBI agent posing as a "sheikh" but he expressed a willingness to talk about money later.

Despite that awkward moment, he was never charged, and he eventually testified against two other Abscam defendants.

Early in 2009, Rep. Murtha came under scrutiny again, when it came to light that federal agents had raided the offices of the PMA Group, a major Washington lobbying firm, in November 2008 as part of an investigation into potentially improper campaign contributions.

Rep. Murtha was among the lawmakers lobbied by the firm (its founder, Paul Magliocchetti, had worked for the Defense subcommittee long dominated by him), and PMA's executives and clients were major sources of contributions to Rep. Murtha's campaigns. The firm's specialty was helping clients obtain multimillion-dollar earmarks, Rep. Murtha's specialty.

The PMA Group closed its doors after the investigation, and a congressional ethics office declined to recommend formal investigations.