Longtime suburban congressman Phil Crane dies
Phil Crane, the former longtime suburban congressman and Republican icon who once ran for president, has died.
Crane was 84 and had been battling lung cancer. He died in his daughter's home in Maryland.
The longtime Wauconda resident departed Congress after the 2004 election as its longest-serving Republican member. And he had the most seniority on the powerful Ways and Means Committee.
“Today we mourn the loss of one of the great leaders from northern Illinois,” U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk, a Highland Park Republican, said in a statement. “He will always be remembered for vowing to never raise taxes, a promise he kept through his long career, and for expanding trade opportunities for our state. I send best wishes and prayers to his family.”
Tim Schneider, chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, said in a statement that Crane's accomplishments and lifelong pursuit of conservative principles will have a lasting effect for generations to come.
“He fought for lower taxes, a simplified tax code, free-market principles, and free trade,” Schneider said.
Crane was a man of principles, according to Erik Elk, who worked for him as a Congressional staffer from 1993 to 2001.
“(Crane) didn't care if he was a lone “No” vote on a spending bill,” Elk said via email Sunday. “He would always ask what the spending level was compared to last year.”
Crane started his career in Congress in 1969, filling the vacancy left by Donald Rumsfeld when he resigned to work in the Nixon administration.
“His legacy was one of a principled public servant,” state Rep. David Harris, an Arlington Heights Republican, said.
Madeleine Doubek, the chief operating officer of Reboot Illinois and former Daily Herald political editor, said throughout the late 1980s and much of the 1990s Crane was outside of the mainstream Republican party.
“He was kind of the conservative before conservatism was cool,” Doubek said. “He was very much a fierce advocate for the principles that he believed in and he never once voted for a tax increase and was always promoting free trade.”
After his defeat in 2004, Crane told the Daily Herald his proudest accomplishment was being an advocate for the North American Free Trade Agreement.
“I've always been a staunch advocate of the advancement of free trade,” Crane said. “When I used to be a history prof, I told the kids that free trade has done more to advance civilized values than anything else in the span of recorded history. It's that personal contact. It's had a beneficial effect for the entire world.”
Crane was born in Chicago and received his undergraduate degree from Hillsdale College in 1952. He served in the U.S. Army from 1954 to 1956 and went on to earn a Ph.D. in history from Indiana University in 1963.
Crane became a leading national figure in the fledgling conservative movement in the 1960s as an author and public speaker. He was a strong supporter of conservative Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and gave speeches on his behalf. In 1964, he wrote his most celebrated work, “The Democrats' Dilemma”. After becoming a congressman, he wrote the “The Sum of Good Government” in 1976, and “Surrender in Panama: The Case Against the Treaty” in 1978.
In addition to his efforts on behalf of Goldwater, Crane was active in presidential politics in the 1970s and 1980s. He was the first sitting congressman to support Ronald Reagan's effort to defeat then-President Gerald Ford in the 1976 Republican presidential primary. In 1978, when it appeared that Reagan was not going to run in the 1980 p election, Crane threw his sought the GOP nomination. He eventually withdrew and supported Reagan.
Crane most recently represented the 8th Congressional District. He lost his seat to Democrat Melissa Bean in the 2004 election.
Elk said Crane was somewhat of a renaissance man who would write poems to his kids for their birthdays and was happiest when he had each of his seven children home.
Services are scheduled for Thursday in Virginia, and he's to be buried at the family's farm in Indiana, Crane's obituary says.