The Democrat-turned-Republican was one of the last World War II veterans on Capitol Hill.
By Emily Langer Emily Langer Obituary writer Email Bio Follow March 7 at 2:20 PM Ralph M. Hall, a Texas Democrat-turned-Republican who was elected 17 times to Congress, where he became dean of his state’s delegation, one of the last veterans of World War II on Capitol Hill and the oldest person in history to serve in the House, died March 7 at his home in Rockwall, Texas. He was 95.
From his early years in Washington, Mr. Hall established a voting record that reflected a district leaning increasingly toward the GOP. At times, according to the Almanac of American Politics, he held the most conservative voting record among House Democrats. Mr. Hall stayed in the Democratic Party, he said, so that he could help bring it “back toward the middle.” He held prominent positions on the Energy and Commerce Committee, where he represented oil and gas industrial concerns important to Texans, and on the Science Committee, where, as a top-ranking member, he was an advocate for the space program.
In 2014, facing five primary challengers, he received 45 percent of the vote and was pushed into a runoff with Ratcliffe. While delicately maneuvering the issue of Mr. Hall’s age, Ratcliffe campaigned on the theme that the congressman had overstayed his time in Washington. Ralph Moody Hall was born May 3, 1923, in Fate, a town in Rockwall County, Tex. As a boy, he said, he worked at a pharmacy and encountered customers including the gangsters Bonnie and Clyde.
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