John Conyers was the Dean of the House of Representatives from 2015 to 2017, by virtue of him being the longest-serving member of Congress at the time.
56 Facts About John Conyers
2.
John Conyers served as an aide to Congressman John Dingell before winning election to the House in 1964.
3.
John Conyers co-founded the Congressional Black Caucus in 1969 and established a reputation as one of the most liberal members of Congress.
4.
John Conyers joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus after it was founded in 1991.
5.
John Conyers supported creation of a single-payer healthcare system and sponsored the United States National Health Care Act.
6.
John Conyers sponsored a bill to establish Martin Luther King Jr.
7.
John Conyers ran for Mayor of Detroit in 1989 and 1993, but he was defeated in the primary each time.
8.
John Conyers served as the ranking Democratic member on the House Committee on the Judiciary from 1995 to 2007 and again from 2011 to 2017.
9.
John Conyers served as chairman of that committee from 2007 to 2011 and as Chairman of the House Oversight Committee from 1989 to 1995.
10.
John Conyers served for a year in Korea during the Korean War as an officer in the US Army Corps of Engineers and was awarded combat and merit citations.
11.
John Conyers served as counsel to several Detroit-area labor union locals.
12.
John Conyers became one of the leaders of the civil rights movement.
13.
John Conyers was present in Selma, Alabama, on October 7,1963, for the voter registration drive known as Freedom Day.
14.
John Conyers was reelected 13 times with even larger margins.
15.
In total, John Conyers won re-election twenty-five times and was serving in his twenty-sixth term.
16.
John Conyers was the dean of the House as longest-serving current member, the third longest-serving member of the House in history, and the sixth longest-serving member of Congress in history.
17.
John Conyers was the second-longest serving member of either house of Congress in Michigan's history, trailing only his former boss, Dingell.
18.
John Conyers was the last member of the large Democratic freshman class of 1964 who was still serving in the House.
19.
In May 2014, Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett determined that John Conyers had not submitted enough valid nominating petition signatures to appear on the August 2014 Primary Election ballot.
20.
John Conyers was one of the 13 founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus and was considered the Dean of that group.
21.
John Conyers served longer in Congress than any other African American.
22.
In 1965, John Conyers won a seat as a freshman on the influential Judiciary Committee, which was then chaired by Democratic Congressman Emanuel Celler of New York.
23.
John Conyers was known to have opposed regulation of online gambling.
24.
John Conyers opposed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.
25.
John Conyers continued to propose legislation to establish the federal holiday in every session of Congress from 1968 to 1983, when Martin Luther King Jr.
26.
John Conyers first introduced the proposed resolution in 1989, and has stated his intention to annually propose this act until it is approved and passed.
27.
John Conyers was critical of President Richard Nixon during his tenure.
28.
John Conyers, who voted to impeach Nixon in July 1974, wrote at the time,.
29.
John Conyers introduced it with 25 cosponsors, in 2003, and reintroduced it each session since then.
30.
John Conyers was one of the House impeachment managers who prosecuted the in case the impeachment trial of Judge Alcee Hastings.
31.
In May 2005, John Conyers released What Went Wrong in Ohio: The John Conyers Report On The 2004 Presidential Election.
32.
John Conyers was one of 31 members of the House who voted not to count the 20 electoral votes from Ohio in the 2004 presidential election.
33.
John Conyers proposed House Resolution 288, which condemns "religious intolerance" and emphasizes Islam as needing special protection from acts of violence and intolerance.
34.
In 2005, John Conyers introduced House Resolution 160, a house resolution that would have condemned the conduct of Narendra Modi, then the chief minister of the State of Gujarat in India.
35.
In late December 2006, John Conyers "accepted responsibility" for violating House rules.
36.
John Conyers repeatedly introduced the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, a bill that would overturn the NIH Public Access Policy, an open-access mandate of the National Institutes of Health.
37.
Writers Lawrence Lessig and Michael Eisen accused John Conyers of being influenced by publishing houses, who have contributed significant money to his campaigns.
38.
John Conyers introduced a bill to set up a "truth commission" panel to investigate alleged policy abuses of the Bush administration.
39.
John Conyers was given a pre-indictment letter, and offered a plea bargain deal in the case.
40.
John Conyers served slightly more than 27 months at the Alderson Federal Prison Camp.
41.
John Conyers has voiced concerns about sending anti-aircraft missiles to Syrian rebels.
42.
John Conyers filed an affidavit with the Congressional Office of Compliance.
43.
John Conyers had entered into a confidentiality agreement with the former employee and had paid her a $27,000 settlement from his publicly funded office budget in 2015.
44.
On November 22,2017, The Washington Post reported that Melanie Sloan, founder of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, publicly accused John Conyers of having harassed and verbally abused her during her tenure working for the House Judiciary Committee.
45.
On one occasion, Sloan alleged that John Conyers had summoned to his office, where she found him sitting in his underwear; she quickly departed.
46.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who initially stated that John Conyers was an "icon" and had done a great deal to protect women, called upon John Conyers to resign.
47.
John Conyers said the allegations against him were "very credible".
48.
John Conyers supported legislation aimed at strengthening the US civil justice system.
49.
John Conyers was one of the 23 candidates who qualified for ballot access.
50.
John Conyers married Monica Esters, a teacher in Detroit, in 1990.
51.
John Conyers was 25 and he was 61; they had two sons together, John James III and Carl Edward Conyers.
52.
John Conyers later served as a vice administrator of the public schools, and in 2005 was elected to the Detroit City Council.
53.
In September 2015, Monica John Conyers filed for divorce, citing a "breakdown of the marriage".
54.
John Conyers generated controversy by telling of Conyers's planned retirement in interviews before the Congressman announced it himself, and claiming his great-uncle's endorsement.
55.
Ian John Conyers was defeated in the Democratic primary by Rashida Tlaib.
56.
John Conyers died at his home in Detroit on October 27,2019, at the age of 90.