25 Facts About Tom Foley

Thomas Stephen Foley was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 49th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1989 to 1995.

Tom Foley was the first Speaker of the House since Galusha Grow in 1862 to be defeated in a re-election campaign.

Tom Foley joined the staff of Senator Henry M Jackson, after working as a prosecutor and an assistant attorney general.

Tom Foley served as Majority Whip from 1981 to 1987, and as Majority Leader from 1987 to 1989.

Tom Foley's district had become increasingly conservative during his tenure, but he won re-election throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

Tom Foley was of Irish Catholic descent on both sides of his family; his grandfather Cornelius Foley was a maintenance foreman for the Great Northern railroad in.

Tom Foley graduated from the Jesuit-run Gonzaga Preparatory School in Spokane in 1946 and attended Gonzaga University for three years; he completed his bachelor's degree at the University of Washington in Seattle, then attended its School of Law and was awarded a Juris Doctor degree in 1957.

Tom Foley joined the state attorney general's office in 1961 as an assistant attorney general.

In 1961, Foley moved to Washington, DC, and joined the staff of Senator Henry M Jackson.

Tom Foley left Jackson's office in 1964 to run for Congress.

In 1964, Tom Foley was unopposed for the Democratic nomination for Washington's 5th congressional seat, which included Spokane.

Tom Foley faced 11-term Republican incumbent Walt Horan in the general election and won by seven points, one of many swept into office in the 1964 Democratic landslide.

Tom Foley voted in favor of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the bill establishing Martin Luther King Jr.

Tom Foley served on the latter committee through 1975, when he became chairman of the Agriculture Committee.

In 1981, when Tom Foley was appointed Majority Whip, he left the Agriculture Committee to serve on the House Administration Committee.

Tom Foley brought suit, challenging the constitutionality of a state law setting eligibility requirements on federal offices.

Tom Foley won his suit, with a United States District Court declaring that states did not have the authority under the United States Constitution to limit the terms of federal officeholders.

Since Tom Foley left office, no Democrat has garnered more than 45 percent of the district's vote.

Tom Foley is sometimes viewed as a political casualty of the term limits controversy of the early 1990s.

From 1995 to 1998, Tom Foley was head of the Federal City Council, a group of business, civic, education, and other leaders interested in economic development in Washington, DC.

In 1997, Tom Foley was appointed as the 25th US Ambassador to Japan by President Bill Clinton, and was part of the US government response to the deaths of Japanese schoolchildren caused by a US submarine.

Tom Foley was a Washington delegate to the 2004 and 2012 Democratic National Conventions.

Tom Foley was North American Chairman of the Trilateral Commission.

Tom Foley died at his home in Washington, DC on October 18,2013, following months of hospice care after suffering a series of strokes and a bout with pneumonia.

Tom Foley was 84 and was survived by his wife, Heather.