The death of Frank J. Guarini (D-Jersey City) on Saturday leaves 101-year-old William Whitehurst, a Republican from Virginia, as America’s oldest-living former congressman.
Whitehurst, a Republican who represented Virginia’s 2nd district from 1969 to 1987, served in the House with Guarini, who was in office from 1979 to 1993.
Roscoe Bartlett (R-Maryland), who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives with Guarini in 1992 and served until 2012, turned 100 on June 3.
Third on the longevity list is Philip Ruppe (R-Michigan), who turns 100 on September 10. Ruppe was elected in 1966 and served six terms; he left just as Guarini was entering Congress.
Ruppe, Whitehurst, and James Symington (D-Missouri) are the last living congressmen to have served while Lyndon B. Johnson was president. Ruppe flipped a House seat in Johnson’s midterm election, defeating one-term Democratic Rep. Raymond Clevenger by nearly four points.
Whitehurst and Symington entered the House seventeen days before Johnson left office in 1969. Symington’s father, Stuart Symington, was Secretary of the Air Force under President Harry Truman and a U.S. Senator from 1953 to 1976; he sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960.
Guarini’s passing leaves 87-year-old Harold Hollenbeck (R-East Rutherford) as the oldest-living former House member from New Jersey. A former councilman, assemblyman, and state senator from Bergen County, Hollenbeck unseated Rep. Henry Helstoski (D-East Rutherford) in 1976. He served three terms before Bob Torricelli (D-Englewood) unseated him in 1982.
Another former congressman from Bergen County, Andrew Maguire (D-Ridgewood), is also 87; he was born about three months after Hollenbeck. Maguire is the earliest-serving former congressman from New Jersey: he was elected in 1974, ousting 11-term Rep. William Widnall (R-Saddle Brook) in the 1974 Watergate landslide.
The oldest-living former U.S. Senator is Republican Nicholas F. Brady of New Jersey. Gov. Tom Kean appointed Brady, now 96, in 1982 after Harrison Williams resigned in advance of his likely expulsion on bribery charges. Brady served in the Senate for eight months and did not seek election to a full term. He later served as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
Guarini was also the last surviving member of the 1966 State Senate – the first followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s One-Man, One-Vote decision.
The death of Guarini makes Anthony E. Russo (D-Union) the oldest-living former New Jersey state senator. Russo served in the Senate from 1978 to 1982. Hollenbeck and Barry Parker (R-Mount Holly) are the earliest-serving state senators from New Jersey; both were elected in 1971. Parker, 93, served as Assembly Speaker and as Senate Minority Leader; he left the legislature to seek the GOP gubernatorial nomination in 1981.
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