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Congressman Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, San Francisco, died early this morning due to complications from cancer at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland, his spokeswoman said.

Lantos, 80, was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in late December. Lantos on Jan. 2 announced he would not seek reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives, but had committed to serving the rest of his 14th term through December, spokeswoman Lynne Weil said.

“The Congress and our country have lost a great champion of human rights today,” Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, said. “For almost three decades Tom Lantos was the most eloquent voice for the voiceless here and around the world.

“Tom’s life story is an American story, having survived the Holocaust and become a member of Congress. His leadership for working families and the environment earned him the regard of his constituents and the respect of his colleagues.”

Lantos represented the 12th Congressional district, covering northern San Mateo County and a large part of San Francisco. The district formerly was the 11th district.

Lantos was the only Holocaust survivor to be elected to Congress. He served as a senior member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He was the founding co-chairman of the 24-year-old Congressional Human Rights Caucus, and was elected chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in January 2007, Weil said.

Lantos died at 2:30 a.m. in Maryland, which was about 11:30 p.m. PST, Weil said. He leaves behind his wife, two daughters, 18 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

The date for a public memorial has not been set, Weil said.

Lantos was born in Budapest, Hungary, to a Jewish family although he reportedly considered himself a secular Jew in later life. He joined a resistance movement against Nazi occupation of Hungary — occasionally referring to himself on floor speechs as one of the few living members of Congress who actively fought fascism.

Lantos immigrated to the United States in 1947, carrying his Hungarian accent throughout his life. He studied at the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley, from which he received a Ph.D in 1953.

From 1950 to 1980, Lantos was a professor of economics and a consultant to businesses. He also served as an international affairs analyst for public television and was a senior advisor to several U.S. Senators, according to his Wikipedia biography.

In 1980, he defeated one-term Republican Congressman Bill Royer by 5,700 votes, his closest race in 13 elections.

Lantos and his wife, Annette, have two daughters, Annette and Katrina, and 17 grandchildren.

Lantos has repeatedly called for major reforms in the nation’s health care system and opposed efforts to privatize Social Security. He was a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and supported gun control, same-sex marriage, marijuana for medical use and abortion rights.

He also was recognized for his strong support of public-transportation and environmental causes and open-space preservation, helping add thousands acres to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Lantos initially supported the Iraq War but had become increasingly critical in the past two years. As chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs he held 20 war-oversight hearings in 2007.

— Bay City News and Palo Alto Weekly staff

— Bay City News and Palo Alto Weekly staff

— Bay City News and Palo Alto Weekly staff

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24 Comments

  2. America Lost–we have elections every tow years for Congress–if Mr Lantos’ constituents would have wanted “new blood” they would have voted someone else into office

  3. You think so?
    I don’t, Americans has lost and the pro-politician has won.

    I guess you haven’t looked a the congressional districts that are hacked up to protect incumbents. Americans are boxed in and do not have a vote due to these political manipulators.

    And you consider this map fair?

    http://www.calvoter.org/voter/maps/congress/CD12.pdf

    What I am sad about is this man’s family; they are the big looser here. He hung on to this office long after the point a sensible person would decide to spend their final days with loved ones.

    Final word: He was selfish.

  4. Apparently his constituents wanted him to serve.
    It is very sad that you consider a great man like Lantos as being selfish because he believed in serving his country and standing up for human rights.
    Fortunately you are in the minority with that view.

  5. I am truly saddened that we have lost this great American. Rest in Peace, Tom. Thank you for your years of dedicated, caring, intelligent service to this country.

  6. In the people’s republic of california we will just be given another Democrat party operative since voter choice has long been gerrymandered away.

  7. Lantos got caught misleading the American people back in 1991/1992 about some aspects of the Hussein’s adventures into Kuwait:
    —
    http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CEEDD1338F936A25752C0A964958260

    Deception on Capitol Hill

    Published: January 15, 1992

    It’s plainly wrong for a member of Congress to collaborate with a public relations firm to produce knowingly deceptive testimony on an important issue. Yet Representative Tom Lantos of California has been caught doing exactly that. His behavior warrants a searching inquiry by the House Ethics Committee.

    Mr. Lantos is co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. An article last week on The Times’s Op-Ed page by John MacArthur, the publisher of Harper’s magazine, revealed the identity of a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl who told the caucus that Iraqi soldiers had removed scores of babies from incubators and left them to die.

    The girl, whose testimony helped build support for the Persian Gulf war, was identified only as “Nayirah,” supposedly to protect family members still in Kuwait. Another piece of information was also withheld: that she is not just some Kuwaiti but the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the U.S.
    —

    Was it really the act of a “great man” to effectively lie to his constituents and the American people in order to get them “on board” to go to war against the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait?

  8. And what happened? was this turned over to the ethics committee?

    A part of the article you left out:

    “Chances are that Congress would have voted to pursue the war even without this deception”

    Even great men make mistakes.
    Lantos was a great man

  9. > was this turned over to the ethics committee?

    Most ethical violations of Congressmen are not turned over to ethics committees–Congressmen pretty much do as they want. It was clearly troublesome, because even the left-leaning NYT took notice.

    It’s difficult to see Lantos as a “great man”.

  13. May not be a role model to you, but his constituents thought highly of him–the re-elected him with more than 75% of the vote in the last election

  14. Hey max it does not matter what you say. A shill is a shill, period.

    His district was pimp slapped with more democrats, NO OTHER party had a chance.

    The district was protected in the finest from of patronage.

    Wake up.

  16. You are forgetting how Democratic the Bay Area is–a republican has little chance in many districts here.
    Anyway, if his constituents were unhappy they could have unseated him in the primaries.
    Aren’t you getting tired of posting under different names–maybe you need a good pimp slapping–or do you hate Tom Lantos because he was:
    A) jewish
    B) a holocaust survivor
    C) a strong supporter of ISrael crushing palestinian murders
    D) All of the above

  17. Hmmm

    > B) a holocaust survivor

    Why would anyone be opposed to a Congressman because he was a “holocaust surviver”? Of course, there is no good reason to vote for someone because he was a “holocaust surviver”.

    > C) a strong supporter of ISrael crushing palestinian murders

    Well .. no US Congressman should be elected on a platform point that he wants a country based on religious intolerance to kill all of the people living in a nearby location of another religion.

    If one claims that Lantos was a “great man” because he supported the killing of the Palestinians — then we have a problem on our hands.

  19. no lantos fan–and that is why no one who supported Hamas has been elected to congress. Lantos supported Israel and her right to self- defense. He knew first hand what the Nazis did and what their current day incarnation, as Hamas and their associated Palestinian murderers can do.

  20. Thank you Max for permitting me to read the story about the Kuwaiti “nurse”. The story was never substantiated and it does smell to me like propaganda.

    While no man is perfect, I believe he did much better than most in serving in Congress.

  21. It does seem kind of sad that a person died, and some users of the forum have taken the opportunity to be so disrespectful. I lived in Lantos’ district for a short time, and I really did disagree with many of his political positions, but now that is so unimportant. I think the important thing is saying thank-you to a man who immigrated to this country after experiencing some horrible things, and then made the choice then become a public servant. I imagine he really did love America.

  24. Maybe the city is afraid of offending Peninsula Peace and Justice–they disliked Lantos because he was a strong supporter of Israel, while have supported Hamas, fatah and Hezbollah.

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