John Conyers

John James Conyers Jr. (May 16, 1929Template:SndOctober 27, 2019) was an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as a U.S. representative from Michigan from 1965 to 2017. Conyers was the sixth-longest serving member of Congress and the longest-serving African American member of Congress in history.

After serving in the Korean War, Conyers became active in the civil rights movement. He also served as an aide to Congressman John Dingell before winning election to the House in 1964. He co-founded the Congressional Black Caucus in 1969 and established a reputation as one of the most left-wing members of Congress. Conyers joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus after it was founded in 1991. Conyers supported creation of a single-payer healthcare system and sponsored the United States National Health Care Act. He also sponsored a bill to establish Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday, and was the first congressperson to introduce legislation in support of reparations for the descendants of African American slavery.

Conyers ran for Mayor of Detroit in 1989 and 1993, but he was defeated in the primary both times. He served as the ranking Democratic member on the House Committee on the Judiciary from 1995 to 2007 and again from 2011 to 2017. He served as chairman of that committee from 2007 to 2011 and as chairman of the House Oversight Committee from 1989 to 1995. As the longest-serving current member of Congress, Conyers was the dean of the House of Representatives from 2015 to 2017. By November 2017, he was the last remaining member of Congress who had served since the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. In the wake of allegations that he had sexually harassed female staff members and secretly used taxpayer money to settle a harassment claim, Conyers resigned from Congress on December 5, 2017.

Early life, education, and early career

Conyers was born and raised in Detroit, the son of Lucille Janice (Simpson) and John James Conyers, a labor leader.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Among his siblings was younger brother William Conyers. After graduating from Northwestern High School, Conyers served in the Michigan National Guard from 1948 to 1950; the U.S. Army from 1950 to 1954; and the U.S. Army Reserves from 1954 to 1957. Conyers served for a year in Korea during the Korean War as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and was awarded combat and merit citations.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

After his active military service, Conyers pursued a college education. He earned both his BA (1957) and LL.B. (1958) degrees from Wayne State University. After he was admitted to the bar, he worked on the staff of Congressman John Dingell. He also served as counsel to several Detroit-area labor union locals. From 1961 to 1963, he was a referee for Michigan's workmen's compensation department.<ref name=nytobit>Template:Cite news</ref>

Conyers became one of the leaders of the civil rights movement. He was present in Selma, Alabama, on October 7, 1963, for the voter registration drive known as Freedom Day.<ref>Template:Cite book </ref>

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

Conyers speaks at an anti-Safeguard Program rally in Madison Square Garden, June 25, 1969

In 1964, Conyers ran for an open seat in what was then the 1st District, and defeated Republican Robert Blackwell with 84% of the vote.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was reelected 13 times with even larger margins. After the 1990 United States census, Michigan lost a congressional district, and there was redistricting. Conyers's district was renumbered as the 14th district.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1992, Conyers won re-election to his 15th term in his new district, which included western suburbs of Detroit, with 82% of the vote against Republican nominee John Gordon.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He won re-election another nine times after that. His worst re-election performance was in 2010, when he got 77% of the vote against Republican nominee Don Ukrainec.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2013, his district was renamed as the 13th district.

In total, Conyers won re-election twenty-five times and was serving in his twenty-sixth term. He 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. He was the second-longest serving member of either house of Congress in Michigan's history, trailing only his former boss, Dingell. He was also the last member of the large Democratic freshman class of 1964 who was still serving in the House.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In May 2014, Wayne County clerk Cathy Garrett determined that Conyers had not submitted enough valid nominating petition signatures to appear on the August 2014 primary election ballot.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Two of his workers circulating petitions were not themselves registered voters at the time, which was required under Michigan law. But on May 23, federal district judge Matthew Leitman issued an injunction placing Conyers back on the ballot, ruling that the requirement that circulators be registered voters was similar to an Ohio law which had been found unconstitutional in 2008 by a Federal appeals court.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Michigan secretary of state's office subsequently announced they would not appeal the ruling.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Tenure

Conyers (standing, second from right) with fellow founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971

Conyers was one of the 13 founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and was considered the Dean of that group. Formed in 1969, the CBC was founded to strengthen African American lawmakers' ability to address the legislative concerns of Black and minority citizens. He served longer in Congress than any other African American. In 1971, he was one of the original members of Nixon's enemies list.<ref name=timeline>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1965, Conyers won a seat as a freshman on the influential Judiciary Committee, which was then chaired by Democratic Congressman Emanuel Celler of New York. The assignment was considered an elite one, as Judiciary ranked behind only Ways and Means and Appropriations in terms of the number of Members who sought assignment there.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Conyers at the All People's Congress in Detroit, 1981

According to the National Journal, Conyers has been considered, with Pete Stark, John Lewis, Jim McDermott, and Barbara Lee, to be one of the most liberal members of Congress for many years. Rosa Parks, known for her prominent role in the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, moved to Detroit and served on Conyers's staff between 1965 and 1988.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Conyers was known to have opposed regulation of online gambling. He opposed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Conyers introduced the first bill in Congress to make King's birthday a federal holiday.<ref name=timeline /> He continued to propose legislation to establish the federal holiday in every session of Congress from 1968 to 1983, when Martin Luther King Jr. Day was finally signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1983 he joined with 7 other congressional representatives to sponsor a resolution to impeach Ronald Reagan over his sudden and unexpected invasion of Grenada.<ref name=GeniusImpeachment/>

According to The New Republic, Conyers was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America in 1983.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Conyers introduced the "Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act" (Template:USBill) in January 1989. He re-introduced this bill each congressional term. It calls for establishing a commission to research the history of slavery in the United States and its effects on current society, which is to recommend ways to remedy this injustice against African Americans. The current version was introduced and referred to committee on January 3, 2013.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Conyers first introduced the proposed resolution in 1989, and has stated his intention to annually propose this act until it is approved and passed. Since 1997, the bill has been designated "H.R. 40", most recently, Template:USBill, alluding to the promise of "forty acres and a mule".<ref name="Miller">Template:Cite journal</ref> If passed, the commission would explore the longstanding effects of slavery on today's society, politics, and economy. Template:Blockquote

Conyers shaking hands with President Bill Clinton in 1993

Conyers served as the ranking Democratic member on the House Committee on the Judiciary from 1995 to 2007 and again from 2011 to 2017. He served as chairman of that committee from 2007 to 2011 and as chairman of the House Oversight Committee from 1989 to 1995. As the longest-serving current member of Congress, Conyers was the dean of the House of Representatives from 2015 to 2017.Template:Citation needed

In March 2016, Rep. Conyers and Representative Hank Johnson introduced legislation to protect consumers' access to civil courts. The bill was entitled the "Restoring Statutory Rights Act".<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref>Template:Better source needed

Conyers served more than 50 years in Congress, becoming the sixth-longest serving member of Congress in U.S. history; he was the longest-serving African American member of Congress.<ref>Kathleen Gray, "U.S. Rep. John Conyers leaves behind legacy of civil rights, racial justice", Detroit Free Press (December 5, 2017).</ref> By November 2017, Conyers was the last remaining member of Congress who had served since the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Nixon and Watergate

Conyers was critical of President Richard Nixon during his tenure. He was listed as number 13 on President Nixon's enemies list during the president's 1969–74 presidential tenure. The president's chief counsel described him as "coming on fast", and said he was "emerging" as a "black anti-Nixon spokesman".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Conyers, who voted to impeach Nixon in July 1974,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> wrote at the time,

National Health Care Act

In 2003, Conyers introduced H.R. 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act (Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act) with 25 cosponsors<ref>Template:USBill</ref> and reintroduced it each session since. As of 2015, it had 49 cosponsors. The act calls for the creation of a universal single-payer health care system in the United States, in which the government would provide every resident health care free of charge. To eliminate disparate treatment between richer and poorer Americans, the Act would prohibit private insurers from covering any treatment or procedure already covered by the Act.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

House impeachment manager in Hastings trial

Conyers was one of the House impeachment managers who prosecuted the in case the impeachment trial of Judge Alcee Hastings. Hastings was found guilty by the United States Senate and removed from his federal judgeship.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Downing Street memo

On May 5, 2005, Conyers and 88 other members of Congress wrote an open letter to the White House inquiring about the Downing Street memo. This was a leaked memorandum that revealed an apparent secret agreement between the Bush administration and the Second Blair ministry to invade Iraq in 2002. The Times, among the first to publish news of the leak, wrote that the discovered documented revealed the intentions of Bush and Blair to invade Iraq, along with revealing that the two had "discussed creating pretextual justifications for doing so."<ref name=thetimes />

The memo story broke in the United Kingdom, but did not receive much coverage in the United States. Conyers said: "This should not be allowed to fall down the memory hole during wall-to-wall coverage of the Michael Jackson trial and a runaway bride."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Conyers and others reportedly considered sending a congressional investigation delegation to London.<ref name=thetimes>Tony Allen-Mills and Tom Pattinson, "Blair faces U.S. probe over secret Iraq invasion plan", The Times, May 22, 2005.</ref>

What Went Wrong in Ohio

In May 2005, Conyers released a report about voting irregularities in the state of Ohio during the 2004 U.S. presidential election called What Went Wrong in Ohio: The Conyers Report On The 2004 Presidential Election. Some of the claims in the report pertaining to voter suppression tend to have been supported, including through court cases. Some of the claims pertaining to manipulation of the count and similar election fraud have been refuted.<ref name=v937 /> Consequently this report should be considered a representation of a minority view.

The report included the following claims: <ref name=conyers05>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

• Too few voting machines in Kerry-voting wards, leading to long queues. A Washington Post piece exemplified Franklin County, where wards with many machines per voter mostly had Bush majorities, and wards with relatively few machines per voter were typically in favor of Kerry. The numbers disenfranchised statewide were in the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of voters.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell made a decision to limit provisional ballots, leading to the estimated disenfranchisement of tens or hundreds of thousands of voters.
• Voter turnout for minorities was suppressed by caging targeting 35,000 of these voters, and "challenging" tactics were used to intimidate voters and cause longer lines.
• Where absentee ballots were not issued in time, provisional ballots were not permitted, affecting thousands or tens of thousands, especially seniors. The order from Ken Blackwell to do this was found illegal by a federal court, violating the Help America Vote Act.
• Improper voter purges and registration errors disenfranchised at least 10,000 voters, likely tens of thousands statewide.
• 93,000 spoiled ballots where no vote was cast for president, including undervote rates as high as 25% in some counties, from people who likely stood in line.
• Statistical abnormalities in the differences between exit poll results and actual votes registered at those locations.
• Issues of faulty electronic voting machines, such as over 24 electronic machines in Mahoning County transferring an indeterminate quantity of votes into the Bush column and out of the Kerry column.
• In Warren County, public observers were prevented from viewing the vote counting, due to specious claims that a terrorist threat had been called by the FBI. The FBI stated it gave no such warnings.
• Little-known third party candidates got twenty times more votes than would be expected in Cuyahoga County.
• Voter turnout of a suspiciously-high 98.55% in Miami County.
• Provisional ballots being rejected due to lack of guidance on how to process. In once case, about 8,000 of the 24,000 provisional ballots were rejected.
• Cheat sheets were handed out by a voting machine manufacturer to the election officials, giving guidance on how to avoid doing a hand-recount in the face of anomalies.

While some courts before the election found that certain restrictive voting policies of Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell were illegal,<ref name="o031">Template:Cite web</ref> claims of voter and machine fraud swaying the election have not achieved mainstream acceptance,<ref name="v937">Template:Cite web</ref> and several have been refuted.<ref name="h520">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Citation</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The state was won by Republican president George Bush by 118,457 votes.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Constitution in Crisis

Conyers at an anti-war march in Newark, New Jersey, in 2007

On August 4, 2006, Conyers released his report, The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retributions and Cover-ups in the Iraq War, an edited collection of information intended to serve as evidence that the Bush administration altered intelligence to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The Constitution in Crisis examines much of the evidence presented by the Bush administration prior to the invasion and questions the credibility of their sources of intelligence. In addition, the document investigates conditions that led to the torture scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, as well as further evidence of torture having been committed but not made known to the public. Finally, the document reports on a series of "smear tactics" purportedly used by the administration in dealing with its political adversaries. The document calls for the censure of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Conyers refused to back impeachment proceedings, however.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On anti-Muslim intolerance

Conyers proposed House Resolution 288, which condemns "religious intolerance" and emphasizes Islam as needing special protection from acts of violence and intolerance. It states that "it should never be official policy of the United States Government to disparage the Quran, Islam, or any religion in any way, shape, or form," and "calls upon local, State, and Federal authorities to work to prevent bias-motivated crimes and acts against all individuals, including those of the Islamic faith." The bill was referred to the House subcommittee on the Constitution in June 2005.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2005, 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. The resolution was cosponsored by Republican representative Joseph R. Pitts (Republican of Pennsylvania). The resolution's title was: "Condemning the conduct of Chief Minister Narendra Modi for his actions to incite religious persecution and urging the United States to condemn all violations of religious freedom in India." The resolution cited a 2004 United States Commission on International Religious Freedom report on Modi stating that he was "widely accused of being reluctant to bring the perpetrators of the killings of Muslims and non-Hindus to justice". (See 2002 Gujarat riots.) The resolution was not adopted.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Conyers v. Bush

In April 2006 Conyers, together with ten other senior congressmen, filed an action in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division, challenging the constitutionality of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. The complaint alleged the bill was not afforded due consideration by the United States Congress before being signed by the President.<ref>The DRA One Year Later: Dems Waiting for Outcome of Legal Challenges to Law That Stiffens Medicaid Transfer Penalties Template:Webarchive from ElderLawAnswers.com, February 10, 2007</ref> The action was subsequently dismissed on grounds of lack of standing.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Copyright bill

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. Conyers's bill would forbid the government from mandating that federally funded research be made freely available to the public.<ref>Conyers Reintroduces Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, Tech Law Journal (February 3, 2009).</ref> The legislation was supported by the publishing industry,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and opposed by groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation.<ref>Richard Esguerra, "Open Access" Policies Threatened by Copyright Bill, Electronic Frontier Foundation (February 25, 2009).</ref> Writers Lawrence Lessig and Michael Eisen accused Conyers of being influenced by publishing houses, who have contributed significant money to his campaigns.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

House Report on George W. Bush presidency and proposed inquiry

On January 13, 2009, the House Committee on the Judiciary, led by Conyers, released Reining in the Imperial Presidency: Lessons and Recommendations Relating to the Presidency of George W. Bush, a 486-page report detailing alleged abuses of power that occurred during the Bush administration, and a comprehensive set of recommendations to prevent recurrence. Conyers introduced a bill to set up a "truth commission" panel to investigate alleged policy abuses of the Bush administration.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Bill reading controversy

In late July 2009, Conyers, commenting on the healthcare debate in the House, stated: "I love these members, they get up and say, 'Read the bill'Template:Spaces... What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?" His remark brought criticism from government transparency advocates such as the Sunlight Foundation, which referred to readthebill.org<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> in response.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Response to accusations regarding American Muslim spies

In October, Conyers responded to allegations from four Republican Congress Members, in the wake of the launch of the book Muslim Mafia, that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sought to plant Muslim "spies" in Capitol Hill. He strongly opposed the accusations, saying:

WikiLeaks

At a December 16, 2010, hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on the subject of "the Espionage Act and the Legal and Constitutional Issues Raised by WikiLeaks",<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Conyers "argue[d] strongly against prosecuting WikiLeaks in hasteTemplate:Sndor at all."<ref name=WikiHearing>Elliott, Justin (December 16, 2010) Top Dem sticks up for WikiLeaks Template:Webarchive, Salon.com</ref> He strongly defended the whistleblowing organization, saying: Template:Blockquote

Conyers's statement was "in marked contrast to the repeated calls from other members of Congress and Obama administration officials to prosecute WikiLeaks head Julian Assange immediately."<ref name=WikiHearing />

Foreign policy

In 2014, Conyers, along with Ted Yoho, introduced a bipartisan amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act which would prohibit the United States Armed Forces from providing any form of assistance to the Azov Battalion, a National Guard of Ukraine unit accused by Conyers of being a "far-right white supremacist militia". The amendment was subsequently passed by the House of Representatives in 2015. Conyers' decision to introduce the amendment was the subject of both praise and criticism, with detractors noting that claiming that large numbers of Neo-Nazis are members of the Azov Battalion is a common theme of propaganda in Russia.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>"Ukraine's Neo-Nazis Won't Get U.S. Money Template:Webarchive". Bloomberg. June 12, 2015.</ref>

Conyers stated, "If there's one simple lesson we can take away from U.S. involvement in conflicts overseas, it's this: Beware of unintended consequences. As was made vividly clear with U.S. involvement in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion decades ago, overzealous military assistance or the hyper-weaponization of conflicts can have destabilizing consequences and ultimately undercut our own national interests."<ref>"U.S. House Passes three Amendments By Rep. Conyers To Defense Spending Bill To Protect Civilians From Dangers Of Arming and Training Foreign Forces Template:Webarchive". Press Releases. June 11, 2015.</ref> He also voiced concerns about sending anti-aircraft missiles to Syrian rebels.<ref>"Congress just gave Trump the authority to send surface-to-air missiles to Syrian fighters". The Washington Post. December 6, 2016.</ref>

Caucus memberships

• Founding Member and Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
• American Sikh Congressional Caucus<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Congressional Progressive Caucus<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
• United States Congressional International Conservation Caucus<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Out of Afghanistan Caucus (Co-chair)<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>
• Congressional Full Employment Caucus<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Congressional Arts Caucus<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Afterschool Caucuses<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Congressional NextGen 9-1-1 Caucus<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Detroit mayoral campaigns

While serving in the U.S. House, Conyers made two unsuccessful runs for mayor of Detroit: one in 1989 against incumbent Coleman Young and again in 1993.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

1989

Incumbent Democratic mayor Coleman Young decided to run for a fifth term, despite growing unpopularity and the declining economy of Detroit. In the September primary, Young won with 51% of the vote. Accountant Tom Barrow qualified for the November run-off by having 24%, and Conyers received 18% of the vote.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Despite the difficulties of the city, Young defeated Barrow in the run-off with 56% of the vote.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

1993

In June 1993, incumbent Democratic mayor Coleman Young decided to retire instead of seeking a sixth term, citing his age and health. Many observers believed he had decided not to test his growing unpopularity. In a Detroit News poll in February, 81% said Young should retire.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Conyers was one of the 23 candidates who qualified for ballot access.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Dennis Archer was the front runner in the mayoral campaign from the beginning. The 51-year-old former state supreme court justice raised over $1.6Template:Spacesmillion to finance his campaign. He won the September primary with 54% of the vote. Conyers came in fourth place.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Archer won the November election.

Controversies

Ethics controversy

In April 2006, the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office sent independent letters to the House Ethics Committee, saying two former aides of Conyers had alleged that Conyers used his staff to work on several local and state campaigns of other politiciansTemplate:Sndincluding his wifeTemplate:Sndfor the Detroit City Council. (She won a seat in 2005.) He also forced them to baby-sit and chauffeur his children.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In late December 2006, Conyers "accepted responsibility" for violating House rules. A statement issued December 29, 2006, by the House Ethics Committee chairman Doc Hastings and ranking minority member Howard Berman, said Conyers acknowledged what he characterized as a "lack of clarity" in his communications with staff members regarding their official duties and responsibilities, and accepted responsibility for his actions.<ref name="ethicsviolation" />

In deciding to drop the matter, Hastings and Berman said:

Sexual harassment allegations and resignation

In 2015, a former employee of Conyers alleged that he had sexually harassed her and dismissed her. She filed an affidavit with the Congressional Office of Compliance.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Conyers had entered into a confidentiality agreement with the former employee and had paid her a $27,000 (~$Template:Format price in Template:Inflation/year) settlement from his publicly funded office budget in 2015.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> BuzzFeed reported on the allegations and settlement on November 20, 2017; Buzzfeed also reported allegations that Conyers "repeatedly made sexual advances to female staff," caressed female staffers' hands in a sexual manner, and rubbed their backs and legs in public.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="beavers17">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Viebeck, Elise, "Rep. John Conyers denies reaching harassment settlement after BuzzFeed report", The Washington Post, November 21, 2017</ref>

On November 21, 2017, Conyers issued a statement in which he said, "In our country, we strive to honor this fundamental principle that all are entitled to due process. In this case, I expressly and vehemently denied the allegations made against me, and continue to do so. My office resolved the allegationsTemplate:Sndwith an express denial of liabilityTemplate:Sndin order to save all involved from the rigors of protracted litigation."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Also on November 21, 2017, the House Ethics Committee launched an investigation into multiple sexual harassment allegations against Conyers.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On November 22, 2017, The Washington Post reported that Melanie Sloan, founder of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), publicly accused Conyers of having harassed and verbally abused her during her tenure working for the House Judiciary Committee. On one occasion, Sloan alleged that Conyers had summoned to his office, where she found him sitting in his underwear; she quickly departed.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Later in November 2017, there were reports that another woman accused Conyers of sexual harassment.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who had initially stated that Conyers was an "icon" and had done a great deal to protect women,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> called upon Conyers to resign. She said the allegations against him were "very credible".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On December 5, 2017, aged 88, Conyers resigned his House seat because of his mounting sexual scandals.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The announcement came the day after another former staffer released an affidavit accusing Conyers of sexual harassment.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The same day, an article by The Washington Post published allegations by Courtney Morse that Conyers had threatened her with a similar fate to that of Chandra Levy, a staffer found murdered in a park in Washington, DC. She said that after she rejected his advances, he "said he had insider information on the case. I don't know if he meant it to be threatening, but I took it that way."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

At a time when the MeToo movement was pushing for action against men who harassed women, some media and supporters in Detroit believed Conyers had been unfairly treated.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He was reported as the "first sitting politician to be ousted from office in the wake of the #MeToo movement."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Personal life

Conyers married Monica Esters, a teacher in Detroit, in 1990. She was 25 and he was 61; they had two sons together, John James III and Carl Edward Conyers.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Monica Conyers served as vice administrator of Detroit's public schools, and in 2005 was elected to the Detroit City Council.Template:Citation needed Monica Conyers pleaded guilty to bribery charges on June 26, 2009<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and served slightly more than 27 months in prison;<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> her sentence was completed on May 16, 2013.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In September 2015, Monica Conyers filed for divorce, citing a "breakdown of the marriage".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, the Conyers' reconciled in late 2016.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Conyers's grandnephew, Ian Conyers, was elected to the Michigan Senate in 2016.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He generated controversy by telling of Conyers's planned retirement in interviews before the congressman announced it himself, and claiming his great-uncle's endorsement.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Following the congressman's resignation, Ian Conyers announced that he would run in the special election for the congressman's seat. The congressman instead endorsed his son, John Conyers III, as his successor.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> John Conyers III chose not to run. Ian Conyers was defeated in the Democratic primary by Rashida Tlaib.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Death

Conyers died at his home in Detroit on October 27, 2019, at the age of 90.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He lied in state on NovemberTemplate:Spaces2 and NovemberTemplate:Spaces3 at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> His funeral was held on NovemberTemplate:Spaces4 at Detroit's Greater Grace Temple, with Michael Eric Dyson and former U.S. president Bill Clinton joining his family in providing eulogies.<ref name=conyersfuneral>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Rev. Jesse Jackson and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, and various members of the U.S. Congress spoke at the funeral as well.<ref name=conyersfuneral /><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Accolades

In 2007, Conyers was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• History of African Americans in Detroit
• List of African-American United States representatives
• List of Democratic Socialists of America who have held office in the United States
• PRO-IP Act
• United States National Health Care Act

External links

• Template:Find a Grave
• CD14 at Michigan Liberal
• John Conyers's oral history video excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project
• John Conyers Jr for Congress Template:Webarchive
• Global Family Day movement co-founded by John Conyers and Linda Grover
• Template:C-SPAN

Articles

• It's time for Karl Rove to go: The president needs to ask for a special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame case Congressman John Conyers Jr., Salon.com (October 15, 2003)
• Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio: Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff (prepared at the request of Congressman John Conyers, January 5, 2005)
• Open letter to George W. Bush, re: Downing Street Memo (originally signed by 89 U.S. Congress members), John Conyers, et al. (May 5, 2005)
• Bush asked to explain UK war memo CNN (May 12, 2005)
• The Downing Street Memo John Conyers (May 27, 2005)
• Congressman John Conyers Talks About Bush Lying America Into War and His Campaign to Hold Bush Accountable: The Downing Street Memo and More (John Conyers interview), BuzzFlash (June 9, 2005)
• The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War (Investigative Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff, December 2005)
• A Motion for Censure Congressman John Conyers Jr., The Nation (December 22, 2005)
• Q & A with Conyers Guernica Magazine, May 22, 2006
• House chair warns White House to comply with subpoenas, November 5, 2007

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