From VISTA volunteer in Emmons to author of the Children’s Health Insurance Program
Jay Rockefeller, who came from one of the nation’s richest families to spend a half century in public service in one of its poorest states, has died at 89. Rockefeller died Thursday night at his home in Washington, said Mary Stewart, vice president for external affairs at WETA, the public broadcasting station where Rockefeller’s wife, Sharon, serves as president and CEO.
Rockefeller was the last member of his family’s political dynasty — and the only Democrat — to serve as West Virginia’s governor and later a longtime U.S. senator. He was born John D. Rockefeller IV in New York City. His great-grandfather, Standard Oil Co. founder John Rockefeller, died a month before Rockefeller’s birth. His father, John D. Rockefeller III, was a well-known philanthropist. Uncles Winthrop and Nelson were Republican governors, of Arkansas and New York respectively, and another uncle, David Rockefeller, ran Chase Manhattan Bank.
A few years out of college, at age 27, Rockefeller moved in 1964 to the West Virginia mining community of Emmons to work in the Volunteers in Service to America program. He said the time proved transformative. “It explains every policy I pursued and every vote I have cast. It was where my beliefs were bolted down, and where my passions met my principles,” he said in a farewell speech on the Senate floor on Dec. 4, 2014.
Though he intended the stay to be brief, Rockefeller broke from his family’s Republican tradition and won election to the state House of Delegates as a Democrat in 1966. By combining money with hard work in a traditionally Democratic state, he rose from state legislator to secretary of state to governor, overcoming suspicions of political opportunism.
His only political defeat came in the 1972 governor’s race, lost to Republican Arch A. Moore Jr. Rockefeller stayed in West Virginia afterward — a decision he called the most important of his career — and in 1973 became the first person without a theological degree to serve as president of West Virginia Wesleyan College. His popularity there, and a change in his stance to embrace strip mining, translated into a landslide win over Republican Cecil Underwood in the 1976 governor’s race.
As governor, Rockefeller emphasized development of the state’s infrastructure — roads, sewers and bridges. Those issues, he said, are “not very sexy things, I grant you but very, very necessary in West Virginia.” He defeated Moore in a rematch in 1980.
After that 1980 victory, Rockefeller won a U.S. Senate seat in 1984 following the retirement of longtime Democrat Jennings Randolph, despite a landslide win that year by Republican President Ronald Reagan. He won comfortable margins in each of his five terms and spent 25 years as the state’s junior senator, working in the shadow of Sen. Robert C. Byrd. Byrd, who died in 2010 as the longest-serving senator in U.S. history, built an enduring reputation for steering billions of dollars over many decades to boost the impoverished state.
Rockefeller’s vast wealth was always a source of conversation and an undercurrent in his political races. He spent at least $21 million of his own money on his campaigns, drawing on an inherited $150 million fortune, including $9 million to win the close 1984 Senate race against Republican novice and fellow multimillionaire John Raese. In the 1980 gubernatorial race against Moore, bumper stickers appeared reading: “Make Him Spend It All, Arch.” He and Sharon, the daughter of former Republican Sen. Charles Percy of Illinois, also purchased a multimillion-dollar estate in Washington.
Rockefeller’s influence in the Senate ran through committee work. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, he championed consumers’ rights, pushed to upgrade broadband infrastructure and sponsored a bill to block companies from tracking the online activity of their customers. He authored the 1997 legislation that created the Children’s Health Insurance Program. He also headed the Senate committees on Veterans’ Affairs and Intelligence, frequently sparring with President George W. Bush over foreign policy, and said he regretted his 2002 vote to authorize the war against Iraq.
Rockefeller split with his own party’s White House over mining. With West Virginia the nation’s second-biggest coal producer, he was among several state officials who opposed the Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency’s oversight of the mountaintop removal method of surface mining.
College studies in Tokyo laid the groundwork for Rockefeller’s efforts to bring Japanese business to West Virginia. He had known Toyota’s founding family since the 1960s and was instrumental in the automaker’s decision in 1996 to build an engine parts plant on a Buffalo, West Virginia, cornfield. The $2 billion plant now employs about 2,200 workers.
Moore’s daughter, Republican Shelley Moore Capito, won Rockefeller’s Senate seat in 2014 upon his retirement. On Friday, she called Rockefeller “a true gentleman” who treated her with respect, kindness and encouragement. “Over the years, we developed a wonderful friendship that transcended politics, and I will always be grateful for that,” Capito said in a statement. Gov. Patrick Morrissey said Rockefeller helped shape the state and left “a lasting mark on the lives of generations of West Virginians.” “From his early work in some of our state’s most disadvantaged communities to his efforts to strengthen healthcare, protect coal miners and their families, and support our veterans, Senator Rockefeller demonstrated a deep commitment to the people of West Virginia,” Morrissey said in a statement.
“I could not imagine a more rewarding career,” Rockefeller said upon his retirement in 2015.