Remembering John Porter: A Republican from Another Time

Porter, who died last week at age 87, was a Republican from another time. With a lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 61%, the 20-year U.S. representative from suburban Chicago was cut from a different cloth than the 56 primarily conservative Republicans who arrived with Ronald Reagan in 1980 and whose election Porter’s preceded by 11 months.

And he was certainly light years removed from the aggressively conservative Republicans who have come to the House most recently and nearly dominate its Republican Conference today.

Porter supported raising the minimum wage, fought hard against cuts in the National Endowment for the Arts and the Legal Services Corporation, opposed banning drugs that would induce abortion, and supported an amendment to permit gun ownership in the homes of Washington, D.C. residents. 

But did votes like this indicate the Prairie State lawmaker was a RINO (Republican in Name Only)? That would be a hard case to make, as Porter also supported killing the "Death (estate) Tax," consistently backed and worked for Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) as an alternative form of health care, and backed Reagan’s tax and budget acts of 1981.

Jim Martin, long-time head of the 60 Plus Association, recalled how upset Porter was "when he got a negative rating from the old National Council of Senior Citizens, the hard-left group comprised of former union officials living on government grants. They did the dirty work for the AARP, which allowed AARP to stay above the fray. Porter lamented to Roger Zion (60 Plus lobbyist and former Republican congressman from Ind.) that he had a good union record, but Roger told him it’s never good enough for extreme left — namely the NCSC."

"When John got to Congress, about two years after I did, he helped me start the Congressional Human Rights Caucus," former Rep. Don Ritter, R.-PA, told Newsmax, recalling how Porter worked tirelessly on identifying, monitoring and ending human rights violations worldwide, "And we had a special interest in Afghanistan and China" — two nations whose human rights abuses draw worldwide attention today.

Ritter also pointed out that Porter "was the go-to guy on the issue of health care. He understood this complex, but highly important issue well before most people realized we had to do something about it." Along with taking the lead on giving the individual a bigger say in control over individual health care through MSAs, Porter, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told us, "and Connie Mack (then a Republican senator from Florida) were the two key leaders in getting the Republican-controlled Congress to double the National Institutes of Health budget while cutting spending to balance the federal budget for four straight years — the only time that happened in our lifetime."

Porter's passion for the political center and for compromising almost surely came from an experience as a young man. After graduating from Northwestern University, serving a stint in the U.S. Army Reserves, and then earning his law degree with honors from the University of Michigan, the young Porter was selected for the Honor Law Graduate Program at the U.S. Department of Justice. Watching then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy and his all-Democratic staff, lifelong Republican Porter evolved into a more bipartisan figure.

Elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1972, he became a close ally of fellow moderate Republican, Gov. Jim Thompson. Among those Democrats he came to know and work with was Mike Madigan of Chicago, a product of Mayor Richard Daley’s Democratic organization who would go on to become the longest-serving state House speaker (1982-2021) in U.S. history.

In 1978, Porter took on Democratic Rep. Abner Mikva, who had been redistricted in 1971 from the South Side of Chicago into the suburban 10th District. Beaten in 1972, Mikva came back to win two tight contests in 1974 and 1976. As his Republican opponent, Porter slammed the incumbent for his record of support for President Jimmy Carter at a time when inflation and unemployment were on the rise. Mikva again eked out a win, beating Porter by about 650 votes.

In a letter to this reporter the following year, Porter said he would be back for a rematch and that "Mikva's days are numbered." He was right — but not exactly in the way he anticipated. In 1979, perhaps sensing defeat, Mikva accepted an appointment from Carter to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Porter won the resulting special election with ease and would never have any difficulty at the polls.

When he retired in 2000, his longtime top aide and fellow moderate Mark Kirk succeeded him in the House and later went on to the Senate.

Like Gingrich and Ritter, former Rep. Jim Courter, R.-NJ, came to Congress with Porter and was definitely to his right philosophically. Courter seemed to speak for all who knew Porter when he told us: "John was a dedicated Member who was admired by all on both sides of the aisle."

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.