Howard Coble, North Carolina Republican in U.S. House, dies at 84
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Version 0 of 1. Howard Coble, who retired in January after 30 years in Congress as North Carolina’s longest-serving Republican member of the House of Representatives, died Nov. 3 at a hospital in Greensboro, N.C. He was 84. He had been hospitalized since September with complications from skin cancer, said his former chief of staff, Ed McDonald. Mr. Coble was first elected to Congress in 1984 representing a district that included Greensboro and surrounding areas of the Piedmont region. In many respects, he was a cigar-puffing political throwback, with an easygoing, back-slapping manner and an independent streak that sometimes put him at odds with party leaders. He served on the House Judiciary Committee throughout his career and was perhaps best known for his tenure as chairman of the Judiciary subcommittee on intellectual property from 1997 to 2003. Although he never learned to operate a computer, Mr. Coble sponsored the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a 1998 law that addressed copyright issues of the digital age. He also helped sponsor legislation to extend the length of copyrights and to manage the federal court system. On Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Coble was leading constituents on a tour of the Supreme Court when Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist handed him a note stating that the Pentagon had come under attack. Mr. Coble initially supported the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq in the wake of the attacks, but by 2005 he had changed his mind. He charged that there was no “post-invasion” strategy for making Iraq a self-governing democracy. “If there was, I wish someone would tell me what it is or show it to me,” he told the Greensboro News & Record in 2005. “Obviously, somebody was asleep at the planning table.” On a radio call-in show in 2003, Mr. Coble disagreed with a caller’s sentiment that Arab Americans should be confined in camps, but he did say he agreed with the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent during World War II. “For many of these Japanese Americans, it wasn’t safe for them to be on the street,” Mr. Coble said. Several congressional colleagues expressed dismay at his comments, and the head of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights called on Mr. Coble to apologize. He said he was “just stating historical fact,” but added that he “did not intend to be insensitive or uncaring.” John Howard Coble was born March 18, 1931, in Greensboro. His father started as a janitor and rose to become manager of a department store. His mother worked in a textile factory. Mr. Coble served in the Coast Guard for five years in the 1950s and remained in the reserves for another 22 years. He graduated in 1958 from Guilford College in Greensboro and received a law degree in 1962 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was an insurance claims adjuster before becoming an assistant federal prosecutor in North Carolina from 1969 to 1973. He was secretary of the state’s revenue department in the 1970s, then served in the North Carolina House of Representatives. Mr. Coble won a two-point victory over Democratic incumbent C. Robin Britt in 1984, carried to Congress by Ronald Reagan’s long Republican coattails. In a 1986 rematch with Britt, Mr. Coble was reelected by a scant 79 votes. (In 1992, he won reelection over a candidate named Robin Hood.) Mr. Coble was known for wearing colorful suspenders, floppy fedoras and loud plaid jackets. He never married. Survivors include a brother. After experiencing problems with his health, Mr. Coble announced that he would not seek reelection in 2014. His seat is held by Republican Mark Walker. “You see people up here who never smile,” Mr. Coble told the News & Record last year when he was packing up his Capitol Hill office. “It makes you wonder how they got elected. A laugh serves you a whole lot better than a frown. That’s the gospel according to Coble.” |