Path to Power
Murtha was born June 17, 1932, in New Martinsville, West Va., and grew up in Mount Pleasant, Pa., in a family of strong women. His father, a World War II veteran, worked in mining and managed a gas station and car wash, but he died of alcoholism at a young age. Murtha doesn’t drink to this day because of what happened to his father.
Murtha enrolled in Washington and Jefferson College after graduating from high school, but left to join the Marine Corps in 1952. He volunteered to fight in Korea, but the conflict ended before his assignment came. He finished up his stint in the Corps at Camp Lejeune, N.C., where he met his wife, Joyce.
Murtha moved back to Pennsylvania to manage the family gas station. He completed his undergraduate education, earning a degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1966, and then joined the Marine Reserves unit in Johnstown, Pa. After President Johnson declined to call the reserves into active duty, Murtha volunteered to go to Vietnam and was sent into combat in 1966 with the 1st Marines Regiment near Da Nang.
Murtha was awarded two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and the Vietnamese Cross for Gallantry for his service in the war. He remained enlisted in the Marine Reserves, attaining the rank of colonel, and retired from the military in 1990 after 37 years of service. Notably, Murtha is one of the few Democrats who favors the reinstatement of the military draft.
Election to U.S. House
In 1968, Murtha ran for Congress after being recruited by Democratic officials and was defeated by the 12th district’s incumbent, John P. Saylor (R). A special election was held in 1974 after Saylor died in office, and Murtha ran for the seat again, this time capturing it by 230 votes.
Murtha quickly established himself as a power player in Congress, becoming a trusted ally of then-House Speaker Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.), but he was soon ensnared in a scandal that would nearly derail his political career.
Abscam
In the late 1970s, the FBI devised a sting operation, known as Abscam, in which agents posed as representatives of Arab sheiks and offered bribes to politicians around the country. One of the FBI stings was arranged with Murtha, who was taped during the meeting. The agents offered Murtha $50,000 to help one of the imaginary sheiks secure U.S. residency. Murtha did not accept the offer, but he spoke at length with the agents and talked about his interest in business investments for his district.
The Abscam investigation would lead to the convictions of six Congressmen and one Senator for bribery and conspiracy. Murtha was named a co-conspirator in the case, but he was never indicted on any charges and the House ethics committee cleared him of any wrongdoing.
Murtha has rarely spoken about the incident, though he has steadfastly maintained his innocence. MSNBC host Chris Mathews pressed him to talk about the scandal during an interview in November 2006. Murtha said he thought the undercover agents were the “slimiest guys” he’d ever seen and felt they were trying to corrupt him. “I wanted to negotiate with [the undercover agents] about investment in the district. That’s what I was interested in. That’s the only thing I was interested in.”
If Murtha was embarrassed by Abscam, it did little harm to his standing with his colleagues. In a 1985 Washington Post profile, he was identified as possibly the “premier political operator” in the House. “His reputation is, if you’re going to put a coalition together, you have to have Murtha,” then-Rep. Mike Synar (D-Okla.) told the Post at the time.
Murtha’s looming presence in the House was probably best captured by the fact that he is the only lawmaker in the body who had an informally recognized assigned seat on the House floor. Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Penn.) said ‘‘no one else dares sit” in Murtha’s traditional corner space.
Alliance with Nancy Pelosi
To say that Murtha was Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) right-hand man in the House is no exaggeration; the two were extremely close allies and he was part of her inner circle of advisers. “To work with Jack Murtha in Congress is to watch a master at work,” Pelosi said of her friend in 2006.
When Pelosi ran for minority whip in 2002, Murtha chaired the successful campaign, helping her build a coalition that defeated Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). In 2006, after House Democrats regained the majority, soon-to-be-Speaker Pelosi returned the favor, supporting Murtha’s bid to become majority whip in a contest against then-Minority Leader Hoyer. Pelosi’s intense advocacy of Murtha’s campaign angered many Democrats, and the fight was a bruising one for the party. In the end, Hoyer’s tireless fundraising and campaign work for House Democrats carried the day, and he defeated Murtha in a secret vote by a count of 149 to 86.
