NORTH CAROLINA -- Congressman Walter Jones passed away Sunday in Greenville, NC. It was his 76 birthday.

  • Jones represented our state's third district since 1995.
  • The Republican served a total of 12 terms on Capitol Hill, representing constituents from the Outer Banks, down to Wilmington and inland.
  • He was admitted into hospice in January due to complications from hip surgery.

Jones represented our state's third district since 1995.

The Republican served a total of 12 terms on Capitol Hill, representing constituents from the Outer Banks, down to Wilmington and inland.

 

 

Jones, who had missed dozens of votes in Washington over the past few months due to illness, was re-elected to his 13th term in November. A month ago, he broke a hip and underwent surgery. He alter entered hospice care.

Jones had politics in his blood. His father, Walter B. Jones, Sr., served as a member of Congress representing North Carolina for nearly three decades. He, like his son, died in office.

Jones was first sworn in as a member of Congress in 1995, following a 10-year stint in the North Carolina General Assembly. In Raleigh, Jones served as a Democrat and fought for campaign finance and lobbying reform.

 

By 1994, he had switched parties and made the leap to Washington as part of that year’s GOP midterm wave election.

On Capitol Hill, Jones sometimes struck an independent streak, especially in his later years. While he was conservative on social issues like abortion and gay marriage, he frequently bucked party leadership and whoever was in the Oval Office.

In December 2017, for example, he voted against the Republican tax rewrite, backed by the House GOP leadership and President Donald Trump.

Jones, who represented Camp Lejeune and Cherry Point, often advocated for Veterans issues. He called for renaming the Department of the Navy to also recognize the Marines.

Jones argued that Congress should exercise greater oversight over war powers. He joined in on a lawsuit against the Obama administration for invading Libya. In 2018, he filed legislation making it an impeachable offense for the president to go to war without congressional consent.

 
The push for congressional oversight was in part inspired by Jones’s own regrets over voting to authorize the Iraq War. In 2003, Jones made international headlines when - as part of advocating for the war - he lead the fight to rename French fries “freedom fries.” The reason for the new name? France opposed the invasion.
 
 
Years later, though, Jones publicly questioned the Bush administration’s justification for getting involved in Iraq in the first place. The hallway outside Jones’s Capitol Hill office is lined with images of Camp Lejeune soldiers killed in the Iraqi conflict.

Jones represented the Outer Banks, and passed legislation in 1998 aimed at protecting the wild horses on the Shackleford Banks of the Cape Lookout National Seashore.

Beyond politics, in 2004, Capitol Hill staffers ranked Jones #1 in the “Just Plain Nice” category among House lawmakers, according to a survey conducted by the Washingtonian Magazine.

NC Politicians on Jones' Passing:

Spectrum News Text and Email Alerts Sign-up

Get the latest news, sports and weather delivered straight to your inbox. Click here to sign up for email and text alerts.