Departing from his original plan to become a
Catholic priest, Tony Coelho instead dedicated
himself to a political career, first as a staffer and
then as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
During his six terms in office, Coelho led a push to revive
the Democratic Party’s fundraising abilities and became
the first Hispanic American to attain a top-tier leadership
position as Majority Whip. Coelho was unabashedly
partisan, even by the standards of an already partisan age.
“You know, politics reminds me of driving a car,” he once
remarked. “You put it in D and you go forward. You put it
in R and you go backward.”1
Anthony Lee (Tony) Coelho was born June 15, 1942, in
Los Banos, California. His parents, Otto and Alice Branco
Coelho, were the children of Portuguese immigrants.2 As
a teenager, Tony Coelho had an accident on his parents’
dairy farm that caused him to black out sporadically for the
rest of his life. Coelho attended the public schools in Dos
Palos, California, before graduating from Loyola University
in Los Angeles in 1964. Intent on attending law school,
he changed his plans after President John F. Kennedy was
assassinated, believing that the priesthood encapsulated
Kennedy’s vision of public service. But his plans were
derailed when he learned on his 22nd birthday that his
blackouts were caused by epilepsy. At the time, epileptics
were barred from the priesthood.3
After suffering a bout of depression, Coelho worked
briefly for comedian Bob Hope, who encouraged him
to pursue a career in politics. A Jesuit acquaintance
introduced Coelho to Hope, for whom Coelho did
odd jobs. Coelho also lived for a while with the Hope
family. Hope enjoyed nighttime drives on Los Angeles-area
freeways and often took Coelho along for company.
Hope once suggested that Coelho should work for a
Congressman. “It’s obvious that you have this burn to help people,” Hope said. “If that’s your bag, why don’t you go
work for a member of Congress?” Coelho sent his résumé
and a letter of introduction to Congressman Bernie Sisk,
whose district encompassed Coelho’s hometown and much
of the San Joaquin Valley.4 Shortly thereafter, Coelho began
working as an intern in Representative Sisk’s office. In June
1967, Coelho married Phyllis Butler, a legislative aide to
Indiana Representative Andrew Jacobs, Jr. The couple raised
two daughters, Nicole and Kristen.5
Sisk was an influential Democratic member of the
California delegation with a decade of experience in the
House when Coelho joined his staff in 1965. He held a
post on the powerful Rules Committee and was a serious
contender for Majority Leader in 1971.6 An expert on
Western water politics, Sisk directed millions of federal
dollars to irrigation projects that helped establish central
California as an ideal location for agricultural business.
Moreover, as a native Texan who moved with his young
family to California during the Great Depression, Sisk
was popular with the Southern Members, who ruled
the House at the time. He was particularly close to the
Texas delegation—allowing Coelho, as a senior staffer, to
establish important relationships with the group, notably
with Representative Jim Wright from the Dallas-Ft. Worth
area. In an era when the California and Texas delegations
vied for influence in the House, Coelho was often on the
outs with an alliance of California Democrats headed
by one of the most skilled and powerful Members in the
House, Phil Burton of San Francisco.7
For 14 years, Coelho worked his way up the ladder
in Sisk’s office. By 1970 he was Sisk’s administrative
assistant, the equivalent of a present-day chief of staff. He
was also staff director of the Subcommittee on Cotton of
the House Agriculture Committee, a consultant for the
House Parking Committee, and a staff coordinator for the House Rules Committee’s Subcommittee on Broadcasting.
Coelho enjoyed a filial relationship with Sisk, who shared
with him many of the eccentricities of the House and its
Members. At one time Sisk chaired a three-man panel
that assigned Members parking spaces while Coelho
handled administrative duties. Coelho was astonished
when he found out that a senior Texas member who was
a close friend to his boss had routinely complained to the
Speaker because Sisk had a more desirable spot than he
did. Coelho considered the problem petty but informed
Sisk, who immediately yielded the spot, saying, “You don’t
understand. Parking spaces are important.” Coelho learned
that such gestures, deference, and small favors cemented
loyalty and turned the wheels of legislation.8
Sisk’s district encompassed one of the most fertile stretches
of farmland in the country, extending northward from the
outskirts of Fresno to include Merced, Turlock, and at its far
northern extreme, Modesto. More than 200 different crops
were cultivated there, including cotton, grapes, walnuts, and
peaches. The district’s population was mixed; about one-fifth
were Mexican Americans, and an equal number had roots in
the South. Like Sisk, many of the residents were from families
that had journeyed to the region during the Dust Bowl years.
A growing population of Hmong refugees from Laos was
centered in Merced. Over time, as the Central Valley leaned
Republican, Coelho’s district remained Democratic, though
it was more conservative than coastal California on many
social issues.
In 1978, by the time Sisk announced his decision to
retire at the end of the 95th Congress (1977–1979), he
had already chosen Coelho as his successor. Coelho had
left his Washington post shortly beforehand to manage
Sisk’s district office and had forged strong political ties
in the area.9 Vincent Lavery, his only opponent in the
Democratic primary, was a teacher from Fresno who had
been defeated twice while seeking the party’s nomination
in the district. Coelho handily dispatched him, with 79
percent of the vote. In the general election, Coelho faced
Chris Patterakis, a local celebrity and a former stunt pilot
for the Air Force Thunderbirds. Coelho’s epilepsy became
a campaign issue. Describing Coelho as “a very sick man,” Patterakis asked a crowd, “What would you think if
Coelho went to the White House to argue a critical issue
for you and he had a seizure?” Asked by the press for a
response, Coelho quipped, “A lot of people have gone to
the White House and had fits. At least I’d have an excuse.”
A Modesto native, Patterakis carried the district’s largest
city, but Coelho benefited from a two to one Democratic
registration advantage and from his ties to the popular
incumbent. Ultimately, Coelho prevailed in the bulk
of the district and won the election, 60 to 40 percent.10
According to the Los Angeles Times, Coelho’s victory made
him the first Portuguese American to serve in Congress.11
In his subsequent five re-election campaigns, Coelho faced
no serious challenges, winning between 64 and 72 percent
of the vote.12
Coelho earned assignments on the Agriculture
Committee and the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.13 The
first panel was vital for his constituency, and he took
over Sisk’s role as the caretaker of the district’s farming
interests. He held several important subcommittee seats,
including the Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Subcommittee,
which he chaired in the 99th Congress (1985–1987),
and the Cotton, Rice, and Sugar Subcommittee. Also in
the 99th Congress, Coelho earned a seat on the House
Administration Committee, allowing him to influence
election and campaign legislation. In his second term,
he traded his Veterans’ Affairs assignment for a seat on
the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee and gained a
critical spot on the panel’s Subcommittee on Water and
Power Resources, allowing him to monitor water and
irrigation issues that were vital to the agriculture industry
in the Central Valley. The industry was supported largely
by government-sponsored public works projects that
pumped water into the otherwise barren region.14
With the retirement of most of the other senior
Representatives in California’s Central Valley in the
late 1970s and early 1980s, Coelho emerged as the
defender of the region’s large agribusiness sector. Early
on, the battle lines were drawn around access to water,
pitting Coelho against Democrat George Miller, who
represented California’s 7th Congressional District, to the northwest. Nearly a million acre-feet of water flowed
through Miller’s district into the valley’s Westlands region.
In the 1970s, small farmers backed by Representative
Miller and supported by the James Earl (Jimmy) Carter
administration sought to enforce a 1902 law that had been
largely ignored, limiting the use of federally subsidized
water to farmers who worked land in parcels of 160 acres
or less. The large-scale agribusinesses in the San Joaquin
Valley deemed this requirement unworkable, and Coelho
sought to relax the requirements. Supported by a majority
of the committee, he orchestrated a compromise with
Representative Miller: Owners would pay higher fees but
would qualify for federal water regardless of the size of
their landholdings.15
Coelho’s primary focus was to strengthen congressional
Democrats’ campaign fundraising capabilities. As a
freshman Representative, he sold more tickets to the party’s
annual fundraising dinner than any other House Member.
He then built up a considerable war chest for his 1980
re-election effort, and when his Republican challenger
conceded the contest, Coelho used the money to fund
other Democrats’ campaigns. In 1981, at the start of his
second term, party leaders selected Coelho to be chairman
of the moribund Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee (DCCC), whose purpose was to raise funds
and provide strategy for House Democratic candidates.
Coelho was only the second junior Member ever tapped
to lead the DCCC (the first was Lyndon B. Johnson of
Texas).16 Coelho proved to be an excellent fundraiser; he
had the ability to work a crowd and speak to the issues.
Under his chairmanship, the DCCC was revived from
an organization that was nearly bankrupt—out funded
10 to 1 by Republicans—to a robust financing machine
that helped propel Democrats to victory in 1982 and
enabled them to retain their House majority throughout
the Reagan presidency.17 “We won the battle of the ‘80s,”
Coelho boasted. “They [Republicans] were determined
they were going to take the House on Reagan’s coattails.
We have, in effect, destroyed the Reagan impact.”18
In 1985 Coelho joined the Congressional Hispanic
Caucus (CHC) after having been denied admission for unspecified reasons.19 When reapplying for admission,
Coelho emphasized his Portuguese roots and insisted that
since Portugal is situated on the Iberian Peninsula (named
Hispania by the Romans) many Europeans consider it a
Hispanic country. “The dictionary definition of Hispanics
includes those from the Iberian Peninsula,” Coelho
maintained.20 Coelho’s admission to the caucus, the first
for a Portuguese American, provided the group with
several benefits: his prodigious fundraising; his influential
spot on the Agriculture Committee, which could be
helpful for immigration measures to protect migrant farm
workers; and his district’s constituency, which was roughly
one-fifth Hispanic.21
Many new Democratic Representatives looked to
Coelho for support in their campaigns, and those who
were elected to the House were indebted to him. In 1987
Coelho tapped into this growing network in an effort to
ascend the leadership ladder. He succeeded Thomas Foley
of Washington as Democratic Whip, handily winning a
vote in the caucus to defeat Charles Rangel of New York
and W. G. (Bill) Hefner of North Carolina. This was the
first time the No. 3 Democratic leader was elected, rather
than appointed.22 With his election, Coelho became the
first Hispanic American in House history to serve in a top
party leadership post. Coelho’s easy embrace of big-time
donations left some observers ill at ease.23 But Coelho
maintained that his work was on the level. “I solve people’s
problems because I like to solve people’s problems,” he told
the Los Angeles Times. “What people are used to in politics
are people who deal under the table. I do things out in the
open. I am an open book.”24
The most significant piece of legislation Coelho
sponsored was the Americans with Disabilities Act of
1990, which he introduced in the House on May 9, 1989.
“The Americans with Disabilities Act provides a clear,
comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of
discrimination against individuals with disabilities. This
mandate is urgently needed by our Nation’s 43 million
disabled citizens,” he stressed.25 His passion for this
legislation stemmed from his experiences as an epileptic
and from witnessing discriminatory behavior toward other epileptics. “My epilepsy is what makes me tick,” he said.26
“Discriminatory attitudes hold that you can’t employ
someone with epilepsy because they may have a seizure on
the job, when today the overwhelming majority of people
with epilepsy have their physical conditions under control
through medication.”27 The act passed the House in May
1990 and was signed into law on July 26 of that year.
Though Coelho excelled at fundraising as chairman
of the DCCC, some were uneasy about his financial
dealings. Newsweek published a story alleging that Coelho
had violated House Rules and federal law through his
interactions with a savings and loan bank in Texas. The
allegations focused on Coelho’s use of a yacht he had
borrowed from the bank, far exceeding the monetary limit
set by House Rules and the contribution limit for federal
political action committees. He was also criticized for failing
to report a $100,000 junk bond on his financial disclosure
forms. After the U.S. Department of Justice initiated an
investigation, Coelho determined in May 1989 to resign
from the House.28 “I don’t intend to put my party through
more turmoil,” he said. “And, more importantly, I don’t
intend to put my family through more turmoil.”29 On June
15, his 47th birthday, Coelho delivered his farewell address
to the House. “The generosity of my constituents, and the
good will of my colleagues, have enabled me to serve for 25
years: as a staffer, as a Member, as campaign chair, and as
majority whip … I thank my colleagues for their friendship,
hard work, and dedication to this great country.”30
After leaving the House, Coelho worked as the head of
the American mission to the 1998 Exposition in Lisbon,
Portugal. He then managed Vice President Al Gore’s 2000
presidential bid, resigning on June 15, 2000. Coelho
later served as chairman of the Board of Directors of the
Epilepsy Foundation.31
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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