It was poignant that upon learning of the death Wednesday of former Rep. Vic Fazio of California, a past chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Newsmax first heard from former Rep. John Linder of Georgia, onetime chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.
"After 1994, when [Republicans] took over the majority, there was a lot of Democrat anger," Linder recalled. "Vic was one of the leaders who accepted our victory and with whom we could deal. If he was angry, he didn't show it. He remained what he always was — kind."
That was how Republicans in general viewed Fazio, who was 79 when he died. He had melanoma.
With a lifetime rating of 6.1% from the American Conservative Union, the Sacramento lawmaker was a committed liberal whose passions included investing federal dollars in solar and renewable energy, wind energy research, and protecting the California wetlands.
To no one's surprise, the young Fazio was a protégé of California's feared Democratic Rep. Phil Burton. In 1974, Fazio won the No. 3 position in the House Democratic hierarchy as chairman of the House Democratic Caucus that was once held by Burton.
But like Burton, Fazio knew how to reach across the aisle and build relationships with his philosophical opposite numbers.
Fazio, for example, worked closely with Southern California Rep. Jerry Lewis, a conservative Republican, to secure federal funds for the Golden State from their perches on the House Appropriations Committee.
"Vic was a valuable member of the Appropriations Committee," former Rep. Bob Livingston, R.-La., who chaired the powerful panel from 1994 to 1998, told Newsmax. "He was never overly partisan, and he was well liked on both sides of the aisle. We worked together for many years. I always considered him to be a friend and a trusted and able colleague."
Livingston, Linder and many others said roughly the same thing about the good-natured,. silver-haired Northern Californian who so loved the institution of the House of Representatives that he always approached his political opposite numbers with kindness and compromise.
Born and raised in Massachusetts, Victory Herbert Fazio Jr. graduated from Union College in New York and then went to California as a graduate student at California State University in Sacramento.
He never left. Working part time for the state Legislature and serving on Sacramento County's Charter and Planning Commissions, Fazio won a special election for the State Assembly in 1975.
Three years later, area Democrats were jolted by the news that eight-term Rep. Robert Leggett had a mistress and separate families in Washington, D.C., and Sacramento.
"I was going to run against Bob Leggett, but three weeks before the [primary] he dropped out," recalled Rex Hime, State Assembly staffer and an officer of the state Republican Party who was considered an attractive prospect for office at the time. "And Vic Fazio jumped in, and he won."
As the only Democrat with an organization ready to pursue the House seat, Fazio won the primary without difficulty and defeated Hime in the fall with 55%.
Fazio had little trouble keeping his seat until the 1991 redistricting, which increased the ranks of Republicans in the 4th District. A year later, he was held to 51% by conservative firebrand and former state Sen. H.L. Richardson.
In 1994, as Republicans were taking control of Congress for the first time in 40 years, Fazio staved off a challenge from GOP attorney Tim LeFever by just over 8,000 votes. In 1996, he won a rematch with LeFever with a somewhat more impressive 54%.
But it was clear Fazio's district had changed — just as Congress had become a far less convivial place to legislate than when the Californian came there in 1978. In 1998, he decided to call it quits after 20 years.
Former Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, another past chairman of the NRCC, dubbed Fazio "a partisan who knew when to cut the deal and stop the fight. He had a deep respect for the institution of Congress. He was a congressman's congressman."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.