SCHEUER, JAMES H.

SCHEUER, JAMES H. (1920–2005), a 13-term liberal U.S. congressman from New York, part of the post-World War II generation of political reformers. The son of a prosperous New York investor, he was born in Manhattan and received his bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College in 1942, a master's degree from Harvard Business School in 1943, and a law degree from Columbia Law School in 1948. He contracted polio on his honeymoon and spent a year recuperating in Warm Springs, Georgia, where Franklin Delano Roosevelt had also undergone rehabilitation from adult polio. For the rest of his life, Scheuer walked with a cane. A multimillionaire real estate developer and lawyer, Scheuer was president of the Renewal and Development Corporation of New York City before seeking elected office. He sponsored urban renewal projects and middle-income housing developments in cities including Washington, Cleveland, St. Louis, Sacramento, and San Francisco. Scheuer made political waves in the 1964 election when he and another reform Democrat, Jonathan B. Bingham, ousted incumbent congressmen who were part of the Bronx political machine, James C. Healey and Charles A. Buckley. It seemed as if, with each decade's census and New York's diminished population, Scheuer was forced to run in another district and to serve another constituency. He lost re-election in 1972 after serving four terms in the 21st Congressional District, in the Bronx, when redistricting forced him to run against another incumbent congressman. He moved to the 11th district in Queens, where he won the 1974 election and three more, and then, in 1982, finally the redistricted 8th District, which covered part of Queens and Nassau County, where he served his final five terms. He announced his retirement after the 1990 census forced another redistricting. In each district,   his agenda remained the same. He fought for the Environmental Protection Agency against Reagan administration attempts to dismantle it, and he fought the auto industry, which opposed his efforts to mandate safety belts and air bags. He was successful in both. Twice defeated for Congress, he kept coming back again and again. An urban and urbane man, he served as president of the National Alliance for Safer Cities (1972–73) and president of the National Housing Conference (1972–74). An unapologetic, some would say an unrepentant, liberal, Scheuer believed in an activist role for government. His legislative agenda included Head Start for early education, environmental protection, and automotive safety. He believed keenly in the right to privacy, which in American terms put him on the side of contraception and abortion, issues he believed were and should remain personal. In its obituary for Scheuer, the New York Times recalled that "He once had a hundred posters printed up that said, 'Someday the decision to have children will be between you, your spouse and your congressman.' The photograph showed a couple sitting in their bed with Mr. Scheuer, dressed in a suit, sandwiched between them." After retirement from Congress he was appointed by President Clinton as United States director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, founded to make loans to Eastern European and Asian countries and thus counter Communist influence. Together with his siblings and a family foundation established by his parents, he was deeply involved in support of Jewish philanthropies and development in Israel. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: New York Times (August 30, 2005); L.S. Maisels and I. Forman (eds.), The Jew in American Politics (2001). (Michael Berenbaum (2nd ed.)