CHARLESTON, WV (LOOTPRESS) — Jay Rockefeller, a two-term West Virginia governor who represented the state in the U.S. Senate for 30 years, died at his home Friday morning. He was 89. The cause of death was not disclosed.
Rockefeller, a Democrat, began his public service career in a West Virginia coal mining community and went on to help create the Children’s Health Insurance Program, protect health benefits for retired coal miners and lead the Senate Intelligence Committee.
John Davison Rockefeller IV was born June 18, 1937, in New York City. A great-grandson of Standard Oil founder John D. Rockefeller, he graduated from Harvard University in 1961 and came to West Virginia in 1964 as a Volunteers in Service to America worker. He spent two years in Emmons, a small mining community in Boone and Kanawha counties, where he helped extend school bus service, arrange rides to dental clinics and build a community center.
Rockefeller won election to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1966 and to the secretary of state’s office in 1968. He lost his first race for governor to Republican Arch Moore in 1972 and then served as president of West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon. He won the governor’s office in 1976 and defeated Moore in a rematch four years later. He served as governor from 1977 to 1985.
West Virginia voters elected Rockefeller to the Senate in 1984 and reelected him four times. He helped pass a 1992 law that preserved health coverage for retired coal miners and their families. He also helped build bipartisan support for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1997 to expand coverage for uninsured children.
Rockefeller also worked to bring Toyota’s manufacturing plant to Buffalo in Putnam County and helped develop E-Rate, a federal program that made telecommunications and internet service more affordable for schools and libraries.
In the Senate, Rockefeller chaired the Veterans’ Affairs Committee and led the Senate Intelligence Committee from 2007 to 2009. His work on the intelligence panel included scrutiny of prewar intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and oversight of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. He went on to chair the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and retired from the Senate in January 2015.
