YOUNG ON THE BRIDGE TO NOWHERE
The rough terrain of Alaska has meant multiple of its political notables perished in plane crashes. Longtime Senator Ted “Series Of Tubes” Stevens died in one, as did early 70s Representative Nick Begich weeks ahead of the 1972 elections. Begich’s challenger, Republican Don Young, embarrassingly lost to a dead guy, but was unfazed and won the seat he’d stay in for the rest of his life in a special election months later. Young himself met a plane-related end, albeit less violently having died of natural causes during or shortly after a flight.
Young’s near-half century in the House was noted for his ability to navigate federal funds towards his state, although not without hiccups – he and Stevens futilely advocated for an expensive bridge to a sparse rural area maligned as the “Bridge to Nowhere”. As one would expect of any congressional longtimer, Young was a source of corruption investigations and various gaffes over the years, but he was probably the only Representative to possess a walrus’s penis bone and once brandish it on the House floor like a sword. He was 88 and the last serving Representative first elected during the Nixon administration. Touch of Grey gains the points.
Don Young
9 June 1933 – 18 March 2022, aged 88
💀💀💀💀💀💀 + 👻 = 10 POINTS