St. Louis CofCC Blog

Congressman Bob Young worked closely with, and participated in many functions with, the St. Louis Metro Area Council of Conservative Citizens.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Robert A. Young III, a bricks-and-mortar congressman from St. Louis County and namesake of a federal office building downtown, died Wednesday of liver disease at The Hallmark of Creve Coeur nursing home. He was 83 and lived in Maryland Heights.

Mr. Young, a Democrat, represented the 2nd Congressional District from 1977 to 1987. He worked to help bring home federal money for Lambert Field, Interstate 170, the Mel Price Locks and Dam, the Thomas F. Eagleton Federal Courthouse and $64 million to renovate the former Mart Building, 1222 Spruce Street, which Congress renamed in his honor after he lost his bid for re-election in 1986.

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Mr. Young grew up in Normandy, the oldest in a family of nine children. He graduated from Normandy High School and joined the Army in 1943. He took part in the landing at Utah Beach on D-Day and was in Gen. George Patton’s 3rd Army in the Battle of the Bulge; he was awarded the Bronze Star.

Returning home, he joined Pipefitters Local 562, the union of his father and future father-in-law. Then and now, Local 562 was influential in local Democratic politics. He married the former Irene Slawson in 1947 and moved to St. Ann about 1950.

He was elected Democratic committeeman of Airport Township in 1952 and, four years later, was elected state representative for the St. Ann area. In 1962, he was elected to the Missouri Senate.

In Jefferson City, his close allies included two fellow fitters who also had married sisters of his wife — former representatives Patrick Hickey and the late Patrick O’Connor. The three men were known in the Capitol as the fitter triumvirate.

As a state lawmaker, he was instrumental in laying the groundwork for the St. Louis Community College system and the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Mr. Young served in the state Senate until 1976, when he was elected congressman by his North County base. He was a blue-collar Democrat of the old school — 100 percent pro-labor, a strong opponent of abortion and generally conservative on other social issues. Never much of a floor debater, he worked his key positions on House committees to become a point man for regional products, including the building named after him, which is in the 1st Congressional District.

He co-founded the Congressional Blue Collar Caucus and, in 1981, was honored as “Construction Industry Man of the Year” by Pride of St. Louis, an organization of contractors and trade unions.

Bob Young was the most conservative member of the Congressional delegation from St. Louis for the balance of his time in the House.  And how did the Democrats in Missouri reward him, after all the work he did for them?  They redistricted the 2nd district into Republican hands in order to protect Bill Clay’s 1st district.  It was a testament to Bob Young’s conservatism that he was able to hang on to win re-election in an overwhelmingly Republican district in 1982 and 1984.  That district went through the decidedly less conservative Republicans Jack Buechner and Jim Talent,  and the liberal Democrat Joan Kelly Horn for one term in between those two, before they finally got Todd Akin.

As you can see in this article, Buechner made an issue of Young’s “pork barrels” in 1986, but four years later, when Joan Kelly Horn beat him and held the seat for one term, Buechner’s TV ads mostly touted his ability to pork barrel for his district.