Photo credit: Janet Donovan
Few in Congress have accomplished more than David Bonior on behalf of average Americans. Whip is the story of how he did it. He was honored at a book launch hosted by Entrustpermal, Jill Daschle, Bruce Kieloch, Shanti Stanton, Kimball Stroud, Erica Payne and Brian Wolff in downtown Washington, DC for his latest tomb with the subtitle of Leading the Progressive Battle During the Rise of the Right.
“David Bonior was my mentor when I came to Congress.”
— Senator Bernie Sanders
Nothing captures the essence of Bonior’s personal and political life better than our interview with him for his previous book Eastside Kid. The below was originally posted in March of 2015:
“The Democratic whip for eleven of his twenty-six years in Congress, David Bonior never hesitated to take on the powerful on behalf of the powerless. How did this boy from Detroit grow up to become one of the most effective progressive legislators Congress has ever seen?” Congressman John Lewis.
“I grew up quicker than I think most kids maybe do in this country. Certainly this is not an unusual story around the world that regretfully a lot of kids lose a parent or two early on. It made me focus and it made me serious and made me realize that life is short and try to get the best out of the time you have and do as much good as you can,” David Bonior told Hollywood on the Potomac at a book signing in his honor hosted by Jill Daschle and Kimball Stroud. His mother died from heart problems at 37. “But I had a good childhood, although it was challenging.”
“My father and grandfather were very tough strict disciplinarians,” he added. “So in terms of the home, there wasn’t a lot of conversation. I found a retreat from that in religion and I also found it in sports. I was blessed with a lot of athletic ability and so I ended up getting a football scholarship to the University of Iowa and played football there, a little basketball. Religion sustained me as a young person. I don’t know, I just became fascinated with the idea of Christ and his being a really very cool person…….this fellow you could have a relationship with. He’s from a family of a carpenter. My family we’re printers and auto workers, I can relate to all of that so I really related to it and I got into Pope John XXIII. He was a very progressive pope, similar to what Francis is today. I got excited about that.”
“We grew up in a Polish-American community called Hamtramck in the city of Detroit where everybody knew everybody and Polish was spoken on the street,” he reminisced proudly. “I played sports in the alley and I had a lot friends. It was a working class, blue collar environment and that’s what I took with me when I went to the congress and the legislature was these blue collar values.”
Jill Daschle, Larry Cohen and author David Bonior
His father can claim credit for his interest in politics. He was a printer. His grandfather who lived with him was an auto worker: “When my dad decided to run for public office, I got involved in his campaigns – so I put up signs, I made signs, I knocked on doors, I helped him in his print shop at night where we’d print literature out. Then I watched how all this happens and listened in on the meetings. I was sort of like the fly on the wall where I could listen to all the discussions. I got interested in it early on, maybe at age 10, 11. I went up to the legislature in Lansing once, a teacher took me there and I saw them all speaking from the gallery and I thought, I got it in my head that maybe this might be something you might want to do someday.”
Gene Haigh and Erica Payne
After four years in the Air Force, he needed a job and ended up running for the state legislature. “It was a redistricting year and I found a district and ran. I knocked on virtually every door in that district and I won – very narrowly, but I won – and then I kind of launched into a 30-year career that lead to Congress. But this is not a book about the congress, it’s a book about the values, experiences, the attitudes that I acquired growing up from my sports competitiveness, from my family, my father’s passion to get me to work and pay attention and focus that brought me a lot value.”
Daryl Judy and David Bonior
Bonior is half Ukrainian so we asked him to comment on the circumstances currently playing out in Ukraine with Russia. “It’s tragic. It’s kind of been the history of Ukraine. They’ve had this problem forever it seems as a nation trying to become a nation and I’m hopeful that with some strong diplomacy that the Russians will back off and let them have their chance at government.”
On the status of Congress today? “I don’t pretend to know the answer to it, but I do know that when I came in ’76 there was a lot of socialization. We were here 4 days a week. Most people brought their families. Today, most people don’t bring their families and they’re here 2 days a week, you can’t get anything done.”
Bonior (excuse typo) reads from Eastside Kid: A Memoir of My Youth From Detroit to Congress:
