Donald W. Riegle, the Flint, Michigan, native who served nearly three decades in Congress, switched from Republican to Democrat in the middle of his career, and weathered one of the Senate's most high-profile ethics investigations, died Friday of cardiac arrest at his home in San Diego. He was 88. His wife of 48 years, Lori Hansen Riegle, was at his side, the Associated Press reported.
His family announced the death Sunday. Memorial services are pending.
Riegle's long career in Washington spanned seven presidencies, a stretch that took him from the House to the Senate, from one party to the other, and through a savings-and-loan scandal that stained reputations on both sides of the aisle. His story is a case study in the kind of political shape-shifting that voters have learned to watch carefully.
Riegle won his first election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1966, running as a Republican at just 28 years old. For a time he was a rising figure in the GOP. But he broke with the party over the Vietnam War, challenging President Richard Nixon's policies on the conflict.
By 1973, Riegle had crossed the aisle entirely, joining the Democratic Party. Three years later, he won a seat in the U.S. Senate, where he would remain until 1994.
The party switch was not unusual for the era, both parties saw defections during the political upheaval of the late 1960s and early 1970s. But Riegle's move carried consequences. He left behind a Republican base in Michigan and built a new coalition among Democrats, labor unions, and the working-class voters of a state already feeling the early tremors of industrial decline.
In the Senate, Riegle rose to chair the Banking Committee, a perch that gave him direct influence over financial regulation at a volatile time for the industry. He pushed for reforms of the savings and loan sector as that crisis unfolded across the country.
The most damaging chapter of Riegle's career came in 1990, when the Senate Ethics Committee held hearings into whether he and four other senators had pressured federal regulators to go easy on savings and loan figure Charles Keating after receiving campaign contributions from him. The so-called Keating Five affair became a national symbol of Washington's cozy relationship with the financial industry.
The committee ultimately found that Riegle did not break any federal laws or Senate rules. But it delivered a pointed rebuke: his conduct, the panel concluded, "gave the appearance of being improper."
That finding, not a conviction, not a formal censure, but a stain all the same, hung over Riegle's final years in the Senate. He chose not to seek reelection in 1994, stepping away from a chamber where senators have long navigated the tension between constituent service and the fundraising machine.
The Keating Five episode remains instructive. It showed how campaign money can warp the appearance of public service, even when no law is technically broken. That lesson has only grown more relevant in the decades since.
Riegle's family statement, released Sunday, emphasized his commitment to working people. Breitbart reported that his family said he was proud of fighting for working people, opposing NAFTA, supporting economic development and health insurance expansion in Michigan, and later helping secure treatment for Gulf War syndrome veterans.
His opposition to NAFTA put him at odds with many in his own party during the Clinton era. Michigan's auto workers and manufacturing employees had already endured years of plant closures and job losses. Riegle argued the trade deal would accelerate the damage, a position that, whatever one thinks of its merits, anticipated the populist trade skepticism that would reshape both parties in the years ahead.
He also worked to get treatment for military veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome after the 1991 Persian Gulf conflict. That effort won him praise from veterans' groups and became one of the more durable parts of his legacy. The fight for veterans' health care is one area where personal loss and public policy intersect in ways that transcend partisan lines.
Riegle did not disappear from Washington after leaving office. In 2001, he became chairman of government relations for APCO Worldwide, a major public relations firm. The revolving door between Congress and K Street is well-worn, and Riegle walked through it like many before and after him.
In his later years, he split time between homes in Michigan and California, spending retirement with his grandchildren and family. His wife Lori was with him at their San Diego home when he died Friday.
The family's statement captured the tone they wanted to set. As Newsmax reported, the family said:
"The cornerstone of our family, Don was a kind, loving, courageous leader who taught us to stand up for justice, economic opportunity, and fairness for everyone."
Riegle's nearly three decades in Congress tracked some of the most turbulent stretches in modern American politics: Vietnam, Watergate, the savings and loan crisis, the Gulf War, NAFTA, and the early stirrings of the culture wars that still define Washington today. He served under seven presidents, from Lyndon Johnson through Bill Clinton.
His party switch, from Republican to Democrat at the height of the Vietnam debate, reflected a moment when ideological lines were still being drawn. Today, with both parties more rigidly sorted, such a move would carry even steeper political costs. The dynamics of Democratic Party succession and identity have only grown more complex since Riegle's era.
His involvement in the Keating Five scandal, meanwhile, foreshadowed the bipartisan ethics failures that have eroded public trust in Congress for decades. The committee's finding, no law broken, but conduct that looked improper, set a template that Washington has used again and again to acknowledge wrongdoing without imposing real consequences.
Riegle's advocacy for Michigan workers and Gulf War veterans showed a different side: a senator willing to buck his own party on trade and fight for constituents who had no lobbyists. Whether that record outweighs the Keating cloud depends on where you stand. But both chapters belong to the full picture.
In an era when senators routinely make headlines for breaking with their own party, Riegle was doing it before it was fashionable, and paying the price for it long before the modern media cycle could amplify every dissent.
Donald Riegle's life spanned the arc from postwar optimism to modern disillusionment with Washington. The ethics finding that shadowed his career stands as a reminder: in Congress, the appearance of impropriety can be just as lasting as the real thing.
