Republican Congressman Dick Schulze, who provided nonpartisan representation for the Fifth District from 1975 to 1993, died Dec. 23 at age 96, writes Katie Bernard for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Mr. Schulze championed legislation during his first term in the U.S. House to make Valley Forge a national park. President Gerald Ford signed the legislation into law on July 4, 1976.
The Fifth District included Delaware, Chester, and Montgomery counties.
Though he was in the political minority in Congress, he became a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee before retiring in 1993.
“He knew what he believed, and he stood for what he believed, but he was not, he was not partisan,” his wife Nancy Schulze said in an interview with The Inquirer Tuesday.
His former chief of staff, Rob Hartwell, remembered Congressman Schulze as a man willing to work across the aisle, a practice no longer common in today’s politics.
Mr. Schulze served on the National Fish and Wildlife Board, among other posts focused on wildlife.
Hartwell also recalled Mr. Schulze’s key role in securing the 1983 release of Romanian Orthodox priest Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa, who had been held as a political prisoner there.
Read more about the life of Dick Schulze in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
