Rep. Bruce Vento Dead At 60

U.S. Rep. Bruce Vento, a 12-term Democrat who championed environmental and homeless causes, died Tuesday morning at his home in St. Paul, Minn. He was 60.

Vento, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in February, died at 11:20 a.m. CDT surrounded by his family, spokesman Rick Jauert said. He had malignant mesothelioma, a rare type of cancer that is caused by inhaling asbestos fibers.

“I have been a member of Congress for the past 24 years dedicated to making the federal government work for the people, to do for our community and state and, yes, even internationally that which we cannot do for ourselves,” Vento said when he announced last February that he would not seek re-election. “The federal government can and should make a difference.”

As a young man, he worked as a state-paid laborer in several St. Paul-area facilities Hamm's Brewery, Waldorf Paper, Minnesota Plastics, St. Paul Dispatch and Pioneer Press, Whirlpool and the Minnesota State Capitol that lawyers claim exposed him to asbestos fibers.

They are suing 11 companies which allegedly supplied or installed asbestos products at those job sites on behalf of Vento and his wife, Susan Lynch Vento, whom he married in August.

Vento's treatment included the removal of one lung, chemotherapy and radiation. In August, doctors found no lingering cancer cells, but they discovered more cancer in September.

As a congressman, Vento made his most significant contributions on environmental issues, which he called his “true passion.”

When Democrats controlled the House, Vento was chairman of the House Natural Resources subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Lands for 10 years, increasing funding for national parks and other environmental priorities.

“I think Bruce Vento has been one of the most impressive and effective congressmen in modern Minnesota history,” former Vice President Walter Mondale said before Vento's death. “It's hard to think of an environmental issue where his leadership has not been found.”

Steven Schier, a political science professor at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., said Vento's career proved how specializing in certain legislative areas can work.

“He focused on interior issues and national parks, and that made a large difference in funding for national parks, in increasing their size and in increasing their numbers, both in Minnesota and nationally,” Schier said.

Vento also worked on efforts to ban oil drilling on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on preserving tropical rain forests.

In 1978, Vento was a leader in the hugely controversial expansion of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota, which barred most motorboats, snowmobiles and trucks. Twenty years later, he reached a compromise with Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., that allowed trucks t haul boats on two portages, in exchange for a ban on motorboats on some lakes.

Earlier this year, Oberstar proposed renaming Eagle Mountain, Minnesota's highest point, Mount Vento.

In 1994, the Wilderness Society recognized Vento's work with the Ansel Adams Conservation Award.

“He's been a hero,” said Debbie Sease, legislative director for the Sierra Club. “He's done more for parks than anyone I know. It's going to be a huge loss to Congress and the environment that he's not going to be there.”

President Clinton paid tribute to Vento at a dinner last June for both his environmental record and work on behalf of the homeless.

“He has steered into law more than 300 bills to protect our natural resources,” Clinton said. “The thing I like even more about Bruce Vento is he cares about people, especially people without a voice the homeless.”

Vento helped to establish the emergency shelter grants program and preserve the Federal Housing Authority.

D.J. Leary, co-editor of the newsletter Politics in Minnesota, said Vento was somehow able to persuade his urban constituents to embrace the “distant” issues of wilderness areas and national parks.

Vento worked as a science and social studies teacher before winning a seat to the state House in 1970. He was first elected to Congress in 1976.

For the last decade, Vento had pushed a bill to make it easier for Hmong veterans of the Vietnam War to become U.S. citizens, by waiving the English-language requirement for them. After he was diagnosed with cancer, Vento said that he would make passage of the bill one of his top priorities, and he got his wish when the president signed it into law earlier this year.

“This bill would have never been conceived or passed if it had not been for Bruce Vento,” said Philip Smith, Washington director of Lao Veterans of America, which lobbied on behalf of the legislation.

“He reached across the aisle and worked and persevered to make this happen,” Smith said. “He is our hero. He is a champion of the Hmong people.”

Vento was born Oct. 7, 1940, in St. Paul and attended Johnson High School, the University of Minnesota and Wisconsin State University.

He is survived by his wife and three sons, Michael, Peter and John.