Former Bay Area Congressman "Pete" McCloskey, who co-founded Earth Day, dead at 96
Former Bay Area Congressman Paul "Pete" McCloskey died Wednesday of congestive heart failure at his home in Winters, California.
His death was announced in a statement emailed to CBS News Bay Area by family spokesman Lee Houskeeper.
McCloskey died peacefully, in the home where he lived with his wife Helen and six rescue dogs, the statement said. He was 96 years old.
As a U.S. Congressman, he represented San Mateo County from 1967-1983.
McCloskey will be remembered as a maverick in politics: a liberal Republican and fiscal conservative, who in 1970, co-founded Earth Day and helped to write the Endangered Species Act of 1973. McCloskey was in favor of abortion rights and supported stem cell research.
Born in Loma Linda, McCloskey earned a law degree at Stanford in 1953. He was a deputy D.A. in Alameda County.
He served in the military from 1945 to 1974, in the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves. When he retired from the Marine Corps Reserves, McCloskey had achieved the rank of colonel.
He was awarded several military honors, including the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism, the Silver Star for bravery in combat, and two Purple Hearts as a Marine during the Korean War.
McCloskey was the first member of Congress to call for then-President Richard Nixon's impeachment and the first to come out against the Vietnam War.
Years after leaving Washington, McCloskey made one last bid for elective office in 2006 when he challenged Richard Pombo of Northern California's 11th District in a primary race that McCloskey described as "a battle for the soul of the Republican Party." After losing to Pombo, who had spent most of his tenure in Washington attempting to undo the Endangered Species Act, he threw his support behind Democrat Jerry McNerney, the eventual winner.
"It was foolish to run against him (Pombo), but we didn't have anybody else to do it, and I could not stand what a------ they'd become," the frank-talking former Marine colonel said of the modern GOP in a 2008 interview with The Associated Press.
McCloskey cited disillusionment from influence peddling and ethics scandals under the George W. Bush administration as reasons why he switched to the Democratic Party in 2007 at age 79.
"A pox on them and their values," he wrote in an open letter explaining the switch to his supporters.
"McCloskey was a rarity in American politics - his actions were guided by his sense of justice, not by political ideology," Joe Cotchett, his law partner since 2004, said in a statement. "He hated inequity and did not hesitate to take on members of his own political party."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.