
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 31, 1994                   TAG: 9403310070
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

REP. W. NATCHER, DIES; NEVER MISSED VOTE FOR 40 YEARS

Rep. William Huston Natcher, a Kentucky Democrat whose political longevity and spotless reputation won him the most powerful committee post in the House, died of heart failure late Tuesday. He was 84.

Outside of Congress, Natcher was best known for his streak of 18,401 uninterrupted roll-call votes in the House, a feat that ended on March 3 when failing health forced him to miss a vote, on a minor procedural matter, for the first time since he took office in 1954.

But on Capitol Hill, Natcher was an icon, a lawmaker who educated himself on the issues rather than rely on his staff, who took no campaign contributions, who was visibly offended by hints of corruption, who honored legislative procedures and courtesies to their last jot.

He once said that he wanted his epitaph to read, "He tried to do it right."

Those qualities, and his seniority, landed Natcher the chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee in 1992, but only after Jamie Whitten of Mississippi surrendered the job.

The chairman, who effectively controls House action on much of the federal budget, is one of most powerful figures in Congress. House Democratic leaders had beseeched Natcher to take the job from Whitten months earlier, after Whitten suffered a stroke, but Natcher refused to overthrow his colleague.

That sense of fairness also led House colleagues to make him chairman of the body's internal gymnasium committee, where they could be assured that he would allot court time and other amenities without regard to politics or personal favors.

Natcher was said to take more pride in his voting record, his daily entries into a diary and the weekly essays on history that he sent to his seven grandchildren than in his eminence in the House.

In his district in central and western Kentucky, he generally campaigned by placing a few newspaper advertisements and driving from town to town in his own car.

Natcher's record of continuous votes, believed to be the longest in congressional history, became a burden to him in later life. He regularly urged newly elected members to miss a vote early in their careers to avoid his fate.

by CNB