Although Jim Broyhill served nearly a quarter-century in the U.S. House and barely six months as a U.S. Senator in 1986, he preferred to be called "Senator" right up to his death on Feb. 18 at the age of 95.
"I'm helping Sen. Broyhill on his autobiography," former Broyhill assistant Susan Cobb told Newsmax a week before her beloved former boss's death.
Cobb had only worked for him in the House when he was the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. But anyone who knew and loved Jim Broyhill knew to call him "Senator" — as much as his being in the Senate spelled his political downfall.
During the Reagan administration, Broyhill was one of the 40th president's top House lieutenants in pursuing his plans for deregulation of business. The North Carolinian helped sculpt legislation to deregulate the telecommunications, pharmaceutical, and trucking industries.
When the U.S. Department of Energy was created in 1978, Broyhill worked quietly to attach a sunset amendment whereby it would be dismantled by the end of 1982 unless Congress authorized its continuance.
In pursuing the conservative, free-market agenda, the Tarheel State lawmaker clashed on virtually every measure with the Democrat chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee — John Dingell of Michigan, considered a political "junkyard dog" and accomplished infighter.
In what would be an incongruous relationship in today's Congress, Broyhill and Dingell had a convivial relationship despite their differences and considered one another friends — as did their wives Louise Broyhill and Debbie Dingell.
Broyhill's good nature, easy drawl, and ready repertoire of jokes helped convince other Democrats to sit down and listen to him. The North Carolinian may be wrong on most things, House Democrats seemed to be saying, but he was one heckuva nice guy.
Like a number of senior Republicans in the 1980s, Broyhill had given up hope he would ever serve in a House with a Republican majority. In 1986, he declared for the seat of retiring Republican Sen. John East and emerged triumphant in the May primary by a landslide.
On June 29, North Carolina and the entire political world gasped following the news that East, who suffered from hypothyroidism, had committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. Republican Gov. Jim Martin appointed Broyhill to the vacant Senate seat, believing it would give him an advantage in the general election. It didn't.
The Senate stayed in session well into the fall of that year and with Broyhill refusing to miss a vote and committed to his duties in Washington, Democrat nominee and former Gov. Terry Sanford was gaining ground.
In a recent interview, Martin said he was unsure whether appointing Broyhill to the Senate ultimately aided his campaign.
"He wasn't able to spend as much time campaigning because he was intensely dependable on fulfilling his Senate duties," Martin said.
Sanford, ten years Broyhill's senior, also proved to be far nimbler in their televised debate than Republicans imagined.
When Broyhill questioned Sanford's support of leftist Democrat presidential tickets in the past, Sanford remonstrated that "I've heard enough about [1984 Democrat vice presidential nominee Geraldine] Ferraro and ['84 presidential nominee Walter] Mondale, that if they'll quit talking about that, I'll quit talking about the Watergate gang."
In a major upset, Sanford edged Broyhill by 51.5% to 48.5%.
Broyhill would go on to serve as Gov. Martin's secretary of commerce in the late 1980s before finally retiring and devoting himself to his three children and a family that would grow to six grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.
A graduate of the University of North Carolina with a degree in business administration, Broyhill seemed destined to spend his life in the eponymous furniture company founded by his father J.E. Broyhill in Lenoir, North Carolina. But the elder Broyhill was also Republican National Committeeman back when the Republican Party in his state was in the proverbial telephone booth. Young Broyhill, noticing there were no candidates for several offices when he filled out his first primary ballot in 1948, vowed to change this.
He got his chance in 1962 when the Democratic-dominated state legislature tried to make the district of the state's lone GOP House Member Charles Raper Jonas less Republican by moving several counties into the neighboring district of Democrat Rep. Hugh Quincy Alexander.
With Alexander's district now vulnerable to a Republican attack, Broyhill took out the ten-year incumbent by half-a-percentage point. He never drew to win reelection with less than 54%.
Broyhill never got to serve in a House with a Republican majority and was not in the Senate very long. But the impact he made on changing politics at the state level and pursuing deregulation at the national level was inarguably consequential. It didn't matter by what title he was addressed — he was a leader.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.