On October 18, Congressman Bill Young, of Florida’s 13th district, died. He was the longest-serving Republican member of Congress. He had first been elected to Congress in 1970. See this story. On October 16, 2013, he had been the only Republican member of the U.S. House who did not cast a vote on HR 2775, the bill that re-opened the federal government. He was hospitalized at the time.
Now there will be a special election. The 13th district includes most of Pinellas County, the county that contains St. Petersburg.
In his 42 years of being elected to Congress, no independent or minor party candidate ever ran against him, except in 2000, when the Natural Law Party ran Josette Green and an independent, Randy Heime, ran. The vote was: Young 146,799; Green 26,908; Heine 20,296. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
I helped a Democratic challenger run against him back in the 90s. Got clobbered. Because he served so long, he was on all the committees that mattered. He could bring home the bacon, which his constituents loved. Even the liberal-leaning St. Pete Times endorsed him! Thus, he often ran unopposed.
So much for Republican “term limits”.