Former Arkansas governor and U.S. Senator David Pryor, a Democrat who was one of the state’s most beloved political figures and remained active in public service in the state long after leaving office, has died. He was 89 years old.
Pryor, who went undercover to investigate nursing homes when he was a congressman, died Saturday of natural causes in Little Rock surrounded by family, his son Mark Pryor said. David Pryor was a heart attack and stroke survivor who was also hospitalized in 2020 after testing positive for COVID-19.
“I think he was a great model of public service. He was a great role model for politicians, but just for everyone, on how we should treat each other and how we can make Arkansas better,” said Mark Pryor, a former two-term Democratic U.S. senator.
David Pryor was considered one of the party’s giants in Arkansas, alongside former President Bill Clinton and the late U.S. Senator Dale Bumpers. He also served in the U.S. House and the Arkansas Legislature, and has remained active in public life in recent years, including being named to the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees in 2009. He also attended the inauguration of Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders in January 2023.
“David would be like a fish out of water if he were out of public service,” said Bumpers, who served 18 years with Pryor in the Senate, in 2006. “It’s his whole life.”
In a statement Saturday, Clinton called Pryor “one of Arkansas’ greatest servant leaders and one of the best people I have ever known,” saying he “fought for progressive policies that helped us leave our divided past behind and move toward a better future.” together.”
“David made politics personal – from his famous retail campaign to his ability to calmly and confidently explain difficult votes to his voters,” Clinton said. “He was honest, compassionate and full of common sense. He really loved the people he represented, and they loved him back.”
Another former Democratic governor of Arkansas, Mike Beebe, said Pryor, his “personal friend and confidant,” was “exactly the kind of honest, pragmatic person who is always needed in public office.”
“His personal style of down-home humor, quick wit and genuine warmth, combined with his deep knowledge, gave him the ability to pass progressive legislation that has been so beneficial to our state,” Beebe said in a statement. “His top Arkansas priorities come first, and his focus on the issues of an aging population and taxpayer reform have made him beloved by his colleagues and voters.”
Warm thoughts and condolences came from both sides of the political aisle on Saturday.
Sanders mourned Pryor’s death, saying his “charisma and moderate politics made him a force at the polls for decades.”
“Although the senator and I came from different political parties, I, like all Arkansans, deeply appreciated his diligent stewardship of Arkansas and our interests during his time in public life,” Sanders said in a post on X, formerly Twitter . “And we can all thank him for his role in burying the divisive racial politics that infected Arkansas government before his tenure.”
Sanders’ Republican predecessor as governor, Asa Hutchinson, called Pryor “the quintessential public servant.”
“He gave up other opportunities to serve Arkansas throughout his life and public debate was heightened because of his service,” Hutchinson wrote in the X.
Arkansas Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton called Pryor “a true gentleman and a statesman.”
“His example has served and will continue to serve as an inspiration to our fellow Arkansasians,” Cotton said.
Founder and editor of the weekly newspaper Ouachita Citizen, Pryor began his political career in 1960 with his election to the Arkansas House. He served there until 1966, when he was elected to Congress after winning a special election to the U.S. House.
During his time in the State House, Pryor gained a reputation as one of the “Young Turks” interested in reforming the state’s political system. Pryor said years later that the reforms he wanted did not happen as quickly as he had dreamed of in his youth.
“I think at that point I was a young reformer,” Pryor said in 2006. “I was going to change the world. I wanted it to change overnight, but it didn’t.”
He experienced his first – and only – political defeat in 1972, when he challenged U.S. Senator John McClellan’s bid for a sixth term in the Democratic primary. Pryor managed to force a runoff with McClellan, but lost by about 18,000 votes. It was a defeat that affected Pryor decades later.
“After McClellan’s run, I abandoned politics, or politics abandoned me,” he wrote in his 2008 autobiography, “A Pryor Commitment.” “I didn’t care who was governor or president. I avoided reading the newspaper for months on end. I just wanted to be alone and, like General MacArthur, disappear quietly.”
Elected governor in 1974, replacing Bumpers, Pryor served four years before being elected to the U.S. Senate, where Pryor won approval of a Taxpayer Bill of Rights in 1988. He drew legislation – which expanded citizens’ rights to dealing with the IRS – the “cornerstone” of his career in Congress.
“I did not sponsor this bill to help Donald Trump or Lee Iacocca,” Pryor, who chaired the Finance Subcommittee on Internal Revenue Oversight, said at the time. “This is a bill that protects the average taxpayer.”
He also focused on helping the elderly and went undercover while serving in the U.S. House from 1966 to 1973 to investigate nursing homes. He said they typically found up to 15 beds in one room.
“Even now, I clearly remember the loneliness, the abandonment, the despair, the anxiety, and the boredom – in particular the boredom – of those cold, barren homes,” he wrote. “Essentially human warehouses for the elderly.”
Pryor decided not to seek re-election in 1996 and retired from elected office at the end of his term in early 1997.
But he remained active in the public eye and in politics. He served for two years as the inaugural dean of the University of Arkansas’ Clinton School of Public Service, located near the former president’s library in downtown Little Rock. He also temporarily chaired the state Democratic Party in 2008 after its chairman was shot to death in his office.
On the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees, Pryor was an outspoken opponent of a $160 million plan to expand Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium in 2016 and criticized the “nuclear arms race” among college football programs.
Pryor and his wife, Barbara, had three children.
This story originally appeared on Politico.com read the full story
