Joe Skeen

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Joe Skeen
JoeSkeen.jpg
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from New Mexico's 2nd district
In office
January 3, 1981 – January 3, 2003
Preceded by Harold L. Runnels
Succeeded by Steve Pearce
Personal details
Born (1927-06-30)June 30, 1927
Roswell, New Mexico
Died Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.
Roswell, New Mexico
Political party Republican

Joseph Richard "Joe" Skeen (June 30, 1927 – December 7, 2003) was a conservative Republican congressman from southern New Mexico. He served for eleven terms in the United States House of Representatives between 1981 and 2003.

Skeen was born in Roswell, New Mexico. During his teenage years, his family moved to Seattle. During the final year of World War II, Skeen entered the United States Navy. After returning home, he graduated from Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.

After several years of owning a ranch, Skeen was elected to the New Mexico State Senate as a Republican in 1960. He unsuccessfully ran for lieutenant governor in 1970 on an ticket headed by future Senator Pete Domenici.

Thereafter, Skeen lost two very close races for governor – in 1974 against Democrat Jerry Apodaca and in 1978 against Democrat Bruce King. In the former race, Apodaca led 164,172 (50 percent) to Skeen's 160,430 (49 percent).

1980 Congressional election

On August 5, 1980 then-current five-term Democratic Congressman Harold Runnels died. A popular congressman, the GOP hadn't planned on running a candidate for the seat 1980 election. Upon Runnels' death, the state attorney general, Democrat Jeff Bingaman, announced that the Democrats could replace Runnels on the ballot but that it was too late for the Republicans to do so. Republicans were outraged and rallied behind a write-in effort by Skeen, while the Democrats selected Governor Bruce King's nephew, David King, over Runnels' widow, Dorothy Runnels. David King had only moved his voter registration into the district some ten days after Runnels died.[1] In addition to the Skeen write-in candidacy, Mrs. Runnels was so angry at how the Democrats treated her in the primary that she elected to run her own write-in campaign.

Skeen was elected with 61,564 votes (38 percent) to King's 55,085 (34 percent), and Mrs. Runnels' 45,343 (28 percent). He was helped by the split among the Democrats, as well as Ronald W. Reagan carrying the district. Skeen was only the third person in U.S. history to be elected to Congress as a write-in candidate.

Congressional Record

As a congressman, Skeen had a largely conservative voting record, including voting to support the 2002 invasion of Iraq [2].

In 1997, Skeen announced he had Parkinson's disease. Skeen announced his retirement from Congress in 2002 and died in 2003[3] .

References

External links

United States House of Representatives
Preceded by Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from New Mexico's 2nd congressional district

January 3, 1981 – January 3, 2003
Succeeded by
Steve Pearce