Jim Kolbe, a Republican congressman who represented a heavily Democratic region of Arizona for more than two decades and was a proponent of gay rights, has died. He was 80.
Former Arizona Rep. Jim Kolbe sits for a photo in the living room of his house in Tucson, Ariz., on Jan. 15, 2007. Kolbe, a Republican congressman who represented a heavily Democratic region of Arizona for more than two decades and was a proponent of gay rights, died Saturday, Dec. 3, 2022. He was 80.
He announced reluctantly in 1996 that he was gay, after learning a national publication planned to out him for his vote against federal recognition of same-sex marriage.“Being gay was not — and is not today — my defining persona,” Kolbe said in 1997 during his first speech to a national gathering of gay and lesbian Republicans.
Some people might have questioned Kolbe at times on political decisions, Alfonso said, “but no one could question his integrity and his love for Arizona,” the paper reported.“He once said he was ‘born for the job,'" Ducey said in a statement. “He certainly was and Arizona is better for it.”“Pima County and southern Arizona could always count on Jim Kolbe,” Pima County Board of Supervisors Chair Sharon Bronson said in a statement.
After stints working in the Illinois governor's office and in real estate, he entered Arizona politics. Kolbe was elected in 1976 to the state Senate and served until 1982. He was sworn in to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1985, the first Republican since Arizona statehood to represent a majority-Democratic district in the southern part of the state.
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