In a narrowly divided Congress, an illness or a death could upend the balance of power and threaten an ambitious agenda.

By Ian Prasad Philbrick

On March 21, 1950, an Illinois congressman named Ralph Church suddenly slumped in his seat while testifying before a House committee. His colleagues rushed to administer aid, but he was pronounced dead of a heart attack at 66.

He was neither the first nor the last member of Congress to die in office. “You look back in history, nearly one in 10 members of Congress have,” said Jane L. Campbell, president of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society.

That history has some Democrats worried that deaths or illnesses could derail President Biden’s efforts to pass ambitious bills through Congress, which his party controls by the narrowest margins in decades.

“Our ability to make good on Biden’s agenda is pretty much dangling by a thread,” said Brian Fallon, a former aide to Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader. “I don’t think it’s uncouth to talk about it. I think it’s a reality that has to inform the urgency with which we approach those issues.”

As the accompanying chart shows, more than 1,160 sitting members and members-elect have died from accidents, disease and violence since the first Congress met in 1789, according to a New York Times analysis of House and Senate records. They include multiple House speakers, famed senators and two former presidents: John Quincy Adams and Andrew Johnson, who both returned to Congress after leaving the White House.

Deaths in the United States House and Senate

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