Joe Knollenberg obit

Ex-U.S. Rep. Knollenberg dead at 84

 He was not on the list.

Former Michigan U.S. Rep. Joe Knollenberg, a Republican who served on the powerful Appropriations Committee, died Tuesday due to complications from Alzheimer’s disease, his son confirmed.

Knollenberg, 84, had been living in a memory care facility as he battled the neurodegenerative disease, according to state Sen. Marty Knollenberg, who added that his father had been steadily losing weight and lost 20 pounds in the last 10 days.

From 1993 to 2009, he was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Michigan's 9th congressional district and Michigan's 11th congressional district.

In his congressional term, Knollenberg was known as a staunch supporter of the North American Free Trade Agreement, President George W. Bush's stance on protecting manufactured goods and for voting against expanding SCHIP in the later years of his career.

He was defeated by Gary Peters in the 2008 election by a margin of 52% to 43%.

Knollenberg was born in Mattoon, Illinois, the son of Helen E. (née Kastl; 1903–1990), a teacher and William Herman Knollenberg Jr. (1902–1975), a farmer. He was raised a Catholic and grew up on a farm along with 12 siblings. He graduated from Eastern Illinois University in 1955, where he was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity.

After graduation, he served in the United States Army from 1955 to 1957 as a corporal in Germany, where he specialized in petroleum chemistry. He then spent more than three decades as an insurance agent. Initially working for New York Life Insurance Company as an assistant manager and later for Sears, he founded his own agency, Knollenberg Agency in the late 1980s. He served as chairman of the Oakland County Republican Party from 1978 to 1982.

In 1992, Knollenberg signed on as campaign manager for Congressman William Broomfield, who had represented most of Oakland County in Congress since 1957. However, at a meeting with Knollenberg and other advisers, Broomfield announced he would not run for a 19th term. He then asked Knollenberg to run in his place in the 11th District, which had been renumbered from the 18th District after the 1990 census.

Despite being the only candidate in the three-way Republican primary not holding elected office, Knollenberg won the nomination by over 13 points. As the 11th was one of the most Republican districts in Michigan and the nation at the time, he was virtually assured of becoming only the third person to represent the district. He was reelected six times without serious difficulty, never dropping below 55 percent of the vote.

Knollenberg was re-elected to his seventh term in 2004 with 58% of the vote. In 2006, however, Knollenberg faced a tough campaign against Democrat Nancy Skinner, a liberal talk show host in the Detroit area, ultimately winning by six points. Two years later, in a more difficult election cycle for Republican candidates, Knollenberg lost re-election to former state senator Gary Peters.

Generally, Knollenberg's voting record was conservative. He supported the North American Free Trade Agreement and led the campaign against President George W. Bush's steel tariffs. In 2002 he was awarded the Mkhitar Gosh Medal by the president of Armenia. On September 29, 2008, he voted against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.