Jerry Lewis obit

Former Rep. Jerry Lewis, who served the High Desert and other communities for nearly 50 years, dies at 86

 

He was not on the list.

Jerry Lewis — the longtime Southern California Republican who served the High Desert and other locales for more than four decades in increasingly influential roles, and who chaired the House Appropriations Committee in the mid-2000s — has died. He was 86.

Lewis’ brother, John, told the Daily Press that Jerry Lewis died at his home in Redlands. The late politician’s housekeeper found him on the floor of his bedroom sometime after 10 a.m. Thursday, John Lewis said. The official cause of death is not yet known.

“She said he didn’t have any grimace on his face. He looked like he was just sleeping. So he didn’t die in pain or anything,” John Lewis said in a phone interview Thursday evening.

John Lewis, who lives in Apple Valley and is the youngest of six siblings, said he learned of Jerry Lewis’ passing from their older brother, Ray, 88, who called and said, “It’s just you and me now, kid.”

He described Jerry Lewis as “a good brother,” and “not the guy who’s going to express his feelings very directly.”

“But he called me one time — and he hardly ever called; I called him more often than he called me — and he said, ‘I just want to see how you’re doing, bud.’ We talked for a little bit, and he said, ‘I wanted to tell you I love you.’ And I said, ‘Well, I love you, too, Jerry.’ And, boy, that was really out of nowhere.”

That phone call came between four and six months ago.

“My wife and I, we both kind of suspected that he might have been concerned about his own health,” John Lewis said.

A longtime congressman, Jerry Lewis served 17 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives between 1979 and 2013 — representing San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

Before they were married, his wife, Arlene, was Lewis’ top aide when he went to Capitol Hill. She later served as his longtime chief of staff. She now stands among his survivors.

When he announced his retirement in January 2012, he was the longest-serving Republican member of the House in California history, the Daily Press reported.

He said that year that his decision to retire was largely driven by redistricting that split his 41st District into the 8th, which includes the High Desert, and 31st districts.

“If I would run in the desert and ask people to vote for me, I would want to own a home or live in the district. I wasn’t about to get my wife to sell our home,” Lewis told the Daily Press in 2012.

From 2005 to 2007, Lewis chaired the House Appropriations Committee, which oversees spending on federal programs. He remains the only House member from California to chair the committee, a feat he once said was beyond his “wildest dreams.”

On Capitol Hill, Lewis steered hundreds of millions of federal dollars to local projects via earmarks that were included in annual appropriations bills.

According to the Press-Enterprise, Lewis’ earmarks helped pay for the creation of a cancer research center at Loma Linda University Medical Center; planning and construction of the Seven Oaks Dam in Highland; and a massive tree-clearing effort in the San Bernardino National Forest that was credited with reducing the region’s wildfire danger.

He also sponsored legislation to bring the former George Air Force Base — now the Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville — into local control, and he helped secure funding to modernize the Ontario International Airport, among other accomplishments.

Those earmarks also drew scrutiny, however. In 2006, a federal grand jury probed Lewis for securing millions of dollars for various agencies, universities and defense contractors, including some that also donated to his campaign, the Daily Press reported.

Throughout the four-year investigation, Lewis maintained that he had done no wrong, defending the earmarks as a way to direct dollars to important local projects that were otherwise off the federal radar.

The Ranchero Road Corridor project in Hesperia, for instance, received a $1 million earmark from Lewis in 2010, according to previous Daily Press reports.

Justice Department investigators closed the investigation that same year without filing charges.

In a statement on his website that addressed Lewis’ death, Rep. Ken Calvert, R- Corona, said, “If Jerry was ever criticized, it was for delivering too much and too often for his district. Our country would be a far better place, if all of our public servants worked as tirelessly and effectively for the people they represented as Jerry Lewis did.”

Born Oct. 21, 1934, Jerry Lewis captained the swim team at San Bernardino High School. Multiple news reports also listed him as a high school basketball player, but his daughter, Jenifer Lewis Engler, said Lewis never played basketball.

“I’m sure he would have loved to, but he was 5’8” at best,” Lewis Engler said in an email. “There is a jersey in a display case with his name. This was an honorary award, I think. Should be a Speedo swimsuit, not a jersey.”

Lewis graduated in 1952. Four years later, he earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dad was a swimming star at San Bernardino High School. He did not play basketball. I’m sure he would have loved to, but he was 5’8” at best. There is a jersey in a display case with his name. This was an honorary award, I think. Should be a Speedo swimsuit, not a jersey. Wikipedia has this incorrect info in their bio.

After college, Jerry Lewis raised a large family, became an insurance broker and opened his own business before winning a seat on the San Bernardino City Unified School District Board of Education in the mid-1960s. He had been active in politics even before then, though.

Lewis founded the San Bernardino Valley Young Republicans, and he was elected three times to the County Republican Central Committee, serving as precinct chair in Richard Nixon’s 1960 bid for the presidency, according to a San Bernardino Sun article from 1968.

In 1966, Lewis directed Rep. Jerry L. Pettis’ successful campaign for California’s 33rd Congressional District. Still, reporters pegged him as a political newcomer two years later when he ran for the 73rd District, which then covered San Bernardino County, in the California Assembly.

Results from that election, in which he defeated Democrat James Evans in a landslide, eventually became the norm for Lewis, whose popularity and power grew with each victory.

Save a loss in 1974 when he ran in a special election loss for a seat in the California Senate, Lewis never garnered less than 60% of the vote in any of his campaigns.

His nine years in the California Assembly are notable for his advocacy of policies and programs to improve air quality, an effort that resulted in the formation of the South Coast Air Quality Management District in 1976, according to Rep. Calvert.

Today, Lewis’ legacy is visible throughout Southern California. His name adorns a swim center in San Bernardino’s Perris Hill Park, a community center in Highland, a soccer complex in Yucaipa and the government center in Hesperia.

The most recognizable local namesake, however, is the Lewis Center for Educational Research in Apple Valley.

Rick Piercy, who founded the Lewis Center as the Science and Technology Center in October 1990 after years of hashing out a plan to bring hands-on science education to High Desert students.

Piercy’s grandparents moved to Victorville in 1945 and worked on Lewis’ first state Assembly campaign, but he was better acquainted with Lewis’ brother, John, before he called the politician one day to discuss his dream.

“When this crazy idea of building an observatory came about, I thought, ‘Maybe we should call him. Maybe he could help us,’” Piercy said Thursday. “I called his office, and he got on the phone, and we chatted a little bit, and I told him what I wanted to do, and he was all excited about it.”

Lewis eventually secured federal and state funding for Piercy’s center, as well as the donation of the Goldstone-Apple Valley Radio Telescope, or GAVRT, which allows students to work alongside NASA scientists on multiple space missions. The GAVRT program is currently tracking NASA’s Perseverance rover’s Mars mission.

Lewis Center for Educational Research President and CEO Lisa Lamb with former Rep. Jerry Lewis (middle) and Lewis Center founder Rick Piercy in 2019.

The Science and Technology Center was renamed in honor of Lewis in April 1998 during an outdoor ceremony in Apple Valley. Piercy said the late congressman remained a strong supporter, financially and otherwise, of the Lewis Center’s work over the next 30 years.

“He was a good friend, but he was such a kind man and so smart and so well-connected, and he had such a big personality,” Piercy said of Lewis. “He opened doors.”

Today, the Lewis Center operates two charter schools, the Academy for Academic Excellence, also in Apple Valley, and the Norton Science & Language Academy in San Bernardino.

Lewis Center President and CEO Lisa Lamb said she was “extremely saddened to hear of Lewis’ passing, calling him a “tremendous leader” who “left an indelible impression on so many.”

“Without his support, our schools and programs would not be what they are today,” Lamb said. “His commitment to bringing the best educational opportunities to our students here in the High Desert and around the world with (GAVRT) ... has influenced thousands of lives.”

Once word of Lewis’ death began to spread Thursday, so too did the praise from leaders across the High Desert.

San Bernardino County 1st District Supervisor Paul Cook, who succeeded Lewis as the 8th District representative, called Lewis a champion for the county in a tweet on Thursday.

“Our troops and first responders were always at the forefront of his mind and his constituents could count on him to fight for them,” Cook said. “I’m grateful to have known him and send my deepest condolences to his family and friends.”

3rd District Supervisor Dawn Rowe called Lewis “one of the most influential lawmakers in the history of our region” in her own tweet.

Rep. Jay Obernolte, Cook’s successor in the House of Representatives, tweeted that he and his wife, Heather, were profoundly saddened to hear of Lewis’ passing.

“Jerry selflessly represented San Bernardino County in a number of capacities, including in Congress,” Obernolte tweeted. “His legacy of public service & his accomplishments for the people he served will live on for generations to come.”

33rd District Assemblyman Thurston “Smitty” Smith described Lewis as a “class act,” telling the Daily Press he was proud to know the late congressman since the 1980s.

Local businessman and former Hesperia Mayor Eric Schmidt said he always admired how Lewis made sure the federal government “didn’t forget about our region.”

When Lewis retired, ending a political career that endured for nearly five decades, his own thoughts were not on the legacy he left, but on the future of the people he represented and the quality of the leaders they would elect.

“Experience is important, but experience comes in many forms and it certainly doesn’t have to just be in government or an elected office,” Lewis told the Daily Press. “There is talent out there, and I would hope that we have leadership that understands most of the issues have nothing to do with partisan politics.”