Vic Fazio, a moderate California Democrat who became an influential party leader in the U.S. House of Representatives during his two decades on Capitol Hill, died March 16, 2022 at his home in Arlington, Va. He was 79. The cause was melanoma, said his wife, Kathy Sawyer, a retired Washington Post journalist.
A self-described institutionalist, Mr. Fazio represented the Sacramento area from 1979 to 1999 and was a member of the House Appropriations and Armed Services committees. He supported ethics reforms as well as environmental and water-reclamation programs. He provided government funding for projects in his area, including a vast wetland and wildlife preserve between Davis and Sacramento that is known as the Vic Fazio Yolo Wildlife Area. It was dedicated by President Bill Clinton in 1997. Mr. Fazio was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 1994 when Republicans won control of the House for the first time in 40 years. Nevertheless, as a measure of his standing and ability to work across the aisle, he was chosen the next year as chairman of the House Democratic caucus and served for four years.
Victor Herbert Fazio Jr. was born in Winchester, Mass., on Oct. 11, 1942, and grew up partly in Madison, N.J. His father was an insurance salesman, and his mother was a homemaker and dress shop manager. He graduated in 1961 from the private Williston Academy in Easthampton, Mass., (now the Williston Northampton School) and received a bachelor’s degree in history in 1965 from Union College in Schenectady, N.Y.
He came to California on a Caro Foundation fellowship in public affairs and worked as a legislative consultant. He also was a co-founder, in 1970, of the now-defunct California Journal magazine, which covered state government and politics. He served in the California State Assembly before winning a U.S. House seat in 1978. After leaving Congress — he did not seek reelection in 1998 — he spent more than two decades as a lobbyist, first with the firm of Clark & Weinstock and then with Akin Gump. Over the years, his clients included Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry’s premier trade association. At his death, he was board chairman of the National Parks Conservation Association and served on the board of the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
His first marriage, to the former Joella Mason, ended in divorce. His second wife, Judy Neidhardt Kern, whom he married in 1983, died in 2015. A daughter from his first marriage, Anne Fazio, died in 1995 of complications from leukemia. In 2017, he married Sawyer. In addition to his wife, of Arlington, survivors include a daughter from his first marriage, Dana Lawrie of Granite Bay, Calif.; two stepchildren, Kevin Kern of Fair Oaks, Calif., and Kristie Kern of Portland, Ore.; and four granddaughters.