Silvio O. Conte; Veteran Congressman

Silvio O. Conte, a popular Republican congressman from Massachusetts and the dean of the state’s delegation, died Friday night, his office announced.

Conte, 69, had been hospitalized for a blood clot on the brain.

The 17-term congressman underwent emergency surgery Feb. 1 for removal of the clot, and his office said then that he was expected to recover fully. But he underwent a second operation Wednesday at the National Institutes of Health in suburban Bethesda, Md., to remove blood accumulating in the brain, and was listed in critical condition.

Conte, a gregarious, cigar-chomping deal-maker, brought home the bacon for his western Massachusetts district for more than three decades and angered GOP conservatives with his liberal votes. He was the only Republican in a 11-member House delegation that, when Conte was elected, was split between the parties.

His district became largely Democratic during his tenure, but Conte had no opposition in seven of his elections.

Although he once wore a pig mask on the House floor to ridicule pork-barrel politics, Conte often won money for his district. He was the senior Republican on the powerful Appropriations Committee.

Conte was stout and gray-haired, with a voice that could shake the walls of the House chamber. It was hard to argue with the pull of a man who could get House Minority Leader Bob Michel of Illinois to put on an Italian waiter’s outfit and serenade him at a testimonial dinner.

Former President Ronald Reagan found out about Conte’s pull in the early 1980s, when his presidential power and popularity were high.

Conte went to bat for the President and included some aid for the Caribbean that Reagan wanted in an appropriations bill. When Reagan vetoed the bill anyway, a furious Conte led the override charge and got 80 Republicans to vote with him.

“I hope he learns a lesson,” Conte said after the vote. “You just don’t have 435 robots here in Congress that are going to vote in lock step.”

Conte tried to turn over a new leaf in the early 1980s by voting with his Republican President on key issues, something he had never been inclined to do. He backed Reagan’s controversial budget cuts and tax package in 1981.

But the honeymoon lasted only a few weeks. Soon he was back fighting against the Reagan tide for more human services spending. Conte took to referring to Reagan Budget Director David Stockman, a former GOP House colleague, as “the young slasher.”

Conte once referred to the Senate as “a bunch of fat cats up there raking in the bucks.” Once during a particularly nasty disagreement with Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.), Conte cleared his throat during an Appropriations Committee session and asked if it would be considered out of order to refer to Proxmire as “a cheap, irresponsible demagogue.”

Born Nov. 9, 1921, in Pittsfield, Mass., Conte grew up in that working class city’s Italian-American neighborhood. After serving in the Navy in World War II, Conte attended Boston College and its law school and won a seat in the Massachusetts Senate.