Dave Obey
American politician
David Ross Obey ( OH-bee; born October 3, 1938) is an American lobbyist and former politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives for Wisconsin's 7th congressional district from 1969 to 2011. The district includes much of the northwestern portion of the state, including Wausau and Superior. He is a member of the Democratic Party, and served as Chairman of the powerful House Committee on Appropriations from 1994 to 1995 and again from 2007 to 2011. Until he was surpassed by Jim Sensenbrenner in 2020, Obey was the longest-serving member ever of the United States House of Representatives from the state of Wisconsin. Obey remains the longest serving Democratic Representative from Wisconsin.
Early life and career
Obey was born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, the son of Mary Jane (née Chellis) and Orville John Obey. In 1941, his family moved back to his parents' native Wisconsin, and Obey was raised in Wausau, Wisconsin, where he has lived since. He graduated from Wausau East High School and initially attended the University of Wisconsin branch campus at Wausau to save money before transferring to the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from and did graduate work in Soviet politics at the University of Wisconsin under a National Defense Education Act three-year scholarship.
During his youth, Obey identified as a Republican, and helped deliver campaign material for Senator Joseph McCarthy during his electoral campaigns. However, he left the party after seeing one of his teachers falsely branded as a communist by supporters of McCarthy.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q434463. The first chronological checks are 1938, 1969, 2011 and 1994.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dave Obey” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.