Rod Chandler
American politician

Rodney Dennis Chandler (born July 13, 1942) is an American politician and journalist who served five terms as a U.S. representative from Washington from 1983 to 1993.
He is the great-great-grandnephew of long-time U.S. Senator Zachariah Chandler of Michigan.
Early career
Rod Chandler received a B.S. from Eastern Oregon College and a M.Ed. from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Before entering politics, Chandler worked as a television news correspondent and a public relations consultant.
Political career
State legislature
He was elected to the Washington House of Representatives in 1974.
Congress
In 1982, he was elected as a Republican to the 98th Congress, representing the newly created 8th congressional district. In that race, he defeated Democratic candidate Beth Bland by a margin of 57% to 43%. He held the seat for five terms, until he gave up his seat for an unsuccessful candidacy for the United States Senate.
In 1989, Chandler revealed publicly that he is a recovering alcoholic.
“Rod Chandler” enters the record as american politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Chandler, American and politician can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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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 Jul 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q741383. VIAF identifies the subject as 251953727. The Library of Congress control number is no2012096333. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1942, 1983, 1993 and 1974.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rod Chandler” 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.