Robert Tiernan, a lawyer and stalwart of Rhode Island Democratic politics who served four terms in the U.S. House and became one of the original members of the Federal Election Commission, died Oct. 15 in Providence, Rhode Island. He was 85.
The Avery-Storti Funeral Home in Wakefield, Rhode Island, confirmed the death. No cause was reported.
Tiernan, a veteran of the Rhode Island General Assembly, was backed by the state Democratic establishment for the U.S. House seat vacated by the death of 12-term congressman John Fogarty in 1967. Tiernan won the special election and eventually sat on the powerful Appropriations Committee.
In Washington, Tiernan represented a heavily Italian American working-class district that included the cities of Providence, Cranston and Warwick. In the 1974 Democratic primary, he was defeated by Edward Beard, a house painter and freshman state representative who played up his blue-collar roots and said he better understood the economic plight of his constituents. (Beard won the General Election.)
The next year, House Speaker Carl Albert of Oklahoma reportedly smoothed the way for Tiernan’s $50,000-a-year seat on the newly created FEC, which was formed to oversee and enforce campaign financing laws and activities.