Delaware ex-Gov. Mike Castle, who championed 50 State Quarters Program while in Congress, dies at 86
The Delaware Republican Party announced that Castle died Thursday in Greenville but shared no other details.
Castle was among Delaware's most successful politicians, never losing a race until his stunning upset in a 2010 primary for the U.S. Senate seat that Democrat Joe Biden held before becoming vice president.
During his 18 years in Congress, Castle became a leader of centrist Republicans, earning a reputation as a fiscal conservative and social moderate not afraid to challenge the party line on issues ranging from government spending to environmental protection and abortion.
As Delaware's lone representative in the U.S. House from 1993 to 2011, he supported a pay-as-you-go policy for both spending and tax cuts. Castle played roles in improving child nutrition programs and establishing the No Child Left Behind education reform program. His signature issue in Congress was the commemorative quarters program that featured coins honoring each state, starting with Delaware. He was dubbed by coin collectors as 'The Coinage Congressman.'
The quarters boosted federal revenues as they were taken out of circulation. He also helped establish a similar program honoring U.S. presidents with dollar coins, beginning in 2007, and an 'America the Beautiful' quarter program honoring national parks, monuments and nature areas starting in 2010.
'The Honorable Michael Castle embodied the best of public service — moderation, integrity, and a steadfast commitment to all Delawareans,' Delaware GOP Chairman Gene Truono said in a statement Thursday.
Castle had been a state lawmaker and lieutenant governor before becoming governor in 1985.
Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer ordered flags flown at half-staff for the next week in Castle's honor.
'During his time as governor, Mike Castle visited every single school in our state, including mine, where he spoke to my high school class with the same warmth, humility, and commitment to public service that defined his career,' said Meyer, a Democrat.
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'I see too much violent crime being committed by young punks who think they can get together in gangs and crews and beat the hell out of you,' said Ms. Pirro, standing next to Mr. Trump after he announced the takeover this week. The takeover represents the opening of a second political front for Trump-era federal law enforcement, alongside the campaign of retribution spearheaded by Mr. Martin and egged on by the president. In that sense, Ms. Pirro is filling the vacuum left by Rudy Giuliani, standard-bearer of a venerable and potent Republican law-and-order message that casts big cities as lawless war zones, Democrats as enablers of disorder, and conservatives as sensible saviors. It is a message with the potential to resonate beyond Mr. Trump's base: Many in Washington, particularly in communities of color otherwise hostile to the president, remain anxious about public safety. 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When Republican senators rejected Mr. Martin as the permanent U.S. attorney, Ms. Bondi urged to pick Ms. Pirro, who had years earlier lobbied unsuccessfully to be named deputy attorney general. Soon after, the president called. Ms. Pirro said yes. It was not the first job in the administration she had been offered. Late last year, after Mr. Trump tapped Kash Patel, a podcaster with scant law enforcement experience, to be F.B.I. director, his aides approached Ms. Pirro about becoming his deputy. She told them she had no interest working for Mr. Patel, according to two people familiar with the exchange. If Ms. Pirro hopes to ascend in the department, she has not shared it with people in her orbit. She has defied expectations, common among staff before she arrived, that she would not take the job seriously, or spend her days kibbitzing at the White House. Ms. Pirro has been working long hours, fortified by candy and early-morning workouts; she lives in a rented apartment in Washington during the week and commutes back to her house in Rye, N.Y., on the weekends. She has made it clear she did not approve of Mr. Martin's practice of confining himself to his office and mostly avoiding career staff, whom he generally viewed as deep-state adversaries. 'I'm not Ed Martin,' she pointedly told a local official who complained about her predecessor. She holds daily briefings with division chiefs in the office, circulates among staff and drops in on court proceedings of particular interest to her, including the trial of Shon Hopwood, a Georgetown Law professor convicted last month of assaulting his wife. While Ms. Pirro can be abrasive and distractible (she is prone to peering over the heads of visitors to her office to watch the TV), unlike Mr. Martin she has largely allowed officials to conduct their work without interference, according to several people briefed on her actions. She earned the wary respect of subordinates early in her tenure after a lone gunman fatally shot two Israeli Embassy employees in May outside the Jewish museum in downtown Washington. Ms. Pirro, donning tortoise shell glasses and discarding the flippancy of her persona on 'The Five,' was well briefed, professional and measured. But perception and performance are different things. And one of her biggest challenge is matching her confident public messaging with results, given the mass departures of career prosecutors and support staff. Some were fired by Mr. Martin, others fled. Current and former officials estimate the office has lost one-quarter to one-third of its career staff. Ms. Pirro estimated the losses at '90 prosecutors, 60 investigators and paralegals' during an appearance on Fox this month. She went on to make an extraordinary direct-to-camera pitch: 'If you want a job in the nation's capital in the premier office, the largest U.S. attorney's office, contact me,' she said. Ms. Pirro began her career as a young lawyer in New York City's northern suburbs, where she earned a reputation as a fierce — and politically moderate — prosecutor known for her focus on assaults and sexual offenses against women and children. She was elected Westchester County district attorney in 1993 as a Republican supporting abortion rights, and quickly became the darling of the tabloids and cable, combining a telegenic appearance with a penchant for blunt quotability. Ms. Pirro parlayed that into a successful TV career, first as a judge, then as a commentator, and finally an implacable defender of Mr. Trump, whom she has known for decades. Along the way she accrued a formidable fortune — her net worth is $11.5 million, according to financial disclosures — and some serious baggage. Her tough talk on crime does not necessarily extend to those she deems to be worthy of sympathy and reprieve, most notably her former husband, Albert J. Pirro Jr., who was convicted 25 years ago of illegal tax write-offs of expensive cars, paintings and even the fencing around a pig pen at the family mansion. During the waning hours of the first Trump administration, Ms. Pirro hit the phones after learning that Mr. Pirro, who had once served as Mr. Trump's real estate lawyer, was not one of those receiving a pardon. Her intervention succeeded. That relationship is double-edged. While she can pick up the phone and get Mr. Trump, it also makes it more likely that the president and his top aides will exert unmediated pressure her. The biggest question facing Ms. Pirro moving forward is whether she will have the latitude to focus primarily on basic law enforcement, or take a Martin-esque turn by targeting Mr. Trump's enemies at his behest. A potential moment of truth looms just over the horizon: Ms. Bondi's decision to authorize a grand jury investigation into accusations that Obama-era officials fabricated intelligence about Russian meddling in the 2016 election may extend to Washington, meaning prosecutors or support staff from her office could potentially be assigned to the case. When Benny Johnson, a far-right podcaster, recently asked Ms. Pirro if she would investigate Senator Adam B. Schiff, a California Democrat, for leaking information about Mr. Trump, she punted. 'The difference between me and some other people is that I don't talk about what I'm investigating,' she said. Ms. Pirro has embraced the administration's maximalist approach against those who defy federal crackdowns. In the past month, a federal grand jury in the district has twice rejected efforts by her office to indict a woman accused of assaulting an F.B.I. agent assisting in the transfer of immigrants. Jurors found evidence presented by Ms. Pirro's prosecutors, 'wanting,' the magistrate overseeing the case said. Her office is also bringing felony assault charges against a man who chucked a Subway sandwich at a heavily armed federal officer this week. (The officer was not injured.) 'So there, stick your subway sandwich somewhere else!' Ms. Pirro said in a video. Nonetheless, she is making effort to keep open lines of communication with local officials and has, at least initially, avoided criticizing individuals and confined her ire to city laws that limit prosecutions of offenders under 25. Her Democratic predecessors have also decried those laws as far too restrictive. Several Biden-era Justice Department officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid publicly criticizing their successors, say their biggest complaint about Ms. Pirro is not that she is too extreme, but that she is hyping routine actions and minimizing their work for the sake of self-promotion. Last Tuesday, when a reporter pressed her on that point — how could the administration declare an emergency in a city where violent crime has precipitously declined? — Ms. Pirro declared that one crime was still too many. Asked about recent cuts to criminal justice programs, Ms. Pirro, wearing a tailored navy-blue jacket and an expression of incredulity, took another high-heeled step toward the cameras. 'Oh, stop it!' she said. Kitty Bennett contributed research.
