Indiana Congresswoman Dies From Cancer

INDIANAPOLIS -- U.S. Rep. Julia Carson, D-Ind., has died after a battle with lung cancer, her office said Saturday morning, reported Indianapolis TV station WRTV.

Carson, 69, had been under hospice care at her home. She revealed that she had terminal lung cancer on Nov. 24, and had been on leave from Congress since September, when she was hospitalized in Indianapolis for what her staff said was a severe leg infection.

The death of Carson, who has represented Indianapolis in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1997, came less than a month after she announced she didn't plan to seek re-election to Congress in 2008.

Information on when she died wasn't immediately available.

Carson was never one to turn away from a challenge in her congressional career. She was elected to her 7th District seat in November 1996 but had been involved in politics since the 1960s.

Her smile, statement-making scarves and hats and unforgettable sound bites drew chuckles and derision, sometimes depending upon which side of the political fence one sits.

Regardless of political preference, it has been impossible to ignore the presence of Julia Carson in Hoosier politics.

Carson made her first run for Congress in 1996 after serving in the Indiana House, Indiana Senate and as Center Township trustee in Marion County.

Carson was former Congressman Andy Jacobs' legislative assistant in 1965. When he announced his retirement in 1996, Jacobs urged Carson to run for his seat and endorsed her without hesitation.

"Instead of making speeches about balancing a budget and cutting taxes, Julia simply went and did it," Jacobs said. "She did it in a way that Washington should learn. She did it in a humane way."

Perhaps it was the humanity and down-to-earth demeanor that made Carson the Teflon woman of Washington.

No matter what her opponents and critics threw at her, nothing stuck, and she had the respect of Democrats and Republicans.

"She was on Air Force One, and I went back to have a visit with her," President George W. Bush said in 2005. "If you've never had a visit with Julia, she's got a lot of wisdom. She's not afraid to speak her mind. She kind of reminds me of my mother."

Going against Bush, Carson was always against the war in Iraq. She also advocated people taking pride in themselves and in their community.

"I think the more we amplify the positive side of a community, the positive side of African Americans, perhaps it will somehow penetrate to the criminal element of our city," Carson said.

Carson's health troubles didn't keep her constituents from voting for her, even though a heart attack kept her from being sworn in on time when she was first elected to Congress.

She was too ill to travel and missed votes in Washington because of that in 2004. Not long after her 2004 illness, Carson responded to health questions.

"The doctor checked my heart. It's great. They checked my blood pressure -- great. Diabetes -- where it ought to be. Asthma -- where it ought to be, and I'm just fine," Carson said at the time.

In September, she was hospitalized in Indianapolis for more than a week for what her office said was an infection near where a leg vein was removed in January 1997 when she underwent double heart bypass surgery -- weeks after she was first elected to the U.S. House.

She never returned to Washington after the September hospitalization. Her office said she went to a rehabilitation facility after being released from the hospital. In November, she announced she had terminal cancer, saying doctors made the cancer diagnosis after treating the leg ailment.

She also indicated in November that she had been previously diagnosed with cancer, but that it had gone into remission.

"It had gone into remission years before, but it was back with a terminal vengeance," Carson said in the November statement, which did not disclose the date of her initial diagnosis.