Former U.S. Rep. John J.H. (Joe) Schwarz, a longtime physician and city official in Battle Creek, Vietnam veteran and political moderate who served as a Republican for 16 years in the state Senate and a two-year term in Congress, died Wednesday, May 27. He was 89 years old.
Andrea Bitely, a communications consultant who had worked for Schwarz, confirmed his death for the Free Press. No other details were immediately available about Schwarz’s death or any arrangements.
Known both as a supporter of abortion rights and environmental protections, Schwarz often took positions against the prevailing political winds in the Republican Party, including giving his support to then-U.S. Sen. John McCain’s upstart challenge of frontrunner and then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush in Michigan’s 2000 presidential primary and challenging then-Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus in an ill-fated run for the gubernatorial nomination in 2002.
But Schwarz split a fractured field of more conservative candidates in what was then Michigan’s 7th Congressional District in south-central Michigan in 2004, winning the Republican nomination and a seat in the U.S. House. Two years later, one of those he beat — Tim Walberg, who is now the longest-serving member of the state’s congressional delegation — would wrest the nomination and the seat away from Schwarz, who later became an independent, declaring the Republican Party had swung too far to the political right.
Schwarz would go on to serve on numerous boards and commissions. He served as a lecturer at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy, a board member of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters and as a leader of the effort to pass Proposal 2 in 2008 that relaxed restrictions on embryonic stem cell research in Michigan.
Schwarz was born in Battle Creek, received his undergraduate degree in history from the University of Michigan in 1959 and a medical degree from Wayne State University in 1964. A medical doctor, he served his residency in otolaryngology − also known as ear, nose and throat conditions − at Harvard, later opening a private practice in Battle Creek that spanned more than three decades. He also served in the U.S. Navy and with the Central Intelligence Agency in southeast Asia, including as assistant naval attache in Indonesia.
After that, Schwarz served as a city commissioner and then mayor in Battle Creek from 1979 to 1986, then in the state Senate from 1987 through 2002, when he ran for governor. Schwarz would later consider but ultimately reject runs for governor in 2010 and for his old seat in Congress in 2012.
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on X @tsspangler.
This story will be updated.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Former U.S. Rep. Joe Schwarz of Battle Creek dies
Reporting by Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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