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Home | Obituaries

Lobbyist, 'Old Guard' politician William Brooks Jr.

The DFLer's perspective on key issues was never black or white, allowing him to work both sides of the political aisle.

By COURTNEY BLANCHARD, Star Tribune

Last update: January 6, 2008 - 10:18 PM

William Fern Brooks Jr. stepped off the train at the old Minneapolis depot in 1948 and was tempted to leave as soon as the biting January wind stung his face.

But he didn't, instead becoming a resident of Minnesota, starting out as a reporter at the then-Minneapolis Tribune and going on to become an influential lobbyist at the State Capitol.

Brooks died Wednesday at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia after falling ill during a holiday visit with family. He was 81.

Soft-spoken and intellectual, Brooks had a great passion for politics and government, said his son, Bill Brooks III.

He was a member of the "Old Guard" of DFL politicians, said his wife, Jean Geggie Brooks. As a lobbyist, he took on major clients like 3M. In his political life, he forged lasting political relationships with figures like Hubert H. Humphrey and Walter Mondale in smoke-filled rooms, she said.

"He was kind of a 'gray eminence' in politics," she said. Her husband would sit quietly, seemingly uninterested, at committee hearings and party meetings, but afterward come forward with sharp and erudite suggestions, she said.

Before and after World War II, Brooks' father was the Associated Press bureau chief in London. Edward R. Murrow would stay overnight at their home when the London bombing grew fierce, his wife said.

Brooks, along with his mother and grandmother, booked passage on the last commercial ocean liner that left London minutes before the war started. His father stayed behind to work, she said.

After a few years in the U.S. Navy, Brooks finished his degree and took his first "full-fledged" reporting job in Minneapolis, where he expected to stay no more than one year, his wife said. He became president of the Minnesota Newspaper Guild, married in 1951 and earned his law degree from the University of Minnesota 10 years later. He and his partners opened Chestnut, Jones, Brooks, Kennedy and Burkhardt.

His daughter, Elizabeth Brooks, who earned a law degree and lobbied in Washington, said she owes her love of politics to her upbringing. "He taught me to love politics back when it was still a smoke-filled room and that was considered OK," she said.

She recalled how her father brought her to a precinct caucus night at Kenwood School in Minneapolis, where then-U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy and Humphrey supporters argued about the Vietnam War and other issues in "an absolute blue haze."

"He always allowed his children to tag along," she said. "He never acted like something was over our heads or too important or that our virginal ears shouldn't hear."

Despite Brooks' deep involvement in the DFL Party, his nonconfrontational manner often helped forge solutions that satisfied those on both sides of the political aisle, said his son.

"'The person you may feel compelled to castigate today may also be the person you must forge an agreement with for the common good tomorrow' -- that was one of his tenets," his son said.

In his later years, Brooks remained immersed in political life. He served on the board of directors for the U.S. Federal Credit Union, said his wife, and read "voraciously."

"Even after he developed a problem with his eyesight, he used a magnifying glass to read," she said.

In addition to his wife, son and daughter, Brooks is survived by three grandchildren. Services will be held at 11 a.m. Jan. 19 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 1917 Logan Av. S., Minneapolis.

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