Joe Brennan, Democratic former governor of Maine and US congressman, dies at 89

Source: Associated Press

Joe Brennan, Democratic former governor of Maine and US congressman, dies at 89

BY DAVID SHARP
Updated 4:37 PM EDT, April 6, 2024

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Democrat Joseph E. Brennan, whose hardscrabble childhood shaped his working-class views in a political career that included two terms as Maine’s governor and two terms in the U.S. House, died Friday evening at his home in Portland. He was 89.

Brennan died with his wife at his side a few blocks from the third-floor tenement housing on Munjoy Hill where his Irish immigrant parents raised a family of eight children, Frank O’Hara, a longtime friend, said Saturday.

Brennan’s experience in that neighborhood, a working-class melting pot, stayed with him when he entered politics with a campaign for the Maine Legislature at age 29, O’Hara said.

An Army veteran, Brennan attended Boston College under the GI Bill and graduated from the University of Maine Law School. He served as a county district attorney and state attorney general, in addition to state lawmaker, governor and congressman.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/maine-governor-joe-brennan-death-obituary-e77b9d65ce57a8722780c2acad1c4f65