The Grinch's 24 years in Congress

The state Republican Party took note the other day of another milestone: U.S. Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., has become the longest-serving N.C. Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives. Brent Woodcox, the party's communications director, sent round a notice the other day that Coble has passed former U.S. Rep. and former Sen. Jim Broyhill as the longest-serving House Republican from North Carolina. Coble, 77, has served in the 6th District seat, which includes his home of Pleasant Garden south of Greensboro, since 1985.
Prior to going to Washington, Coble was a four-term member of the N.C. House of Representatives and previously was secretary of revenue under Gov. Jim Holshouser, the first Republican elected governor in the 20th century. When Coble was in the House, he was a popular lawmaker who often challenged the Democratic majority -- and often lost. One year -- in the 1970s, I think -- Coble argued against a proposal raising pay for state legislators. My colleague at the Greensboro Daily News, the late reporter Brent Hackney, wrote about Coble and borrowed by Dr. Seuss, calling Coble "The Grinch Who Stole the Pay Raise." Coble loved that story, and when he called the paper's Raleigh Bureau, he'd growl, "This is the Grinch. I've got a story for you."
I don't know if anyone in Washington calls Coble the Grinch. When Republicans controlled the House there, they called him Mr. Chairman, for the judiciary committee he used to head.