Charles Edward Bennett

Charles Edward Bennett ( born December 2, 1910 in Canton, New York; † 6 September 2003 in Jacksonville, Florida ) was an American politician and represented the State of Florida 1949-1993 in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

Charles Edward Bennett was born on December 2, 1910 in Canton, New York. After his family moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where he spent his childhood. Bennett was an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America. He was a lawyer, who visited the University of Florida College of Law. Furthermore, it was during the Second World War in the United States Army, before he was elected as representative of the 2nd district in Congress. He was re-elected twenty-one times in the Jacksonville district, which was renamed in 1967 in the third. Bennett rarely faced serious competition, even as Jacksonville fell under Republican control.

In 1951 he proposed a code of ethics for government employees, nicknamed "The Ten Commandments ". After Sherman Adams affair of the Code was adopted in 1958 as the first code of ethics for government service. In the meantime he supported in 1954 the design of coins that bore the words In God We Trust, and were intended for circulation. He was also one of the men who signed the Southern Manifesto, in which he received later in the rapidly growing black community in Jacksonville a strong backing and coveted.

Bennett joined in 1992 for a twenty-third term of office in the renamed 4th district at. However, expressed his Republican opponent, City Council President Tillie K. Fowler, opposite him, that he would be in Washington for too long. Fowler was born in 1942, six years before Bennett's first election victory. Bennett was sure pissed off because of this statement and pulled abruptly back his candidacy.

Charles Edward Bennett died on 6 September 2003 in Jacksonville, Florida. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He is still the longest-serving MPs of both Houses of Congress in Florida's history. The Charles E. Bennett Federal Building in Jacksonville bears his name.