US Congressman. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a member of the US House of Representatives from Louisiana's 5th district for 15 consecutive terms from January 1947 until January 1977. Born to sharecropper parents in Franklinton, Louisiana he dropped out of high school to work odd jobs but enrolled in night school thereafter to complete his high school education. He later studied at Soule Business College in Bogalusa, Louisiana. In 1929 he moved to Monroe, Louisiana and formed the Passman Equipment Company, which was involved in the manufacture of commercial refrigerators and distributed hotel and restaurant supplies and electrical appliances. After the US entered World War II in December 1941 he was commissioned a lieutenant in the US Navy and served from October 1942 until his discharge at the rank of lieutenant commander on September 1944. He then returned to his mercantile business and became politically active, and was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1946 and ran unopposed for the next 14 consecutive congressional elections. During his time in Congress, he focused on national defense and veterans' issues as well as his scrutiny of foreign aid programs, cutting it by some 25 percent during the 1960s, and supported the American military action in the Vietnam War. He also was a staunch opponent of the Peace Corps, which was championed by President John F. Kennedy. A segregationist, in 1956 he signed the Southern Manifesto to voice objection to the US Supreme Court's desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education. In 1974 he dismissed a female employee from his office, Shirley Davis, because he preferred a man to hold her position. She sued him and won a judgment, affirmed by the US Supreme Court in 1979 (Davis v. Passman), which held that his action constituted sexual discrimination. The case remains an important precedent in holding that there is an implied right of action against US congressmen for such discrimination, and it recognized a citizen's right to bring a suit against elected federal representatives for violation of constitutional rights. In 1976 he was defeated in the Louisiana Democratic primary election by Jerry Huckaby. In 1978 he was legally implicated in the Tongsun Park scandal known as Koreagate and charged with conspiracy, bribery, accepting an illegal gratuity and later income tax evasion. After a jury trial in his hometown, he was acquitted of all charges. He died of an apparent heart attack in Monroe, Louisiana at the age of 88.