Pete Visclosky

On November 6, 2019, Visclosky announced that he would not seek re-election in 2020.

In 2019, Visclosky added a measure making Indiana Dunes a United States National Park to an appropriations bill, which passed into law. Indiana Dunes thereby became the 61st National Park.

In 2011, the House Ethics Committee ended its investigation, clearing Visclosky and Republican former Representative Todd Tiahrt of Kansas. While "PMA's lobbyists pushed or directed company executives to maximize personal or Political Action Committee (PAC) campaign contributions and to attend specific fundraisers while pursuing earmarks," the report notes, "the evidence did not show that Members or their official staff were included in discussions or correspondence about, coordinated with PMA on, or knew of these strategies."

For the rest of his career, he never won a primary with less than 71% and he only once won a general election with less than 60% of the vote - in 2010, when Republicans re-took control of the House of Representatives.

The Washington Times reported in March 2009 that Visclosky had received, over ten years, $1.36 million in campaign donations from clients of the PMA Group. In 2007 and 2008, the United States House Committee on Appropriations, of which Visclosky is a member, directed $137 million in government purchasing to PMA's clients. In May 2009, Visclosky received subpoenas in the grand jury investigation into PMA Group, the first member of Congress to be subpoenaed in the investigation. The Congressman was later cleared of all charges by the House Ethics Committee, who detailed in a 305-page report that "Simply because a member sponsors an earmark for an entity that also happens to be a campaign contributor does not, on these two facts alone, support a claim that a member's actions are being influenced by campaign contributions".

In 1990, Hall challenged Visclosky for the third time and was defeated 51%-30%. He won the general election with 66% of the vote. In 1992, he won the Democratic primary with 72% and the general election with 69%. In 1994, he won the Democratic primary with 77% of the vote. In the general election, he defeated Republican John Larson 56%-44%.

In 1986, he won the Democratic primary again with 57%, defeating Hall and three other candidates. He won the general election with 73% of the vote. In 1988, he won the Democratic primary 84%-16% against Sandra Smith. He went on to win the general election with 77% of the vote.

In 1985, during his first term, Visclosky proposed the "Marquette Plan", which would have seen 75% of Northwest Indiana's industrial shoreline reclaimed for public uses. Two decades later, he revived the proposal in a revised form, as the "Marquette Greenway", which would have seen bike trails built along the lakefront. While the overall "Marquette Plan" has not been realized, a number of projects have reclaimed some of the industrial lakefront, such as the Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk.

In 1984, Visclosky ran for Congress in Indiana's 1st congressional district. In the Democratic primary, he defeated incumbent U.S. Congresswoman Katie Hall, Jack Crawford, and Sandra Smith 34%-33%-31%-1%. In the general election, he defeated Republican Joseph Grenchik 71%-29%. He was reelected 17 times from a district that has been in Democratic hands without interruption since 1931.

Peter John Visclosky (/vɪˈsklɒski/ vih-SKLOSS-kee; born August 13, 1949) is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Indiana's 1st congressional district from 1985 until his retirement in 2021. He is a member of the Democratic Party and was the dean of the Indiana congressional delegation before his retirement in 2021. The District lies in Northwest Indiana, and includes most of the Indiana side of the Chicago metropolitan area. Redistricting passed by the Indiana General Assembly in 2011 changed the district's boundaries, effective January 2013, to include all of Lake and Porter counties as well as the western and northwestern townships of LaPorte County, while shifting Benton, Newton, and Jasper counties out of the district.