Final Campaigns & Death
Although he usually sailed to reelection in his overwhelmingly Democratic and Italian-American Southwestern Queens district, a reapportionment following the 1980 census spelled trouble for Addabbo in his final two campaigns. His district absorbed a considerably larger number of African Americans in Jamaica, Queens than had previously been in the district. His old district was 35 percent black, while his new district was 65 percent black. Some of his Italian-American base were moved into the district of fellow Democrat Charles Schumer while others were moved into the district of fellow Italian-American Democrat Geraldine Ferraro, who had won a closer-than-expected election two years earlier. This left him open to a surprisingly strong primary challenge from black real estate developer Simeon Golar in 1982. Two years later, Golar ran again with the active backing of then-presidential candidate Jesse Jackson, but Addabbo won again.
Addabbo's health started to fail shortly after his 1984 re-election. In 1985, he spent four months in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center with a cancer-related kidney ailment. After returning to work for two months in early 1986, he fell ill at a luncheon in March and lapsed into a coma on March 12. He died a month later, aged 61, and was buried in Saint John's Cemetery, Queens.
After Addabbo's death, Queens elected its first African-American congressman after a disputed special election between two black candidates. In 2001, Addabbo's son, Joseph P. Addabbo, Jr., was elected as the New York City Council representative for District 32 in Queens. He was elected to the New York State Senate in 2008.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Patrick Addabbo
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