Former Montana US Rep Pat Williams, who won a liberal- conservative showdown, dies at 87
June 26, 2025
Pat Williams, a New Deal-style Democrat who won Montana’s great liberal-conservative showdown of 1992 to become the state’s lone voice in the U.S. House of Representatives, has died. He was 87. He died in Missoula of natural causes, a family spokesperson said. John Patrick Williams represented the western half of Montana from 1979 to 1997. When the 1990 census eliminated one of the state’s two House seats, he captured the new statewide district in a bruising race against a longtime conservative lawmaker. Williams was an unabashed liberal, a staunch advocate for organized labor and a believer in the potential of government to help people.
