For many, former New York Congressman Jack F. Kemp, who died Saturday evening, was a key player in the rise of the conservative movement within the Republican Party three decades ago that helped to forge the Reagan Revolution that culminated in the takeover of the House by the GOP in 1994.

As a member of the Republican minority in the House during the last years of the Jimmy Carter Administration, that saw the dominance of Washington by Congressional Democrats, not the floundering Carter, Jack Kemp helped change the dynamic within his Republican Conference. With other like-minded House Republicans, including future House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, an insurgency, not always pretty, arose within the mostly congenial House.

Because of a series of votes on tax changes he proposed, House Republicans made their first significant gains in the House in 1978, which over time would help the GOP take the House in 1994, six years after the Buffalo congressman had left Congress.

His successes in the late '70s allowed Kemp to push one of his mentors, Reagan, to champion the Kemp-Roth Tax Cut (Senator Phillip Roth) in 1981 that launched tax cuts that focused on the fact that lower marginal tax rates would result in an upsurge in the economy. They did, though their success was stymied by not only a rise in defense spending (that was needed) but non defense expenditures (that were not) that threw Washington into deficit spending.

Named by President George Herbert Walker Bush, who defeated him in 1988 in the Republican primaries, to head the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, the nine-term congressman took over a HUD that had been plagued with years of mismanagement and corruption. Yet his greatest legacy may have been focusing on the issues of poverty and bringing African Americans into the Republican Party, something he pushed in his vice presidential efforts in 1996.

Kemp described himself as “bleeding-heart conservative” long before George W. Bush talked about being a “compassionate conservative.” More importantly, Kemp acted on his principles - principles that he believed that the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, would believe in today - that every American deserved a chance at the American dream. He proposed policies and took steps to accomplish this, whether on the football field, in Congress, in the Cabinet or as a candidate for national office.

Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn and can be contacted at cozguytho@aol.com