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Gary Condit (born April 21, 1948) is an American politician, a fiscally and socially conservative "Blue Dog" Democrat who served in the House of Representatives from 1989 to 2002. He represented the 18th congressional district of California, the northern San Joaquin Valley. (When he was first elected, this district was the 15th District; it became the 18th district after redistricting following the 1990 census.)
Rise
Condit had been mayor of Ceres, California, and then a member of the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors, before he was elected to the California State Assembly.
While a member of the assembly, Condit was a member of the "Gang of Five." At the time, the Democrats (led by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown) held a 44-36 majority in the Assembly. It was rumored that the Gang of Five sought to ally with the Republicans, thereby setting up a 41-39 majority, and elect one of themselves as speaker. Things did not work out this way, however; the Republicans did not vote for a Democrat as speaker.
Condit was elected to Congress in a 1989 special election, after House Democratic Whip Tony Coelho resigned in disgrace.
Fall
In 2001, Condit became the subject of considerable news coverage, after Chandra Levy, a Washington, D.C., intern originally from Condit's district, disappeared. Condit, a married man, did not discuss the affair he had been having with the intern until rather late in the case.
Even though police did not officially consider Condit a suspect in Levy's disappearance, many in the popular media — along with Levy's family and much of the American public — suspected that Condit was withholding important information about the intern's disappearance. This suspicion was deepened when Condit tried to avoid answering direct questions during a televised interview with news anchor Connie Chung on Aug. 23, 2001.
Levy's remains were discovered in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., and in May 2002, a medical examiner determined Levy's cause of death was homicide.
Condit lost the primary elections in March 2002 and left Congress at the end of his term in 2002.
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