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By Laurence Arnold

Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- John Murtha, a former Marine drill instructor turned congressman who unapologetically wielded his power to benefit his Pennsylvania district, died today. He was 77.

Murtha, a Democrat, died at a hospital in Arlington, Virginia, of complications after undergoing gallbladder surgery in late January at another hospital.

During 36 years in the House, the Vietnam veteran from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, rose to chairman of the subcommittee that approves defense spending. That perch gave him a platform to exert his knowledge and strong beliefs about the proper use of the U.S. military.

In November 2005, citing increasing attacks on Americans, he called for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, a military engagement he had voted for in 2002.

He was an ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. “It’s the passing of a major political figure who was close to the speaker and always involved in Democratic legislation,” said Stuart Rothenberg, an independent political analyst based in Washington. Rothenberg called Murtha a major force in “forming American politics in jobs and spending.”

Representative Norm Dicks, Democrat from Washington state, the senior member of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee after Murtha, would be the “one most likely to succeed,” George Behan, a spokesman for Dicks, said in an interview. The House Appropriations committee headed by Representative Dave Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin, would make the final decision, Behan said.

‘The Misery of War’

“He understood the misery of war,” Obey said in a statement. “Every person who serves in the military has lost an advocate and a good friend today.” His statement didn’t address the chairmanship of the subcommittee.

Murtha’s seat on the Appropriations Committee enabled him to become one of Congress’s most adept users of the earmark process to send money to specific projects back home. The John Murtha Johnston-Cambria County Airport was among the more visible results of his taxpayer-funded largess. Murtha steered an estimated $150 million in federal funds to the airport, the Washington Post reported in 2009.

Murtha was “our go-to guy, someone that whatever the issue could weigh in and make things happen for us,” Democratic Governor Edward Rendell of Pennsylvania said on a conference call with reporters.

Special Election

A special election will be held to fill the rest of Murtha’s term until January 2011. Rendell has 10 days to announce when the contest will be held, which can’t take place until at least 60 days after his announcement. The state already plans to hold primary elections on May 18.

Rendell said he was consulting with Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on the timing of the special election, including “how important it is to have” Murtha’s replacement in Congress and “weighing it against the expense.”

Murtha’s town became a popular place for defense contractors, which received millions in earmarks through the congressman. Some of those firms donated to Murtha’s campaign and gave jobs to his allies, the Post reported, creating a web of connections that drew the attention of federal prosecutors.

Searches were carried out in January and February of 2009 at the offices of a Virginia lobbying firm and a Pennsylvania- based defense contractor that had benefited from Murtha’s earmarks.

Earmarks, Lobbyists

Murtha’s use of earmarks and ties to lobbyists made him a top target of good-government groups. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington labeled him one of the “most corrupt” members of Congress.

Murtha gave no ground. “If I’m corrupt, it’s because I take care of my district,” he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in March 2009. “My job as a member of Congress is to make sure that we take care of what we see is necessary.”

After Democrats won a majority of seats in the House in November 2006, Murtha ran for the No. 2 leadership post, majority leader, and was supported by Pelosi, the incoming House speaker. Murtha, who may have lost votes due to the allegations about his ethics, was defeated by Hoyer of Maryland.

Murtha won his 18th full term in 2008 even after seeming to insult his district by calling it “a racist area” where some voters might be reluctant to vote for Barack Obama. He later apologized.

Buildup in Afghanistan

His committee was preparing to take up the latest war spending bill, which would fund the Obama administration’s troop buildup in Afghanistan. Murtha had expressed skepticism, saying in December he was “not sure that there’s a threat to our national security” in Afghanistan because al-Qaeda “can go any place -- they don’t have to be in Afghanistan.”

With Murtha’s death, the Rothenberg Political Report moved his blue-collar, western Pennsylvania district onto its list of competitive races in this year’s midterm elections. Republican William Russell, an Iraq War veteran whose 2008 race to unseat Murtha forced Democrats to shift resources into the race at the last minute, is running for the seat again this year.

The district gave 49 percent of its vote to Obama in 2008 and 49 percent to Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

Dicks’s Washington state congressional district is home to the U.S. Navy’s Puget Sound Naval Shipyard that maintains the military’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarine fleets.

Boeing Supporter

Dicks has been a key supporter of Boeing Co., whose commercial airplane manufacturing facilities in Everett are adjacent to his district. He has criticized White House and Pentagon officials about bids for a $35 billion U.S. Air Force refueling contract that he has said are skewed in favor of competitor Northrop Grumman Corp.

John Patrick Murtha was born on June 17, 1932, in New Martinsville, West Virginia. He left Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1952 to join the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War, serving until 1955 and becoming a drill instructor at Parris Island.

In his second tour of active duty, in 1966 and 1967, he served in Vietnam as a Marine intelligence officer. His honors included a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. He was a reservist from 1952 to 1990 and retired from the Marine reserves as a colonel.

He earned a degree in economics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1962.

State Lawmaker

He began his political career as a member of Pennsylvania’s legislature from 1969 to 1974. The death of U.S. Representative John P. Saylor, a Republican, in 1973 forced a special election in February 1974 that was viewed as a referendum on the unpopular Republican president, Richard Nixon, then beset by problems including inflation and the emerging Watergate scandal. Backed by organized labor, Murtha won by just a few hundred votes.

House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill named Murtha to the powerful Appropriations Committee, and he became chairman of the defense subcommittee in 1989.

In 1982, O’Neill sent Murtha to Beirut to review President Ronald Reagan’s decision to deploy U.S. Marines there as part of a multinational peacekeeping force.

Murtha concluded the American troops were too vulnerable. “I’d like to get them out of here as soon as possible,” he told reporters.

In 1992, he was a leading congressional critic of President George H.W. Bush’s decision to send U.S. troops to Somalia on a humanitarian mission. “The danger is we won’t be able to get them out,” Murtha warned.

Murtha’s congressional Web site said of his role in the Somalia debate: “Although his advice was not heeded, history would prove him right.”

Murtha and his wife, Joyce, had three children.

To contact the reporter on this story: Laurence Arnold in Washington at larnold4@bloomberg.net