Ex-Rep. Bob Edgar (D-Pa.) has been named president and chief executive officer of Common Cause, a government watchdog group. The former Philadelphia-area lawmaker will replace Chellie Pingree, who resigned in February to run for an open House seat in her home state of Maine. [IMGCAP(1)]

After leaving Congress in 1987, Edgar ran the Claremont School of Theology in California and the National Council of Churches USA, an interdenominational Christian group. While in Congress, he worked on Super Fund legislation and assassination investigations of former President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

After six terms in the House, Edgar unsuccessfully challenged Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) in 1986, losing by about 450,000 votes. During the race, the two spent nearly $10 million, more than four times the amount Specter and his opponent raised six years earlier.

For Edgar, the experience appears to still linger more than 20 years later.

“With devastating consequences, powerful special interests distort and disrupt the democratic process in ways that shift political power away from the American people,” he said in a statement.

— Matthew Murray