Former Rep. Charles Hatcher, who championed Georgia’s peanut industry for over a decade until losing his seat in House in 1992, has died at the age of 87.

The Georgia Democrat died Tuesday in Alexandria, Va., according to local news reports. The cause of death was not specified.

“Georgia lost a true public servant and leader,” Rep. Sanford D. Bishop Jr., D-Ga., said on the House floor Thursday, as Georgia’s congressional delegation gathered to honor the late congressman.

Bishop succeeded Hatcher in 1992. Hatcher lost to Bishop in a Democratic primary runoff after redistricting transformed his 2nd District seat into one with a Black majority. But Bishop said the two remained on good terms and that he was glad to have Hatcher’s counsel as he started his tenure on Capitol Hill.

First elected in 1980, Hatcher made his rural district’s agriculture concerns a key policy focus with one crop top of mind: peanuts.

A moderate Democrat, Hatcher crossed the aisle during his first term to vote for President Ronald Reagan’s contentious 1981 tax cuts package in an effort to preserve the federal peanut program from proposed cuts by the administration.

When the Office of Management and Budget lifted its objection to reauthorizing key portions of the peanut program, Hatcher reportedly told his constituents back home he had cut a deal to save it, although the link between the two events was questionable.

At the time Hatcher’s office argued his district grew 35 percent of the nation’s peanuts.

He also helmed the House Agriculture’s Tobacco and Peanuts Subcommittee, even flipping the order of the subcommittee name to emphasize peanuts before tobacco. During consideration of the 1990 farm bill, he also successfully lobbied for the preservation of the federal peanut program in the subcommittee’s peanut title.

“He was good to agriculture. He was good for agriculture,” Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., said on Thursday.

Getting federal funds to rural businesses was also a priority for Hatcher. In the 100th Congress, he used his perch atop the Small Business Committee’s panel on Energy and Agriculture to push for the expansion of Small Business Administration loans in rural areas. His proposal was enacted as part of the SBA’s reauthorization.

Hatcher crossed party lines on several high-profile issues at the time. He voted against his party’s proposal to block a plan to cut the capital gains tax and in favor of efforts to add amendments to the Constitution to criminalize the desecration of the U.S. flag and to require a balanced federal budget.

At the same time, he was also a reliable vote for Democratic leadership and supported the use of federal funds to pay for abortion in cases of rape or incest.

A military veteran and lawyer, Hatcher was elected to Congress following an eight-year stint in the Georgia House of Representatives. Previously, he ran a law practice in Albany, Ga.

His six terms in the House came to an end in 1992 when Bishop ousted him as a young state lawmaker. Rep. Bishop has represented the district ever since.

Born in Doerun, Ga., Hatcher served in the U.S. Air Force for four years before attending Georgia Southern University and earning a law degree from the University of Georgia in 1969.

Those involved in Georgia politics remembered his friendly demeanor and focus on service.

“I sat with him on the plane coming or going to D.C. numerous times. We talked old school politics…” Jody Redding, the director of field services at Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s office, wrote in a social media post on Hatcher. “They don’t make ‘em like Charles Hatcher anymore. He will be missed.”