 Second, the death of Democratic Representative Hale Boggs, the House Majority Leader, in a plane crash in Alaska on October 16, 1972, elevated Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill to that position when the new 93rd Congress convened in January 1973.With federal highway aid to the state scheduled to run out on June 30, 1973, work on a new highway bill began almost immediately in the new Congress.In the Senate, mass transit advocates won a major victory.