Conyers supported creation of a single-payer healthcare system and sponsored the United States National Health Care Act.

He also sponsored a bill to establish Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday, and was the first congressperson to introduce legislation in support of reparations for the descendants of African American slavery.

Conyers served for a year in Korea during the Korean War as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and was awarded combat and merit citations.

[6] In 1992, Conyers won re-election to his 15th term in his new district, which included western suburbs of Detroit, with 82% of the vote against Republican nominee John Gordon.

[9] In May 2014, Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett determined that Conyers had not submitted enough valid nominating petition signatures to appear on the August 2014 Primary Election ballot.

Formed in 1969, the CBC was founded to strengthen African American lawmakers' ability to address the legislative concerns of Black and minority citizens.

[13] In 1965, Conyers won a seat as a freshman on the influential Judiciary Committee, which was then chaired by Democratic Congressman Emanuel Celler of New York.

[14] According to the National Journal, Conyers has been considered, with Pete Stark, John Lewis, Jim McDermott, and Barbara Lee, to be one of the most liberal members of Congress for many years.

Rosa Parks, known for her prominent role in the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, moved to Detroit and served on Conyers's staff between 1965 and 1988.

[13] He continued to propose legislation to establish the federal holiday in every session of Congress from 1968 to 1983, when Martin Luther King Jr. Day was finally signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.

It calls for establishing a commission to research the history of slavery in the United States and its effects on current society, which is to recommend ways to remedy this injustice against African Americans.

"My bill does four things: It acknowledges the fundamental injustice and inhumanity of slavery; It establishes a commission to study slavery, its subsequent racial and economic discrimination against freed slaves; It studies the impact of those forces on today's living African Americans; and the commission would then make recommendations to Congress on appropriate remedies to redress the harm inflicted on living African Americans.

[citation needed] In March 2016, Rep. Conyers and Representative Hank Johnson introduced legislation to protect consumers' access to civil courts.

[27][28] Conyers, who voted to impeach Nixon in July 1974,[29] wrote at the time, My analysis of the evidence clearly reveals an Administration so trapped by its own war policy and a desire to remain in office that it entered into an almost unending series of plans for spying, burglary and wiretapping, inside this country and against its own citizens, and without precedent in American history.

Conyers said: "This should not be allowed to fall down the memory hole during wall-to-wall coverage of the Michael Jackson trial and a runaway bride.

[45] The Constitution in Crisis examines much of the evidence presented by the Bush administration prior to the invasion and questions the credibility of their sources of intelligence.

[53] In deciding to drop the matter, Hastings and Berman said: After reviewing the information gathered during the inquiry, and in light of Representative Conyers's cooperation with the inquiry, we have concluded that this matter should be resolved through the issuance of this public statement and the agreement by Representative Conyers to take a number of additional, significant steps to ensure that his office complies with all rules and standards regarding campaign and personal work by congressional staff.

[53]Conyers repeatedly introduced the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, a bill that would overturn the NIH Public Access Policy, an open-access mandate of the National Institutes of Health.

[56] Writers Lawrence Lessig and Michael Eisen accused Conyers of being influenced by publishing houses, who have contributed significant money to his campaigns.

Conyers introduced a bill to set up a "truth commission" panel to investigate alleged policy abuses of the Bush administration.

He strongly opposed the accusations, saying: It shouldn't need to be said in 2009, and after the historic election of our first African-American president, but let me remind all my colleagues that patriotic Americans of all races, religions, and beliefs have the right – and the responsibility – to participate in our political process, including by volunteering to work in Congressional offices.

And the repeated calls from politicians, journalists, and other so-called experts crying out for criminal prosecutions or other extreme measures make me very uncomfortable.

[64]Conyers's statement was "in marked contrast to the repeated calls from other members of Congress and Obama administration officials to prosecute WikiLeaks head Julian Assange immediately.

"[64] In 2014, Conyers, along with Ted Yoho, introduced a bipartisan amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act which would prohibit the United States Armed Forces from providing any form of assistance to the Azov Battalion, a National Guard of Ukraine unit accused by Conyers of being a "far-right white supremacist militia".

Conyers' decision to introduce the amendment was the subject of both praise and criticism, with detractors noting that claiming that large numbers of Neo-Nazis are members of the Azov Battalion is a common theme of propaganda in Russia.

As was made vividly clear with U.S. involvement in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion decades ago, overzealous military assistance or the hyper-weaponization of conflicts can have destabilizing consequences and ultimately undercut our own national interests.

"[82] At a time when the MeToo movement was pushing for action against men who harassed women, some media and supporters in Detroit believed Conyers had been unfairly treated.

[94] Incumbent Democratic Mayor Coleman Young decided to run for a fifth term, despite growing unpopularity and the declining economy of Detroit.

[96] In June 1993, incumbent Democratic Mayor Coleman Young decided to retire instead of seeking a sixth term, citing his age and health.

[citation needed] Monica Conyers pleaded guilty to bribery charges on June 26, 2009[101] and served slightly more than 27 months in prison;[102] her sentence was completed on May 16, 2013.