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Butler Derrick, a 10-term South Carolina Democrat who won election to the U.S. House as a Watergate baby from the Class of 1974, worked to preserve his states fraying textile industry and made a surprise decision to support gun-control laws, died May 5 at his home in Easley, S.C. He was 77.

The cause was cancer, said John Gregory, a former congressional aide.

Mr. Derrick was among the many Democrats swept into office after the Watergate political scandal that led to President Richard M. Nixons resignation in August 1974.

Mr. Derrick became the senior House Democrat from South Carolina by the time he declined to seek reelection in 1994. He was the last Democrat to date to represent the 3rd District a western swath that included communities such as Aiken and Anderson. Amid the Republican resurgence of 1994, Lindsey O. Graham, now a U.S. senator, won Mr. Derricks House seat.

During his tenure on Capitol Hill, Mr. Derrick seldom frequented public affairs shows. But he rose steadily through the ranks to become, by the early 1990s, a chief deputy whip of his party and a ranking member on the House Rules Committee. He also served many years on the Budget Committee.

As chairman of the Congressional Textile Caucus, he worked effectively on a bill to impose quotas on cheap imports competing with the major but increasingly beleaguered textile industry in the South.

He opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which went into effect in 1994. Mr. Derrick said the agreement would threaten the remaining textile and apparel jobs in his district.

Mr. Derrick often voted with Democrats on environmental and nuclear energy policy because his district was home to several nuclear facilities.

He also sided with Democrats on defense and military-spending issues as well as on abortion rights. Aware of his districts growing conservative constituency, however, he supported the death penalty.

Mr. Derrick, a longtime National Rifle Association supporter, broke with the organization in the early 1990s to support gun control legislation. He voted to pass the Brady Bill named after former presidential press secretary James S. Brady, who was seriously injured in the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

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Butler Derrick dies at 77; former South Carolina congressman