The cause was complications of Parkinson's disease, said his wife, Stacye Hefner.

Mr. Rose, a Democrat some called Mr. Tobacco, was first elected to the House in 1972. His southeastern North Carolina district was covered with tobacco farms, but the crop's economic and geographic footprint shrank over the next two decades of his tenure.

Mr. Rose (no relation to the television interviewer of the same name) worked to ease the transition and successfully fought to preserve government price supports for tobacco even as the government was warning of its potentially lethal health effects.

"There's no way you could represent that district and not be in support of tobacco farmers," said Merle Black, a professor of politics at Emory University.

In the 1990s, the Clinton administration considered a significant increase in the federal tobacco tax to help pay for the ambitious health care overhaul proposed by the first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mr. Rose, the chairman of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Peanuts and Tobacco, led the opposition.

"In the past, the Reagan and Bush administrations were pretty reasonable about taxing tobacco," Mr. Rose said in an interview in 1995. "But I think all of us who represent tobacco states knew that the growing concern about smoking and health was going to someday lead to this type of attitude and reaction in the White House. This talk of $2 a pack is scaring us to death, and that's putting it mildly."

The health care plan did not pass, and the federal tobacco tax has yet to reach $2 per pack — it is now $1.01 — but Mr. Rose was correct that change was coming. He retired from Congress in 1996, two years after Republicans took control.

Charles Grandison Rose III was born Aug. 10, 1939, in Fayetteville, N.C. He graduated from Davidson College and received his law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He worked as a chief district court prosecutor before he was elected to the House.

Ms. Hefner, whom he married in 1995, is the daughter of former Representative Bill Hefner of North Carolina. The couple moved to Albertville several years ago to be close to Ms. Hefner's family.

Besides Ms. Hefner, Mr. Rose is survived by a sister, Irene Owen; a brother, Fred Rose; four children, Charles, Louise, Kelly and Parker; and a stepson, Joseph Hawk. Two previous marriages ended in divorce.

Mr. Rose was more liberal than many other Southern Democrats of his era, on issues including civil rights, and he was well regarded by other members of Congress for helping modernize the House by installing computers in offices and television cameras in the House chamber.

But he also faced ethics charges. In 1988, the House ethics committee issued him a "letter of reproof" for failing to disclose that he had converted campaign money for his personal use. In 1994, Mr. Rose agreed to pay $12,500 to settle a civil action brought by the Justice Department related to the same issue.

Mr. Rose and Ms. Hefner started a lobbying firm after he left office and represented a range of clients, including oncologists and R. J. Reynolds, the tobacco company, with which the firm still has a contract.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: September 4, 2012

A previous version of this obituary misstated a school from which Mr. Rose graduated. It was Davidson College, not Davidson University.