Lowell P. Weicker Jr.
Lowell P. Weicker Jr. | |
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85th Governor of Connecticut | |
In office January 9, 1991 – January 4, 1995 |
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Lieutenant | Eunice Groark |
Preceded by | William A. O'Neill |
Succeeded by | John G. Rowland |
United States Senator from Connecticut |
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In office January 3, 1971 – January 3, 1989 |
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Preceded by | Thomas J. Dodd |
Succeeded by | Joseph I. Lieberman |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Connecticut's 4th district |
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In office January 3, 1969 – January 3, 1971 |
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Preceded by | Donald J. Irwin |
Succeeded by | Stewart McKinney |
Member of the Connecticut House of Representatives | |
In office 1962–1966 |
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Personal details | |
Born | Lowell Palmer Weicker Jr. May 16, 1931 Paris, France |
Political party | Republican (to 1990) A Connecticut Party (1990–95) Independent (since 1995) |
Spouse(s) | Claudia Weicker |
Alma mater | Yale University (B.A.) University of Virginia (J.D.) |
Profession | Politician |
Military service | |
Service/branch | United States Army |
Years of service | 1953–1955 |
Battles/wars | Korean War |
Lowell Palmer Weicker Jr. (born May 16, 1931) is an American politician who served as a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the 85th Governor of Connecticut. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for President in 1980. Though a member of the Republican Party during his time in Congress, he later left the Republican Party and became one of the few third party candidates to be elected to a state governorship in the United States in recent years.
Contents
Early life
Weicker was born in Paris, the son of American parents Mary Hastings (née Bickford) and Lowell Palmer Weicker.[1] His grandfather, Theodore Weicker, was a German immigrant who co-founded the E. R. Squibb corporation.[2][3] Weicker graduated from the Lawrenceville School (class of 1949), Yale University (1953), and the University of Virginia School of Law (1958).[4] He began his political career after serving in the United States Army (1953–55).
Career in Congress
Weicker served in the Connecticut State House of Representatives from 1962 to 1966 and as First Selectman of Greenwich, Connecticut before winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives, in 1968 as a Republican. Weicker only served one term in the House before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1970. He served in the U.S. Senate for three terms, from 1971 to 1989, before being defeated for a fourth term by Joe Lieberman. He gained national attention for his service on the Senate Watergate Committee. In 1980, he made an unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination for President.[5] Weicker was a liberal voice in an increasingly conservative Republican Party. "In its 1986 rankings, the venerable Americans for Democratic Action rated Weicker the most liberal Republican in the Senate, by far—and 20 percentage points more liberal than his fellow Connecticut senator, a Democrat named Chris Dodd."[6]
Weicker was a strong advocate for the rights of the disabled during his time in Congress, although he ultimately lost his seat before the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 passed.[7]
Weicker's tense relations with establishment Republicans may have roots in receiving strong support from President Nixon in his 1970 Senate bid, support repaid in the eyes of his critics by a vehement attack on the White House while serving on the Watergate Committee. Later, his relations with the Bush family soured, and Prescott Bush Jr. (the brother of the then Vice President) made a short-lived bid against Weicker to gain the 1982 Republican Senate nomination.[8] Finally, conservative animus spilled into overt support for Joe Lieberman in 1988, both from national sources such as National Review (publisher William F. Buckley Jr., and his brother, former New York Senator James Buckley, both endorsed and campaigned for Lieberman in 1988), but more importantly, from rank-and-file Connecticut Republicans irate with Weicker's effort to make the local party more liberal and prevent the nomination of conservatives to state office, and the poor showing of Weicker-backed candidates in the 1986 elections. Weicker was defeated in the 1988 election by less than 1 percent of the vote, owing in large part to defections by Republicans to Lieberman.[citation needed]
Governor
Weicker's political career appeared to be over after his 1988 defeat for reelection to the Senate by Lieberman, and he became a professor at the George Washington University Law School. However, two years later, he ran for Governor of Connecticut as a member of "A Connecticut Party" against Republican John G. Rowland and Democrat Bruce Morrison. The most volatile issue facing Connecticut at that time was the attempt to implement a broad-based state income tax. Connecticut traditionally had no state income tax except for a fairly steep one imposed on "unearned income" such as interest and dividends.[citation needed] Weicker ran on a platform of solving Connecticut's fiscal crisis without the implementation of the broad-based income tax to include the taxation of earned income. Weicker won 40 percent of the vote on election day with Rowland taking 37 percent. Weicker lost Fairfield and New Haven counties to Rowland, but drew especially strong support from the Hartford metro area, where he had been strongly endorsed by the Hartford Courant and by many state employee labor unions. Weicker gained national attention through his victory.
However, shortly after his inauguration, Weicker reversed his position and became an advocate of the tax that he had campaigned against. Liberal forces applauded his political courage and, in their view, his willingness to face reality, while conservative forces were equally quick to denounce him in no uncertain terms as a liar.[citation needed] The broad income tax he had come to favor passed the General Assembly. However, shortly after it was implemented and the withholding for it began, a huge protest rally in Hartford attracted some 40,000 participants, some of whom cursed at and spit at Governor Weicker. After this, the Assembly passed a measure repealing the broad-based income tax, which was subsequently vetoed by Governor Weicker. The override of the veto fell a vote short, and the massively unpopular tax was kept in effect.
Weicker's critics are quick to blame his implementation of the state income tax for Connecticut's loss of one congressional district as a result of the 2000 census (based on the theory that the tax increased the rate of people leaving the state). It certainly resulted in an exodus of insurance companies[citation needed] which had previously called Hartford, Connecticut their home (in the then-popular board game Trivial Pursuit, Hartford was the answer to one question: 'What is the insurance capitol of the world?'). This position was held by the conservative Yankee Institute, which claimed in August 2006 that after fifteen years the income tax had failed to achieve its stated goals.[9] However, Weicker's supporters insist that he was the only person who could have solved the state's ongoing fiscal problems and had the courage to address them directly and forthrightly. They also note that the enactment of the income tax was coupled with a reduction of the state's sales tax to a level comparable to that of surrounding states, benefitting Connecticut merchants.
Weicker received the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation's Profiles in Courage award for taking an unpopular stand, then holding firm.[10]
Weicker did not seek re-election as governor in 1994. In 2000, he endorsed Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ) for President. In 2004, Weicker supported former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's (D-VT) presidential bid.
In his book Independent Nation (2004), political analyst John Avlon describes Weicker as a radical centrist governor and thinker.[11]
2006 candidacy for U.S. Senator from Connecticut
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Lowell Weicker was said to be considering a rematch against Senator Joe Lieberman in the 2006 election cycle. He objected to Lieberman's support for the Iraq War and noted in a New York Times article published on December 6, 2005, "If he's out there scot-free and nobody will do it [run against Senator Lieberman], I'd have to give serious thought to doing it myself, and I don't want to do it."[citation needed]
The Lieberman campaign released an ad that borrowed from one aired during the 1988 Senate race, which depicted Weicker as a hibernating bear ignoring his Senate duties except at election time. In the 2006 ad, Weicker reappeared as a wounded bear while Lieberman's Democratic challenger, Ned Lamont, was depicted as a bear cub sent and directed by Weicker. On June 18, 2006, Weicker held a fundraiser for Lamont and described himself as an "anti-war activist." (Lamont won the primary, but Lieberman, running as an independent with heavy Republican support, maintained his seat in the general election.)[citation needed]
Other activities
In 1996, Weicker joined the Board of Directors for Compuware[12] and still holds this position. In 1999, Weicker became a member of the Board of Directors for the World Wrestling Federation (now known as WWE), and held this position until 2011.[13]
Weicker served from 2001–2011 as President of the Board of Directors of Trust for America's Health, a Washington, DC-based non-profit, non-partisan health policy research organization, and formerly a member of the Board of Directors of United States Tobacco. Since 2003, Weicker has served on the board of Medallion Financial Corp., a lender to purchasers of taxi medallions in leading cities across the U.S. He was named to the board through his personal and business relationship with Andrew M. Murstein, president of Medallion.[14]
See also
References
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- ↑ http://www.scs.illinois.edu/~mainzv/HIST/bulletin_open_access/v25-1/v25-1%20p1-9.pdf
- ↑ Lowell Palmer Weicker Jr., Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Accessed December 16, 2007.
- ↑ Weicker Opens Presidential Campaign, March 13, 1979
- ↑ Kornacki, Steve (2011-01-19) The making (and unmaking) of Joe Lieberman, Salon
- ↑ http://mn.gov/mnddc/ada-legacy/ada-legacy-moment13.html
- ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/1982/07/28/us/bush-abandons-connecticut-bid-for-senate-seat.html
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Avlon, John (2004). Independent Nation: How the Vital Center Is Changing American Politics. Harmony Books / Random House, pp. 177-93 ("Radical Centrists"). ISBN 978-1-4000-5023-9.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ "The breakup: Weicker to leave the board of WWE", GreenwichTime.com, April 18, 2011
- ↑ Medallion Financial Corp. annual report, 2010, p. 78
Further reading
- Barone, Michael, et al. The Almanac of American Politics 1976: The Senators, the Representatives and the Governors: Their Records and Election Results, Their States and Districts (1975); new editions every 2 years through the 1996 editions cover his political career
- Announcement of the State Income Tax by the Connecticut Department of Revenue Service
- Lowell Weicker's papers are held at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia
United States House of Representatives | ||
---|---|---|
Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Connecticut's 4th congressional district 1969–1971 |
Succeeded by Stewart McKinney |
United States Senate | ||
Preceded by | U.S. Senator (Class 1) from Connecticut 1971–1989 Served alongside: Abraham A. Ribicoff, Christopher Dodd |
Succeeded by Joe Lieberman |
Political offices | ||
Preceded by
Gaylord Nelson
Wisconsin |
Chairman of the Senate Small Business Committee 1981–1987 |
Succeeded by Dale Bumpers Arkansas |
Preceded by | Governor of Connecticut 1991–1995 |
Succeeded by John G. Rowland |
Party political offices | ||
Preceded by | Republican nominee for United States Senator from Connecticut (Class 1) 1970, 1976, 1982, 1988 |
Succeeded by Jerry Labriola |
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- Articles with unsourced statements from October 2011
- Articles with unsourced statements from November 2013
- 1931 births
- American anti–Iraq War activists
- Connecticut local politicians
- Connecticut Republicans
- Governors of Connecticut
- Living people
- American people of German descent
- Members of the United States House of Representatives from Connecticut
- Radical centrist writers
- Republican Party United States Senators
- United States Army personnel
- United States Senators from Connecticut
- University of Virginia School of Law alumni
- Yale University alumni
- Independent state governors of the United States
- People from Paris
- Connecticut Independents
- Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives
- Lawrenceville School alumni
- Military personnel from Connecticut
- Watergate scandal investigators