Lowell Weicker
Lowell Palmer Weicker Jr. (/waɪkər/; May 16, 1931 – June 28, 2023) was an American politician who served as a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the 85th Governor of Connecticut.
Lowell Weicker
Multi-member district
Robert D. Rogers
Griffith Harris
John Taintor
May 16, 1931
Paris, France
June 28, 2023 (aged 92)
Middletown, Connecticut, U.S.
American
- Republican (before 1990)
- A Connecticut Party (1990–1995)
- Independent (from 1995)
-
Marie-Louise Godfrey(m. 1953; div. 1977)
-
Camille DiLorenzo Butler(m. 1977; div. 1984)
-
Claudia Testa Ingram(m. 1984)
5
- 1953–1955 (active)
- 1959–1964 (reserve)
Weicker unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for president in 1980. One of the first Republican members of Congress to express concerns about President Richard Nixon's role in the Watergate scandal, Weicker developed a reputation as a "Rockefeller Republican", eventually leading conservative activists to endorse his opponent Joe Lieberman, a New Democrat, in the 1988 Senate election which he subsequently lost. Weicker 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 at the time, doing so on the ticket of A Connecticut Party.
Early life[edit]
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 between 1953 and 1955, reaching the rank of first lieutenant.[5]
Weicker served in the Connecticut State House of Representatives from 1963 to 1969 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.[6][7] Weicker benefited from a split in the Democratic Party in that election: two-term incumbent Thomas Dodd ran as an independent after losing the Democratic nomination to Joseph Duffey.[8] Ultimately, Weicker won with 41.7 percent of the vote. Dodd finished third, with 266,500 votes—far exceeding Weicker's 86,600-vote margin over Duffey.[9][10]
Weicker served in the U.S. Senate for three terms, from 1971 to 1989. He gained national attention for his service on the Senate Watergate Committee, where he became the first Republican senator to call for Richard Nixon's resignation.[11] He recalled: "People in Connecticut were very much behind President Nixon, like the rest of the country. They thought he could do no wrong, and when I was in Connecticut, I would get flipped the bird all the time, whether it was on the streets or in the car, for the role that I was playing. After Watergate was over, then the needle goes all the way the other way, and I've got huge favorability ratings."[12] Proving this, Weicker was convincingly reelected in 1976.[13]
In 1980, he made an unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination for president.[14]
Weicker was a liberal voice in an increasingly conservative Republican Party. For instance, in 1986, Americans for Democratic Action rated Weicker as by far the most liberal Republican in the Senate, and gave him a higher rating than Connecticut's other Senator, Democrat Chris Dodd.[15] He was critical of the increasing influence of the Christian right on the party; he described the separation of church and state as "this country's greatest contribution to world civilization",[16] and the party in 2012 as "swung off so far to the right that no moderate could've survived a primary."[12] Weicker voted in favor of the bill establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday and the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 (as well as to override President Reagan's veto).[17][18][19] Weicker voted against the nomination of William Rehnquist as Chief Justice of the United States,[20] as well as the nomination of Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court.[21]
Weicker was a strong advocate for the rights of the disabled during his tenure in Congress, although he ultimately lost his seat before the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 passed.[22] In later interviews, Weicker identified his work on the Americans with Disabilities Act, funding the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, increasing the funding for the National Institutes of Health, and funding research into AZT as his proudest achievements in the Senate.[23][12]
Weicker's tense relations with establishment Republicans may have roots in receiving strong support from 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.[24] 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.[25] Weicker's well-known Democratic sympathies increasingly alienated mainstream Republicans, particularly after an effort to prevent the nomination of conservatives to state office, which resulted in a poor showing during the 1986 local elections, and he was defeated in the 1988 Senate election by Joe Lieberman.[11][16] Lieberman benefited from the support of National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr., and his brother, former New York Senator James Buckley; William F. Buckley ran columns in support of Lieberman and circulated bumper stickers with the slogan, "Does Lowell Weicker Make You Sick?"[16]
Governor[edit]
Weicker's political career appeared to be over after his 1988 defeat, and he became a professor at the George Washington University Law School. However, he entered the 1990 gubernatorial election as the candidate of A Connecticut Party, running as a good government candidate[26] and drew upon his coalition of liberal Republicans, moderate Democrats, and independent voters.[16] The early 1990s recession had hit Connecticut hard, worsened by the fall in revenues from traditional sources such as sales tax and corporation tax.[27] Connecticut politics had a tradition at the time of opposition to a state income tax—one had been implemented in 1971 but rescinded after six weeks under public pressure.[28][16] Weicker initially campaigned on a platform of solving Connecticut's fiscal crisis without implementing an income tax. He won in a three-way race with Republican John G. Rowland and Democrat Bruce Morrison, taking 40% of the vote against Rowland's 37% and Morrison's 21%. Weicker lost Fairfield and New Haven County counties to Rowland, but won eastern Connecticut, drawing 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. The Los Angeles Times wrote that support from Democrats was credited for Weicker's victory, reflected in Morrison's third-place finish.[11]
After taking office, with a projected $2.4 billion deficit,[29][27] Weicker reversed himself and pushed for the adoption of an income tax, a move that was very unpopular.[27][16] He stated, "My policy when I came in was no income tax, but that fell apart on the rocks of fiscal fact."[30] Weicker vetoed three budgets that did not contain an income tax, and forced a partial government shutdown, before the General Assembly narrowly passed it in 1991.[28] The 1991 budget set the income tax rate at 6%,[31] lowered the sales tax from 8% to 6% while expanding its base, reduced the corporate tax to 10.5% over two years, and eliminated taxes on capital gains, interest, and dividends.[28][29] It also included $1.2 billion in line-by-line budget cuts,[30] including the elimination of state aid to private and parochial schools, but held the line on social programs.[16] His drastic measures provoked controversy.[27] A huge protest rally in Hartford attracted some 40,000 participants, some of whom cursed at and spat at Governor Weicker.[16][26]
Weicker earned lasting criticism for his implementation of the income tax; the conservative Yankee Institute claimed in August 2006 that after fifteen years the income tax had failed to achieve its stated goals.[32] However, he earned national attention for his leadership on the issue, receiving the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation's Profile in Courage Award for taking an unpopular stand, then holding firm.[33] Within two years, the state's budget was in surplus and he was well-regarded among voters.[16] In retirement, he commented, "You've had 19 years to repeal it, and all you've done is spend it."[23][12]
Despite his increasing popularity, he did not seek re-election as governor in 1994, citing wanting to spend time with his children as the reason. His last year in office was marked by a controversy over the firing of the state commissioner of motor vehicles, Louis Goldberg.[26] 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. He expressed sympathy for the budget struggles of Governor Dannel Malloy, drawing a parallel with his own efforts to remedy a fiscal crisis.[23][12]
In his book Independent Nation (2004), political analyst John Avlon describes Weicker as a radical centrist governor and thinker.[34]
Personal life and death[edit]
Weicker lived in Old Lyme, Connecticut, in his later years.[6] He was married three times and had five sons.[6] His first marriage, to Marie Louise Godfrey, lasted from 1953 to their divorce in 1977.[24] He then married Camille Butler, his secretary. Their six-year marriage was described by The Connecticut Mirror as "tumultuous", and it ended in divorce.[24] His third marriage, to Claudia Testa Ingram, lasted from 1984 until Weicker's death, at Middlesex Hospital in Middletown, Connecticut, on June 28, 2023, at age 92.[24][44] By the time of his death, he was the final former member of the Senate Watergate Committee.