Lowell Weicker

Lowell P. Weicker, Jr.
70th Governor of Connecticut
In office January 9, 1991 – January 4, 1995
Lieutenant	Eunice Groark
Preceded by	William A. O'Neill
Succeeded by	John G. Rowland
United States Senator from Connecticut
In office January 3, 1971 – January 3, 1989
Preceded by	Thomas J. Dodd
Succeeded by	Joseph I. Lieberman
Personal details
Born	(1931-05-16) May 16, 1931 Paris, France
Political party	A Connecticut Party; Republican
Spouse	Claudia Weicker
Profession	Politician

Lowell Palmer Weicker, Jr. (born May 16, 1931) is an American politician who has served as a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and Governor of Connecticut. Though a member of the Republican Party during his time in Congress, he later left the Republican Party and became one of the few independents to be elected as a state governor in the United States in recent years. Since his retirement from political office, he has moved more towards the Democratic Party.

Weicker was born in Paris, France, to American parents and is a graduate of the Lawrenceville School, Yale University (class of 1953), and the University of Virginia Law School. He began his political career after serving in the U.S. Army (1953-1955) during the Korean War.

Congressman and Senator

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. During his Senate service, Weicker was always regarded as somewhat of a maverick, and a liberal voice in an increasingly conservative Republican Party. President Reagan referred to him in his diaries as "a pompous, no good, fathead", a reflection of Weicker's attitude towards the Reagan administration.

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 the brother of then Vice President Bush (Prescott Bush, Jr.) made a short-lived bid against Weicker to gain the 1982 Republican Senate nomination. 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% of the vote, owing in large part to defections by Republicans to Lieberman.

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. 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 on election day 40-37% over Rowland, losing Fairfield and New Haven counties to Rowland, but 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. Weicker gained national attention through his upset victory. Democratic candidate Bruce Morrison’s distant third place showing in a relatively Democratic state shows that Weicker gained a large amount of his support from Democrats.

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 his willingness to "face reality", while conservative forces were equally quick to denounce him in no uncertain terms as a "liar" and a "traitor." The broad income tax he had come to favor passed the General Assembly. However, a huge protest rally in Hartford held shortly after it was implemented and the withholding for it begun, attracted over 50,000 participants. 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 losing one congressional district as a result of the 2000 census (based on a theory that the tax negatively impacted Connecticut population growth).This position was held by the conservative Yankee Institute, which claimed in August 2006 that after 15 years the income tax had failed to achieve its stated goals However, Weicker also has a cadre of supporters who 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, and 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.

Critics respond that since the income tax was implemented that studies show that Connecticut has gone from being one of the lowest-taxed per capita of the fifty states to one of the highest, if not the highest. However, Weicker supporters contend that only since his implementation of the income tax has there been an adequate stream of state revenue, including funding for areas which Connecticut voters had previously expressed support for in theory but then were unwilling to pay for, and note that Connecticut still has the highest per capita income of any of the 50 U.S. states. Weicker has a reputation, in any event, for courting controversy, and as such is well-liked by his friends and deeply disliked by his detractors. Weicker is generally well regarded by liberals, and is harshly criticized by many Republicans and some Democrats, such as Joseph Lieberman. The income tax controversy may well have prompted Weicker not to seek any further term as governor, but there seems to be little indication that he had ever intended to make that office a career as he had his Senate service.

Supporters of the income tax also pointed to the state spending cap added to the state constitution in 1992 as a benefit from its enactment. In 2007 Governor Jodi Rell proposed a budget that far exceeded the spending cap, causing one observer to remark that 16 years of fiscal discipline were being jettisoned. [1]. Ironically Rell had been an anti-tax state legislator in the early 1990s.

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.

2006 candidacy for U.S. Senator from Connecticut

Main article: Connecticut U.S. Senate election, 2006

Lowell Weicker was said to be considering a rematch against Senator Joe Lieberman in the 2006 election cycle. He objects 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 [run against Senator Lieberman], I'd have to give serious thought to doing it myself, and I don't want to do it." After polls showed Weicker twenty points behind Lieberman, Weicker chose not to run and endorsed Democrat Ned Lamont.

The Lieberman campaign released an ad which borrows 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 reappears as a wounded bear while Lamont is 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."

Other activities

In 1999, Weicker became a member of the Board of Directors for World Wrestling Entertainment, and still holds this position. He is also on the board of directors for Compuware.

Weicker is the current 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.

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