Lowell P. Weicker Jr.

Early life

Weicker was born in Paris, the son of American parents Mary Hastings (née Bickford) and Lowell Palmer Weicker. His grandfather, Theodore Weicker, was a German immigrant who co-founded the E. R. Squibb corporation. Weicker graduated from the Lawrenceville School (class of 1949), Yale University (1953), and the University of Virginia School of Law (1958). 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. 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."

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.

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. 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.

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 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. 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 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. 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.

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.

2006 candidacy for U.S. Senator from Connecticut

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."

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.)

Other activities

In 1996, Weicker joined the Board of Directors for Compuware 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.

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.