Former Connecticut Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., maverick senator throughout Watergate, dies at 92

HARTFORD, Conn. — Lowell P. Weicker Jr., a Republican U.S. senator who tussled along with his personal occasion throughout the Watergate hearings, championed laws to guard folks with disabilities and later was elected Connecticut governor as an impartial, died Wednesday. He was 92.

Weicker’s demise at a hospital in Middletown, Conn., after a brief sickness, was confirmed by his household in a press release launched by a spokesperson.

With a 6-foot-6-inch body and a shoot-from-the-hip model, Weicker was a number one determine in Connecticut politics from his first election to the General Assembly in 1962 till he determined in opposition to working for a second time period as governor in 1994.

He impressed sturdy emotions amongst many individuals he met. In one ballot, opinion was break up over whether or not Weicker was “decisive and courageous,” or “inflexible and arrogant.”

“I think he was just incredibly genuine, a little unfiltered,” Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat who thought-about Weicker a good friend, advised the Associated Press in 2021. “And we sort of miss that in this day and age with the teleprompter.”

Elected in 1990 to his single time period as governor, Weicker restructured Connecticut’s income system, shepherding in a brand new revenue tax regardless of vocal opposition. He additionally helped craft a compact with the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation which in the end introduced on line casino playing to japanese Connecticut.

“He was a leader who constantly challenged the status quo. He didn’t want to win any popularity contests,” mentioned Republican state Sen. Ryan Fazio, who represents Greenwich, the city the place Weicker as soon as served as first selectman. Such impartial mindedness was praised Wednesday by Republicans like Fazio in addition to Democrats, who management state authorities and the state’s congressional delegation.

“He did immense good for Connecticut and our country, and he did it his way,” mentioned Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Former Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy praised Weicker for being “tough and compassionate at the same time.”

Nationally, Weicker’s political marquee burned brightest throughout the 1973 hearings of the Senate’s particular committee on Watergate. One of three Republicans on the seven-member panel, the freshman senator was not afraid to criticize President Richard Nixon, his personal occasion or the tried cover-up.

In his 1995 autobiography “Maverick: A Life in Politics,” Weicker mentioned he didn’t volunteer for a spot on the committee to be an “anti-Nixon man,” or a “tough prosecutor,” acknowledging that he supported Nixon politically and the way Nixon campaigned for him in 1968 and 1970.

“More and more, events were making it clear that the Nixon White House was a cauldron of corruption,” Weicker wrote. “And even as disclosures kept coming, more and more national leaders were acting as though nothing especially unusual had happened.”

Barry Sussman, a former Washington Post editor who labored with Weicker on his autobiography, credited Weicker with taking the Watergate scandal extra severely than his Senate colleagues and for investigating whether or not Nixon underreported his revenue.

“None of the other Republican senators had any interest in doing any probing, period,” Sussman mentioned. “That was basically true of the Democrats, too.”

Weicker was born in Paris in 1931, to Lowell P. Weicker Sr. – whose household based the pharmaceutical large E.R. Squibb and Sons – and the previous Mary Bickford, a daughter of a outstanding British household.

After faculty, regulation faculty and repair within the Army, Weicker was elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1962 and served three phrases. His nationwide political profession started in 1968 with election to the U.S. House of Representatives. Two years later, he moved as much as the U.S. Senate.

Besides serving on the Watergate committee, Weicker labored for passage of the War Powers Act. The father of a kid with developmental disabilities, he sponsored the Protection and Advocacy for the Mentally Ill Act in 1985 and 1988 and launched laws that will later turn out to be the Americans with Disabilities Act.

But Weicker was at odds with the conservative wing of his occasion on social points equivalent to faculty prayer, busing and abortion.

Irritated Republicans in 1988 backed then-Democrat Joe Lieberman and denied Weicker a fourth time period within the Senate. But two years later, he was again in politics with a brand new affiliation. He gained the governor’s workplace, sworn in because the state’s first – and final – impartial governor for the reason that Civil War, heading a brand new impartial political occasion referred to as A Connecticut Party.

When he took workplace, Connecticut’s finances deficit was $963 million. During the 1990 marketing campaign, Weicker opposed instituting a private state revenue tax, saying it could be like “pouring gasoline on a fire.” But his finances secretary satisfied him the tax was the one fiscally accountable alternative.

Weicker vetoed three state budgets handed by legislators till he received his method. On Aug. 22, 1991, lawmakers lastly handed a finances with a 4.5 p.c flat revenue tax and a discount within the gross sales tax from 8 to six p.c, coupled with spending cuts.

An estimated 40,000 protesters packed the state Capitol grounds in Hartford on Oct. 5, 1991, demanding lawmakers “axe the tax.” Some hanged him in effigy. Meanwhile, others, together with furloughed state staff, protested Weicker’s finances cuts. A nun mentioned she would “pray that he burns forever in the fires of hell” for attempting to slash state assist to parochial faculties.

Weicker’s favorability ranking plummeted however the revenue tax prevailed and the state ended the 1992 fiscal 12 months with a $110 million surplus.

The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation awarded Weicker a Profiles in Courage Award in 1992.

He mentioned his determination in opposition to searching for a second time period was a matter of household and cash, not politics. Weicker mentioned he wished to spend extra time along with his third spouse, Claudia Testa, his seven youngsters and his grandchildren. He mentioned he additionally wished to make more cash than the governor’s annual wage on the time, $78,000.