HARTFORD, Conn. — Former Connecticut Gov. Lowell Palmer Weicker Jr., a larger-than-life former U.S. senator and governor who helped create the state income tax while becoming one of the most dominant figures in Connecticut politics for decades, died Wednesday after a short illness, his family confirmed.
“It is with profound sadness and loss that we announce that husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather” died, the family said in a statement.
Blunt and feisty, loved and hated, Weicker stood out in Connecticut politics for decades as a do-it-my-way figure who won political races at the local, state, and federal levels in a long career that stretched four decades from the 1960s into the 1990s.
Praised by his supporters as a one-of-a-kind maverick, Weicker was also blasted by his detractors as a bombastic iconoclast who had his own political agenda and was too liberal for the Republican Party.
He became an outspoken national figure when he burst onto the national stage with his sharp criticisms of then-President Richard Nixon, a fellow Republican, in 1973 and 1974 during the Watergate crisis.
After winning three terms in the U.S. Senate, Weicker was harshly criticized in 1988 as being increasingly aloof and detached – leading to his upset defeat by then-upstart state attorney general Democrat Joseph I. Lieberman. Weicker was famously portrayed in Lieberman’s 30-second campaign commercial as a sleeping bear who remained in his cave and missed key votes in the U.S. Senate.
But Weicker then dropped his Republican affiliation and roared back as an independent to win the governor’s race two years later in 1990 in a memorable three-way battle against Republican John Rowland and Democrat Bruce Morrison.
His fierce independence led to his campaign motto of “nobody’s man but yours.’’
A towering figure at 6 foot 6 inches, Weicker became known to his critics as a pompous blowhard who never hesitated to blast his opponents or members of his own party, including President Ronald Reagan. He lost support among conservative Republicans, including columnist William F. Buckley of Stamford, leading to his only loss in the Senate race.
While he was perhaps best known during the past 25 years for creating the state income tax, Weicker said he did not view that as his signature achievement. He was attacked bitterly at the time as the income tax passed by razor-thin margins in the state House of Representatives and Senate after long, emotional debates.
Instead, Weicker told The Courant in an interview that his greatest accomplishments were in Washington, D.C. during 18 years in the U.S. Senate — for creating the Americans with Disabilities Act and securing AIDS funding at a time in the 1980s when it was sharply opposed by Reagan. For those accomplishments, Weicker had a building named after him at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.
“I think the income tax was probably the toughest governmental exercise I had ever been through,’’ Weicker said in an interview. “I would like to think my achievements ran to NIH. Actually, my crowning achievement was I wrote most of the disabilities laws in the country, Watergate, oceans research. I can’t say I enjoyed Watergate, but I think I did a fair job.’’
Creation of the state income tax
During the blisteringly hot summer in 1991, state residents were deeply angered when Weicker closed many state parks in Connecticut for the July 4 holiday due to the ongoing state budget crisis. That move captured the public’s attention and crystalized the anger regarding the income tax.
As Weicker and the legislature were clashing in an epic battle over the creation of the income tax, their failure to reach an agreement spilled over into the new fiscal year on July 1 that led to a partial government shutdown in order to save money.
Weicker remained steadfast by vetoing three budgets that did not include the highly controversial income tax, and lawmakers held a series of impassioned debates that became one of the most controversial political issues in state history. Nothing seemed to work as lawmakers repeatedly tried to find the right combination of taxes and spending cuts to close the huge deficit in an exercise that they compared to solving a Rubik’s Cube.
The political odyssey lasted much of the summer before the income tax was finally passed on August 22, 1991, with dramatic votes in the state Senate and House of Representatives that left legislators completely drained. All the parks reopened, but the political wounds still ran deep.
While the Capitol is known for fiery debates on sensitive issues like the death penalty, gun control and gay rights, lawmakers like Godfrey recalled that they have never experienced a more tumultuous time. The emotional issue prompted the biggest rally in decades at the state Capitol that the police officially estimated at 40,000 but that organizers – to this day – say was closer to 70,000 strong.
Weicker himself said he would not have done it differently – even though the income tax was a hybrid creation by multiple authors that was cobbled together through a series of legislative compromises. Weicker had no regrets about enacting the tax.
“No, I wouldn’t have changed anything,’’ Weicker told The Courant in an interview. “Obviously, there had to be negotiations with Democrats who controlled the House. No, there is nothing that I would have or could have changed.’’
Besides having no regrets on imposing the tax, Weicker also had no regrets on wading into the massive crowd at the anti-income-tax rally. Some of his supporters said it was not a wise idea to engage an angry crowd face to face, but Weicker did it.
“It was my choice,’’ Weicker said in an interview. “I knew what was going on. It was my choice to go right into the crowd at the rally. In this country, people hold different points of view. I had been down with Claudia in New London and several people threw bottles. … I don’t cotton to that type of behavior, nor do I give into it.’’
While Weicker had supporters, he also had many critics in the legislature and around the state.
One of the most prominent detractors was former Republican state Sen. Tom Scott, one of the leaders of the anti-income-tax coalition. He did not speak to Weicker for decades after the income tax.
“He’s attacked me in his book, and I’ve attacked him on radio,’’ Scott said. “I’ve attacked him on national television.’’
Scott added: “The people who view the income tax as the holy grail of Connecticut government and Connecticut politics will forever bow at his shrine. But for the rest of Connecticut, Lowell Weicker will be viewed as the most arrogant, pompous, conceited, duplicitous governor in the history of Connecticut who lied to the people of our state when he ran for governor and bullied the income tax through the legislature. The guy is a bully.’’
Although Scott was a hero to the anti-income tax supporters, he was derided by Democrats when he lost races for Congress in 1990 and 1992 and for governor in 1994. Scott received 11% of the vote in a five-way race in 1994 that was won by Republican John G Rowland.
Political alliance with D’Amore
Weicker outlined many of his views in his memoir, entitled “Maverick: A Life in Politics,” which was co-written with Washington Post editor Barry Sussman and published in 1995. In the memoir, Weicker said that his most trusted lieutenant, chief of staff Tom D’Amore, had advised him to avoid the crowd for his own personal safety. But Weicker said in an interview that he did not recall any opposition by D’Amore.
“Hiding in the state Capitol was not an option,’’ Weicker said. “I didn’t even talk to D’Amore.’’
When D’Amore died in 2014 at the age of 72, Weicker was deeply shaken. At a reception following D’Amore’s funeral, Weicker addressed the crowd and said that he had been having a hard time finding his sense of humor since D’Amore’s death.
Hundreds of friends of every political stripe at the funeral Mass and a later reception hailed D’Amore as a multifaceted Renaissance Man who worked with politicians on the left and the right for more than 40 years.
Using a walker on wheels, Weicker, 82, stood in front of the crowd at the reception hall and said he had been deeply moved by D’Amore’s death.
“My problem for the last five or six days has been how to get my sense of humor back,’’ Weicker told the crowd.
“Did you ever have one?’’ a Weicker friend exclaimed as the crowd laughed.
“It’s a very sad day, believe me,’’ Weicker told The Courant in a telephone interview after D’Amore’s death. “My whole career was as successful as it was because of Tom D’Amore. Tom took over all of my Senate campaigns, except the one I lost. I kid [longtime Capitol lobbyist] Jay Malcynsky because Malcynsky took over that campaign, and it was the only one I ever lost.’’
Years later, D’Amore was a key strategist for a then-obscure cable television entrepreneur from Greenwich named Ned Lamont. Weicker had known Lamont in the late 1980s from his days on the Greenwich board of selectmen. It was Weicker who brought D’Amore and Lamont together for the battle against Lieberman and the famous 2006 Senate primary in which Lamont defeated Lieberman. Lieberman then won the general election and served another six years in the Senate before retiring.
D’Amore described Weicker as “a man of many moods,’’ and the inner circle knew when Weicker was not in a particularly good mood. One of those who stood up to the boss was Richard “Dick’’ McGowan, a former newspaper reporter who served as Weicker’s chief investigator during the Watergate era. McGowan was one of the few who had the temerity to stand up to Weicker and tell him to his face that he was wrong.
“He was a real wit – never took any B.S. from Weicker,’’ D’Amore said. “Weicker really respected him. Weicker listened.’’
“Among the living and the dead, the list is very short,’’ D’Amore said, of those who would “bark back at Weicker.’’
Trump and casinos
Weicker had major clashes during the 1990s with casino developer Donald Trump, another titan with a large ego. The outspoken Weicker rarely held back in his verbal sparring with the New York developer, and Trump – more than 20 years before becoming president – also rarely held back.
Their war of insults resembled the coarse political dialogue that characterized the 2016 presidential campaign.
The battle started in October 1993, when Trump testified at a high-profile hearing in front of a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee in Washington, D.C. Clashing with members of Congress at times, Trump blasted the Mashantucket Pequot tribe by saying, “They don’t look like Indians to me.”
Jay B. Levin, a lobbyist hired by Trump to track casino interests, called Trump to tell him he was offended by the remarks.
“He told me that he would not apologize, and Donald Trump does not apologize,” said Levin, who immediately dropped Trump as a client.
Weicker, who had cut a deal for the state to receive slot machine revenues from the tribe, called Trump “that dirtbag” after the incident.
“I called him a bigot, if I recall, and he hasn’t changed,” Weicker said recently. “He called me a fat slob, but I have lost weight.”
Years later, Trump was asked by The Courant at a downtown Hartford restaurant if he regretted describing Weicker as a fat slob. Trump responded, “At least I’m accurate.’’
Trump in 2016
Outspoken even at the age of 85, Weicker blasted Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump before the watershed 2016 election. At the same time, he had little positive to say about Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“I’m very discouraged,’’ Weicker said in an interview. “I gave my life to politics. To see us, out of 350 million people, have this choice.’’
Weicker said that he would be voting for the Democratic ticket but mainly for the vice presidential pick.
“I’m voting for Tim Kaine,’’ said Weicker, a former part-time resident of Alexandria, Va. “He’s a good guy.’’
When asked to clarify that he would be voting for the ticket headed by Clinton, Weicker said, “Obviously, yes. My reason is Tim. He was both a governor and a Senator from Virginia.’’
When asked about Trump, Weicker responded, “One word – disgusting.’’
When he served as governor in the 1990s, Weicker tangled sharply with Trump multiple times when Trump was trying to build a casino in Bridgeport.
“He’s just a bad piece of news,’’ Weicker said. “He was then, and he is now.’’
Like many commentators, Weicker was far off the mark in his predictions before the 2016 elections. In fact, he predicted a “landslide’’ for Democrats soon before the election.
Besides a loss for Trump, Weicker predicted that the Republicans would suffer extensive losses in Congress. Instead, the GOP controlled both chambers of Congress after the 2016 election.
“I think the Republican Party will finally get its comeuppance,’’ Weicker said before the election. “This started when I was purged from the party. Even Ronald Reagan would be looked upon now as a liberal. This is the gotterdammerung of the Republican Party. Hopefully, they’ll pick themselves up. The same thing happened with the Democrats with George McGovern.’’
Weicker quickly noted that he was friends with his fellow U.S. senator – as they served 10 years together. McGovern died in 2012 at the age of 90.
Weicker believed that Trump could be the McGovern of the Republican Party – losing so badly that the party would be forced to rethink its future.
NIH Building named in his honor
After decades of debates and votes on virtually every issue of public importance that ranged from education to war, Weicker considered one of his greatest honors to be having a building named in his honor at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.
In the early 1980s, the AIDS virus was just emerging as a major public health problem.
The drug AZT, virtually unknown to the public at the time, was identified by experts as a medicine that promised to help slow the spread of the deadly virus. The problem? There was virtually no funding for trials for such a new drug when President Ronald Reagan was trying to cut the federal budget, and there was sometimes little sympathy at the time for the victims – gay men and drug addicts who were often considered societal outsiders.
At the time, Weicker was an influential Republican Senator who was chairman of a key subcommittee overseeing health care and human services. He stepped forward to fight for and obtain $46 million in funding on the Senate floor.
For those efforts and others to help the National Institutes of Health, a building on the main campus of the NIH in Bethesda was named in his honor. A research structure previously known simply as Building 4 was renamed the Lowell P. Weicker Building.
Weicker once had an auditorium named after him in an NIH building, but that structure was torn down on the sprawling, 70-acre campus. He said that the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, a Hawaii Democrat who was chairman of the Appropriations Committee before his death in 2012, came to him and said that a new building should be dedicated.
“This particular building handles allergy and infectious diseases and AIDS,’’ Weicker said. “It’s the research building. It also handles Ebola.’’
Weicker said that some politicians fail to realize that the nation can spread goodwill in the world through discoveries made through biomedical research.
“This is one of the great things that the United States does for the world,’’ Weicker said. “Ebola – they’ll find a cure, and it will come through the National Institutes of Health.’’
Advice
Long after he left the governorship, Weicker appeared at a public forum sponsored by the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities.
Asked his advice to politicians who were running for the state legislature, Weicker said, “Forget the party. That’s my advice to men and women who are going to run in this election. Forget it. … You’re going to have to run, I think, if you’re going to be honest, against your party on some issues. You’ve got to value the state of Connecticut more than your political party.’’
His other advice to young people was: “Don’t be afraid to lose because if you’re not afraid to lose, you’re the most dangerous man or woman on the field. You can say the truth. … Maybe if you’ll tell the truth, yeah, maybe you’ll lose. But maybe, and I think this is also true, you’ll win.’’
In the statement from his family, Weicker was remembered as “the center of our universe never failing in his love and enthusiasm for family.”
“Pop”, as he is affectional known to his grandchildren and great grandchildren, was greatly loved and will be missed. He is survived by his wife, Claudia Weicker, sons: Scot, Gray, Brian, Tre, and Sonny Weicker and stepsons Mason and Andrew Ingram, 12 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren.
Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.
