Lowell P. Weicker Jr., 1931 - 2023

“Let’s go ahead and….”

Many a sentence from U.S. Senator and Connecticut Governor Lowell P. Weicker Jr. began with those four words of warning that he was already launched on whatever plan was coming next. It could be time to put dinner on the table or it could be the start of a long, complicated Senate fight to fund lifesaving AIDS research.

On Wednesday, June 28, 2023, when his health had failed and his family was gathering at Middlesex Hospital, he was ready to get going once more. At 92, Lowell Weicker had been retired from public life for decades but he never left behind the driving intelligence and impatient energy with which he swept his listeners along.

Americans bestow a singular retirement honor on fellow citizens who return to private life after tenure in high elective office. To have served in Congress or as governor of a state persists in the public mind as the prevailing achievement of a lifetime. Forever after, people instinctively address such public servants with the title of their former office, a sign of respect not just for the person but for constitutional government itself.

As both a three-term United States Senator and Governor of Connecticut for one term, Lowell P. Weicker Jr. was among an even more exclusive group. People in later years often addressed him as “Governor,” although in terms of sheer length of service, his 18 years in the Senate set him apart.

Lowell Weicker spent his career and indeed his life “set apart.” At 6 foot, 6 inches he was a bear of a man with a booming voice. He had quick feet, as a tennis player, and sometimes a quick temper. During his years in office he was caricatured for having a giant ego. But he was above all a man of quick intellect who embraced the nickname “maverick” as an epithet he was glad to wear.

His political offices started with Greenwich first selectman and progressed to representative in the General Assembly and thereafter congressman for the Fourth District. The longest arc was in the Senate, where he dedicated himself to bipartisan work. He cared more about writing life-changing law like the Americans with Disabilities Act and campaign reform than about party labels as he gradually veered away from the growing predominance of President Ronald Reagan’s brand of conservatism.

Early in his freshman term, lightning struck. Most of America first and lastingly knew Lowell Weicker from watching him on live television as a member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee investigating the Watergate burglary and the ensuing cascade of revelations. The black-and-white production of the hearings had little polish other than the grave dignity imposed by the Senate Rules but they became the first must-see political TV, opening the nation’s eyes to corruption in the campaign to re-elect President Richard Nixon.

In August 2014, as the 40th anniversary of President Nixon’s resignation approached, Senator Weicker spoke with The Day in a videotaped interview about Watergate’s place in history. By then he was the last surviving member of the committee.

Watergate introduced Americans to the notion of corruption in the presidency, he said, ending the era of blind trust.

As of nine years ago, he still agreed with committee Chairman Sam Ervin that Watergate was “the nation’s greatest tragedy, not excepting the Civil War.” His reasoning, in chilling terms that evoke the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, was that “the highest elected officer in the land ... took every aspect of the Constitution of the United States and trashed it.” He deplored the often unmentioned side effect of corruption investigations as a prolonged interruption in Congress’s other work.

In 1990, two years after narrowly losing his Senate seat, Lowell Weicker won the governorship on the ticket of A Connecticut Party. He had made his break with the Republican party.

Within the state, the Weicker name is permanently linked to two of his precedent-breaking acts as governor: the first imposition of a state income tax and the historic agreement with the Mashantucket Pequot tribe that permitted the operation of slot machines on reservation land and gave the state coffers 25 percent of the slots proceeds.

Ever since, the briefest mention of the Weicker administration starts with the income tax, a move he was slow to make but quick to defend. Once convinced that the state with the highest per-capita income ought not to be so dependent on the regressive sales tax, he persisted through resistance in the legislature. In retrospect, it was a rare act of tax reform in a state that needs still more reforms. The Day, which had long argued for the fairness of an income tax over sales taxes, supported him in his quest.

When Lowell Weicker summed up his thoughts in 2014 about corruption in government, most people did not foresee the political maelstrom of the years since. The man who was elected to one local, two state and two federal offices did not make predictions but he did make this observation: “For starters, everybody ought to vote.”

So let’s go ahead and vote, as Lowell Weicker might say. There is no more fitting acknowledgment of his long life of service to the people of Connecticut and the United States.

The Day offers its condolences to his wife, Claudia, and their seven sons and many grandchildren. Rest in peace, Governor.

The Day editorial board meets with political, business and community leaders to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Timothy Dwyer, Executive Editor Izaskun E. Larraneta, Owen Poole, copy editor, and Lisa McGinley, retired deputy managing editor. The board operates independently from The Day newsroom.