Lowell Palmer Weicker Jr

Lowell P. Weicker Jr., a liberal Republican who earned a national reputation for pugnacious political independence — first as a young United States senator during the Watergate hearings and later as a third-party governor of Connecticut — died on Wednesday June 28 2023 at a hospital in Middletown, in central Connecticut. He was 92. A Representative and a Senator from Connecticut; born in Paris, France, to American parents, on May 16, 1931; graduated, Lawrenceville Academy 1949; graduated, Yale University 1953; graduated, University of Virginia Law School 1958; served in the United States Army 1953-1955; United States Army Reserve 1959-1964; elected State representative in Connecticut general assembly 1962, 1964, and 1966; elected first selectman, town of Greenwich 1963 and 1965; attorney; elected as a Republican to the Ninety-first Congress (January 3, 1969-January 3, 1971); was not a candidate for reelection to the House of Representatives in 1970, but was elected to the United States Senate; reelected in 1976, and again in 1982 and served from January 3, 1971, to January 3, 1989; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1988; chairman, Committee on Small Business (Ninety-seventh through Ninety-ninth Congresses); professor, George Washington University School of Law 1988-1990; president and chief executive officer of Research! America 1988-1990; elected governor of Connecticut as an Independent in 1990; was not a candidate for reelection as Governor in 1994; is a resident of Greenwich, Conn. Lowell Palmer Weicker Jr. was born in Paris on May 16, 1931, the son of the chief executive of the Squibb pharmaceutical company. A grandfather, Theodore Weicker, a German immigrant, had founded the pharmaceutical company Merck & Company with George Merck and later, with a partner, purchased Squibb & Sons. Lowell Jr. attended the private Lawrenceville School in New Jersey and Yale University, graduating in 1953. After a two-year stint in the Army, he enrolled at the University of Virginia Law School and received his degree in 1958. He served in the Army Reserve until 1964. He credited some of his political views to his mother, Mary Hastings (Bickford) Weicker, a Democrat. His parents later divorced, and his mother remarried, He is survived by his wife, Claudia Weicker; his sons, Scot, Gray, Brian, Tre and Sonny; two stepsons, Mason and Andrew Ingram; 12 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.