James L. Buckley
| James Buckley | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit | |
| In office December 17, 1985 – August 31, 1996 | |
| Appointed by | Ronald Reagan |
| Preceded by | Edward Tamm |
| Succeeded by | John Roberts |
| Undersecretary of State for International Security Affairs | |
| In office February 28, 1981 – August 20, 1982 | |
| President | Ronald Reagan |
| Preceded by | Matthew Nimetz |
| Succeeded by | William Schneider |
| United States Senator from New York | |
| In office January 3, 1971 – January 3, 1977 | |
| Preceded by | Charles Goodell |
| Succeeded by | Daniel Patrick Moynihan |
| Personal details | |
| Born | James Lane Buckley March 9, 1923 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Political party | Conservative Party (Before 1976) Republican Party (1976–present) |
| Spouse(s) | Ann Cooley |
| Alma mater | Yale University |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
James Lane Buckley (born March 9, 1923) is a retired judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and previously served as a United States Senator from the state of New York as a member of the Conservative Party of New York from January 3, 1971 to January 3, 1977. He was vice president and director of the Catawba Corporation from 1953 to 1970, and also served as Undersecretary of State for Security Assistance 1981–1982, as well as President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc. 1982–1985.
Buckley was also the lead petitioner in a landmark Supreme Court case, Buckley v. Valeo, which "shaped modern campaign-finance law."[1] He successfully challenged the constitutionality of a law limiting campaign spending in Congressional races.
Buckley also introduced landmark legislation enacted by Congress to protect student records — the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) — as well as the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), which requires parent consent prior to administration of student surveys on any of eight sensitive topics.
In 1970, he was elected to the U.S. Senate as the nominee of the Conservative Party of New York, winning 38.7 percent of the vote in a six candidate race,[2] and served from 1971 until 1977. To date he has been the only candidate of his party, and the last third party registrant,[3] to be successfully nominated and elected to the U.S. Congress.[4]
"Buckley went on to a distinguished career as an undersecretary of state—during Reagan’s first term—and a federal appellate judge. In between, Buckley held a number of other positions, including as president of Radio Free Europe in the mid-1980s. These varied roles render him perhaps the only living American to have held high office in all three branches of the federal government."[1]
William F. Buckley Jr., the founder of the influential conservative magazine National Review, was James Buckley's younger brother.
Early life; education and early career
Buckley was born in New York City to lawyer and businessman William Frank Buckley, Sr., of Irish-Catholic descent, and Aloise Josephine Antonia (née Steiner) Buckley, a Southerner of Swiss-German descent. He is the older brother of conservative writer William F. Buckley, Jr. and the uncle of Christopher Taylor Buckley. He is also the uncle of Brent Bozell III and political consultant William F. B. O'Reilly. A 1943 graduate of Yale University, where he was a member of Skull and Bones,[5][6][7] Buckley enlisted in the United States Navy in 1942 and was discharged with the rank of lieutenant in 1946. After receiving his law degree from Yale Law School, he was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1950 and practiced law until 1953, when he joined Catawba as vice president and director. Buckley was married to Ann Cooley Buckley (died December 30, 2011) and resides in Sharon, Connecticut.
Political career
In 1968, Buckley challenged liberal Republican Senator Jacob K. Javits for re-election. Javits won easily, but Buckley received a large number of votes from disaffected conservative Republicans. In 1970, he ran on the Conservative Party line for the U.S. Senate, facing a Democrat and the Republican incumbent Charles Goodell. Goodell had been appointed to the Senate by Governor Nelson Rockefeller following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Goodell had moved left, especially as an opponent of the Vietnam War. Buckley's campaign slogan, plastered on billboards statewide, was "Isn't it time we had a Senator?"[8]
With Goodell and the Democratic nominee Richard Ottinger splitting the liberal vote, Buckley won with 39% of the vote, and entered the Senate in January 1971. "He performed well in New York City itself, at a time when the city still had a beating conservative heart in the middle-class neighborhoods of the outer boroughs."[1]
In his 1976 re-election bid, with Rockefeller's liberal GOP faction falling apart, Buckley received the Republican nomination. Initially, he was favored for re-election, because the frontrunner in the crowded Democratic field was Manhattan Congresswoman Bella Abzug, a liberal feminist reviled by the right. But when Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, made a late entrance into the Democratic primary and narrowly defeated Abzug, Buckley could no longer count on getting the votes of moderate Democrats. Moynihan went on to defeat Buckley 54% to 45%.
After his loss, Buckley moved to Connecticut, and in 1980 received the Republican nomination for the Senate seat being vacated by the retirement of Abraham Ribicoff. He lost the general election to Christopher Dodd, who would go on to hold the seat until his retirement in 2011.
Senate tenure
In 1974, he proposed a "human life" amendment, which defined the term "person" in the Fourteenth Amendment to include the embryo. His enacted legislation includes the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) that governs use of student records and the Protection of Pupils' Rights Act (PPRA) that requires parent notification, right to review, and consent for administration of student surveys to minors if the survey collects information on any of eight specified topics.
1976 Republican National Convention
During the 1976 Republican National Convention, then-Senator Jesse Helms encouraged a "Draft Buckley" movement, as an effort to stop the nomination of Ronald Reagan for President. Reagan had announced that Pennsylvania Senator Richard Schweiker would be his running-mate if picked; Helms believed that Schweiker was too liberal. The "Draft Buckley" movement was mooted when President Gerald Ford very narrowly won the party's nomination on the first ballot.[9][10]
Judicial career
In the first Reagan administration, Buckley initially served as an undersecretary of State and then as President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from 1982 to 1985.
He was appointed in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He became a senior (semi-retired) judge of that Court in 1996.
Books
Buckley is the author of three books. Freedom at Risk: Reflections on Politics, Liberty, and the State, was released in December 2010. Buckley discussed Freedom at Risk on C-SPAN on January 12, 2011.[11]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Russello, Gerald. Mr. Buckley Goes to Washington, The American Conservative
- ↑
- ↑ William Carney was registered as a Conservative, but won the Republican primary in New York's 1st congressional district in 1978. Robert Spitzer (1994), "Third Parties in New York State", in Jeffrey M. Stonecash, John Kenneth White, and Peter W. Colby, edd., Governing New York State, Third Edition, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- ↑ While elected in 2006 on the "Connecticut for Lieberman" line, Joe Lieberman's voter registration was and is Democratic. Vermont independent Bernie Sanders is not registered as a member of any political party. Neither Vermont Independent Jim Jeffords nor the Independence Party of Minnesota's Dean Barkley was ever elected as an Independent, though, after leaving office, Barkley ran as the Independence Party's candidate in the United States Senate election in Minnesota, 2008.
- ↑ Alexandra Robbins, Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power, Little, Brown and Company, 2002, page 168, 174
- ↑ "People in the News", Associated Press, May 27, 1983
- ↑ Bob Dart, "Skull and bones a secret shared by Bush, Kerry", The Gazette, March 7, 2004
- ↑ Topic Galleries Chicago Tribune
- ↑ World Almanac and Book of Facts 1977
- ↑ http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/program.pl?ID=489475 Vanderbilt Television News Archive
- ↑ C-SPAN program on Freedom at Risk
Further reading
- Buckley, James Lane (1975). If Men Were Angels: A View From the Senate. New York: Putnam. ISBN 0-399-11589-7.
- Buckley, James Lane (2006). Gleanings from an Unplanned Life: An Annotated Oral History. Wilmington: Intercollegiate Studies institute. ISBN 978-1-933859-11-8.
- Buckley, James Lane (2010). Freedom at Risk: Reflections on Politics, Liberty, and the State. New York: Encounter Books. ISBN 1-59403-478-8.
External links
- James L. Buckley at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
- James L. Buckley at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
- Official website of James L. Buckley
- James L. Buckley at the C-SPAN Video Library
| United States Senate | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Charles Goodell |
United States Senator (Class 1) from New York 1971–1977 Served alongside: Jacob Javits |
Succeeded by Daniel Patrick Moynihan |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by Charles Goodell |
Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from New York (Class 1) 1976 |
Succeeded by Florence Sullivan |
| Preceded by James Brannen |
Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Connecticut (Class 3) 1980 |
Succeeded by Roger Eddy |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Matthew Nimetz |
Undersecretary of State for International Security Affairs 1981–1992 |
Succeeded by William Schneider |
| Legal offices | ||
| Preceded by Edward Tamm |
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit 1985–1996 |
Succeeded by John Roberts |
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