• Influence
• Longevity

Joe Lieberman

Senior Senator from Connecticut

As tensions rise in the Middle East and an Israeli military strike seems imminent, a resolution calling on Congress to rule out any foreign policy approach that would accept Iran as a regional power with nuclear strike capability has been making the rounds in the Senate.  Spearheaded by Senator Lindsey Graham, and our Member of the Week, Senator Joe Lieberman, the resolution is making Democratic senators reluctant to press President Obama to take more aggressive actions against Iran.

Attempts to recruit Democratic lawmakers to their cause is falling short, even though Senator Lieberman, as well as Senator Graham, are considered some of the top foreign policy experts in the upper chamber.

Born in Stamford, Connecticut on February 24, 1942, Lieberman is the descendant of Polish and Austrian immigrants.  He received a Bachelor of Arts in both political science and economics from Yale University in 1964 and was the first member of his family to graduate from college.  At Yale he was editor of the Yale Daily News.  Lieberman received his law degree from Yale Law School in 1967.  After graduating from law school, Lieberman worked as a lawyer for Wiggin & Dana LLP.

Lieberman started his political career relatively early.  He was elected to the Connecticut Senate in 1970, serving 10 years, including the last six as Majority Leader.  His first defeat came in the Reagan landslide year of 1980, losing the race for the 3^rd District Congressional seat to Republican Lawrence Joseph DeNardis.  From 1983 to 1989, Lieberman served as Connecticut Attorney General.  In the 1986 general election, he won more votes than any other Democrat on the statewide ticket, including Governor William O’Neill.  As Attorney General, Lieberman emphasized consumer protection and environment enforcement.

Lieberman’s jump to the Senate was pretty straightforward (though that would not be the case later in his career).  In 1988, Lieberman defeated moderate Republican Lowell Weicker to win a seat in the Senate by a margin of 10,000 votes.  The electoral win was seen as the nation’s biggest political upset that year, after being supported by a strange coalition of Democrats and conservative Republicans, who were disappointed in three-term incumbent Weicker.  Lieberman’s re-election campaign in 1994 was historic – he won by the largest landslide ever in a Connecticut Senate race, drawing 67 percent of the vote and beating his opponent by more than 350,000 votes.

In 2001, Lieberman began to exercise his influence within Congress.  He became Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, chair of its Subcommittee Clean Air, Wetlands, and Private Property, and chaired the Airland Subcommittee within the Armed Services Committee.  When Republicans gained control of the Senate in January 2003, Lieberman resumed his role as ranking minority member in these committees.

Lieberman’s claim to fame began in 2000, when Al Gore selected him as the nominee for Vice President of the United States.  As such, he became the first Jewish candidate on a major political party ticket.  The announcement of Lieberman’s selection was unusual in that it did not cause a positive “bump” in the Gore campaign’s poll numbers.

In 2004, he announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination as a candidate in the 2004 presidential election.  Despite initially leading in the polls in the primaries, his stance on certain political positions failed to win him support amongst liberal Democratic voters.  His former running candidate Al Gore did not support him and, after failing to win any of the five primaries or two caucuses held on February 3, 2004, withdrew his candidacy.

Before endorsing Republican Senator John McCain for President in 2008, Lieberman went through the trial and tribulations of the 2006 Senate election.  Initially seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for U.S. Senate, Lieberman would go on to lose to Ned Lamont, a businessman and antiwar candidate.  Sensing defeat, and the loss of Democratic sponsorship, Lieberman filed papers to appear on the November ballot as an independent candidate.  He would eventually concede the Democratic primary to Lamont.

During the general election, Lieberman faced criticism from Democratic leadership – Howard Dean called him “disrespectful” to Democrats and the Democratic Party.  Notwithstanding, numerous Republicans endorsed Lieberman.  On November 7, Lieberman won re-election with 49.7 percent of the vote.  Following the election, he struck a deal with Democratic leadership allowing him to keep his seniority and chairmanship of the Governmental Affairs Committee.

As a Senator, Lieberman is an outspoken supporter of the U.S. – Israel relationship.  On domestic issues, he strongly supports free trade economics while reliably voting for pro-trade union legislation.  He was also opposed filibustering Republican judicial appointments.  Moreover, he is a supporter of abortion rights and of the rights of gays and lesbians to adopt children, to be protected with hate-crime legislation, and to serve openly in the military.

Perhaps his most controversial legislation is his most recent.  In January 2012, Lieberman co-sponsored the Enemy Expatriation Act with Congressman Charles Dent.  The proposal would allow the United State government to strip U.S. citizens of their citizenship without requiring that the citizen have been convicted of any crime.

Facing re-election in 2012, it will be interesting to see the campaign run by Lieberman.  His influence runs parallel to the respect he garners from his colleagues.  Whether or not he is still considered a “reform Democrat” is a major question but his ability to straddle the aisle will come in handy as Congress faces increasingly divisive issues.

–Amendment202

Did you enjoy our profile on Senator Joe Lieberman, check out our other Members of the Week!