Anne Levy Wexler (February 10, 1930 – August 7, 2009) was an influential American Democratic political consultant, public policy advisor, and later the first woman to head a leading lobbying firm in Washington, D.C.
She married ophthalmologist Richard Wexler two weeks after her 1951 graduation. As a housewife in Westport, Connecticut, she described herself as having "all the Jewish princess stuff—a lovely home, a full-time maid, lots of vacations" before she started becoming involved in politics.[1]
Political career
In the 1960s, Wexler began her political career by serving on the Westport Zoning Board of Appeals and by helping John Fitzgerald organize a Congressional campaign against the pro-Vietnam war Democratic incumbent Donald J. Irwin.[2] She organized the Connecticut effort for Eugene McCarthy's 1968 presidential campaign, and served on the rules committee at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where she was the primary author of the committee's minority report, whose recommendations on reforms in choosing delegates were later accepted.[1]
Working for Common Cause in 1971, Wexler headed a short-lived voting rights effort before directing the 1972 presidential campaign of Democrat Edmund Muskie. When Muskie dropped out of the race, she led a voter registration campaign for Democratic nominee George McGovern, who was defeated by Richard Nixon in the general election.[1]
Rolling Stone magazine hired Wexler as an associate publisher in 1973, where her duties managing political reporting included overseeing the notoriously unconventional Gonzo journalistHunter S. Thompson, who would sometimes stay at the Duffey-Wexler residence while in Washington, D.C.[1]
Wexler later moved to the White House, succeeding Midge Costanza as special assistant to President Carter for public outreach within the White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs. In that role, she set up meetings with the President with hundreds of business and opinion leaders, working to get their support for Carter's agenda as part of an effort she described as intended to "create lobbyists" by "educating people on the substance of the issues".[1][4][5] Assisted by her efforts, Carter was able to secure passage of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties that would lead to the end of U.S. control over the Panama Canal, as well as deregulation of the airlines, trucking industry and newly found natural gas.[1]
Immediately after the Carter administration ended with the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980, Wexler established what would become one of the leading lobbying firms in Washington, Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates,[1][6]
Called the "Rolodex Queen" for the number and scope of her contacts, and lauded by Washingtonian magazine as "easily the most influential female lobbyist" in the capital, she credited her success to fulfilling the lobbyist's responsibility of guiding legislators through the pros and cons of complex legislation, a process that "government officials are not comfortable making ... by themselves."[1][7]
Death
She died at the age of 79 on August 7, 2009, in her home in Washington, D.C. from cancer.[3] Wexler had had breast cancer since being diagnosed in 1981.[8] She was survived by her second husband, Joseph Duffey; two sons from her first marriage, David and Daniel Wexler; stepsons, Michael and David Duffey; and four grandchildren.[3]
