James Lane Buckley was born on March 9, 1923, in Manhattan, New York City, to Aloise Steiner and William Frank Buckley Sr., the fourth of ten children to the couple.[3][4][5] Because their home language was Spanish, Buckley and siblings learned Spanish before they learned English.[6] He was the older brother of the late conservative writer William F. Buckley Jr. and the uncle of Christopher Taylor Buckley. He was also the uncle of Brent Bozell III and political consultant William F. B. O'Reilly. His mother, from New Orleans, was of Swiss-German, German, and Irish descent, while his paternal grandparents, from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, were of Irish ancestry.[7]
On April 6, 1970, Buckley announced that he would seek the Conservative Party's senatorial nomination again.[21] The Conservative State Committee convened inside Hotel McAlpin in Manhattan, New York City, on April 7, to select the party's nominees in the general election. Kevin P. McGovern attempted to force a primary campaign between himself and Buckley but failed to receive the 25% of delegate votes necessary for a primary. Buckley received nearly ninety percent of the delegate votes and the remainder was split between McGovern and abstaining delegates.[22][23]
On June 20, F. Clifton White, Buckley's campaign manager, announced that Buckley's campaign would circulate petitions in an attempt to gain another ballot line named the Independent Alliance Party.[24] Enough valid signatures were collected to gain the additional ballot line, but New York Secretary of StateJohn P. Lomenzo ruled that the Independent Alliance's emblem, an outline of New York with Buckley's name inside, was illegal as New York's election law limited the number of times that a candidate's name could appear on a ballot line to one.[25] Lomenzo later allowed the party onto the ballot after the emblem was changed to a shield with the letter "I" inside.[26]
In the general election Buckley defeated Goodell, and Richard Ottinger.[27] Although the Independent Alliance Party received over 100,000 votes in the general election, more than the 50,000 votes required to become an official party and automatic ballot access, it did not become an official party as its only candidate was Buckley, who ran in the Senate election and not in the gubernatorial election where the 50,000 votes were required to come from.[28]
In 1971, Buckley spoke to the Republican National Finance committee about running for reelection in the 1976 elections with the Republican nomination.[29]Peter A. Peyser challenged him in the Republican primary, but Buckley defeated him. Buckley gained Rockefeller's support by agreeing to not support Ronald Reagan's campaign against Gerald Ford in the Republican presidential primaries.[30] Buckley lost the general election to Democratic nominee Daniel Patrick Moynihan by a margin of 54% to 45%.[31]
Tenure
During his tenure in the United States Senate Buckley's political affiliation was referred to as Conservative-Republican of New York (C-R-N.Y).[32] The Republican caucus in the Senate voted 36 to 3 in favor of admitting Buckley into their caucus, with Senators Jacob Javits, John Sherman Cooper, and William B. Saxbe all opposing Buckley's admittance to the caucus.[33][34]
In 1974, Buckley proposed a Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. If passed, the Amendment would have defined the term "person" in the Fourteenth Amendment to include the embryo.[37] 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) which 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.[38]
In the spring of 1974, with the Watergate scandal continuing to grow in magnitude and seriousness, Buckley surprised and, in some cases, angered some of his allies among Republicans when he called upon the increasingly-embattled Richard M. Nixon to voluntarily resign the presidency.[39] Buckley said that in doing so, he was making no judgment as to Nixon's technical legal guilt or innocence of the accusations made against him and in fact denounced those "in and out of the media who have been exploiting the Watergate affair so recklessly" in what he called an effort "to subvert the decisive mandate of the 1972 election." However, he said that the burgeoning scandal might result in an impeachment process that would tear the country even further apart and so he declared: "There is one way and one way only by which the crisis can be resolved, and the country pulled out of the Watergate swamp. I propose an extraordinary act of statesmanship and courage—an act at once noble and heartbreaking; at once serving the greater interests of the nation, the institution of the Presidency, and the stated goals for which he so successfully campaigned"—Nixon's resignation.[40] Buckley was the first major conservative figure to call for resignation. Nixon did not resign at that time but eventually did lose the support of key Republican figures, including Senator Barry Goldwater.[41] Nixon ultimately resigned on August 9, 1974.[42]
During the 1976 Republican National Convention, then-Senator Jesse Helms encouraged a "Draft Buckley" movement in an effort to stop the nomination of Ronald Reagan for president. (Reagan had announced that Pennsylvania Senator Richard Schweiker would be his running mate; Helms objected to this decision, believing Schweiker to be too liberal.) The "Draft Buckley" movement was rendered moot when President Gerald Ford narrowly won the party's nomination on the first ballot.[44][45]
After his loss in the 1976 election, Buckley worked for Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, becoming a member of the executive committee and of its board of directors and eventually advancing to the position of corporate director.[46]
After his 1980 loss in Connecticut, Buckley served in the Reagan administration, first as an undersecretary of State for security assistance, managing military aid to strategically located countries, and then as President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich from 1982 to 1985.[47][48]
Buckley became the oldest living former elected U.S. senator following the death of Fritz Hollings in April 2019 and became the oldest living former U.S. senator following of Jocelyn Burdick in December 2019.[50][51]
Buckley turned 100 on March 9, 2023. He died from injuries suffered in a fall, in Washington, D.C., on August 18, 2023, at age 100.[3][52]
Political positions
Buckley introduced and led the passage of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, but later in 2010 he publicly supported amendment of the legislation due to college athletic departments using the legislation to hide sexual abuse allegations.[53] He voted against a minimum wage increase in 1974. Buckley was one of eight senators to vote against the Equal Rights Amendment.[54]
Electoral history
1970 Conservative Party United States Senate ballot[22]
Freedom at Risk: Reflections on Politics, Liberty, and the State (2010)[58]
Saving Congress from Itself: Emancipating the States & Empowering Their People (2014)[59]
Notes
^Though elected to the U.S. Senate as a member of the Conservative Party, Buckley caucused with Senate Republicans during his term.
References
^Taranto, James (August 1, 2014). "Nine Decades at the Barricades". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on November 26, 2021. Retrieved February 25, 2019 – via wsj.com.
^McFadden, Robert D. (November 5, 1970). "Tenacious Senator-Elect". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 11, 2021. Retrieved April 22, 2021.
^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
^Wills, Garry (March 4, 1976). "Cato's Gang". The New York Review of Books. Vol. 23, no. 3. Archived from the original on February 25, 2019. Retrieved February 25, 2019 – via www.nybooks.com.
Buckley, James Lane (1975). If Men Were Angels: A View From the Senate. New York: Putnam. ISBN0-399-11589-7.
Buckley, James Lane (2006). Gleanings from an Unplanned Life: An Annotated Oral History. Wilmington: Intercollegiate Studies institute. ISBN978-1-933859-11-8.
Buckley, James Lane (2010). Freedom at Risk: Reflections on Politics, Liberty, and the State. New York: Encounter Books. ISBN1-59403-478-8.
Buckley, James Lane (2014). Saving Congress from Itself: Emancipating the States and Empowering Their People. New York: Encounter Books.
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