He was Vice President Al Gore's Democratic vice presidential candidate in the 2000 presidential election, won by George W. Joseph I. Lieberman, a former United States senator, died Wednesday. In Manhattan. He was 82 years old.
His family said in a statement that the cause was complications from a fall. His brother-in-law, Allie Freilich, said Lieberman's fall occurred at his home in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx and he died at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in upper Manhattan.
Lieber is a voice of national morality as the first major Democratic lawmaker to denounce President Bill Clinton's sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky at his political peak, just before he was sworn in as vice president. Mr. Mann has been nominated as Mr. Gore's candidate. He joined the party at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles in August of the same year. He became the country's first Jewish candidate to run for president of a major political party.
In subsequent campaigns, the Gore-Lieberman team emphasized themes of integrity to avoid scandals in the Clinton administration, and Lieberman appealed to Americans to bring religion and faith more prominently into public life. Ta.
This ticket won the popular vote by a narrow margin, receiving 500,000 more votes than the Bush-Cheney Republican ticket. But by the evening of Election Day, there was no clear winner in the Electoral College, and a bitter legal battle took center stage.
After weeks of debate, the results in Florida have been decided, with the difference between the opponents appearing to be less than 600 votes. In a landmark, unsigned decision on Dec. 12, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that county-by-county recount standards violate the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause and require a recount. ordered the cancellation. The decision effectively handed Florida's 25 electors and the presidency to Mr. Bush.
“This was a miscarriage of justice on two levels,” Lieberman said in a 2023 interview for the obituary. “One is that the Florida Supreme Court had already ruled in our favor to continue the recount, and the other is that this is an extrajudicial decision made during a transition of power crisis. It was a political decision and contrary to Supreme Court precedent.”
Lieberman sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, but lost several primaries and withdrew from the race in February. He believed that his support for the Iraq War doomed his candidacy.
Even his standing among voters in Connecticut declined. He ran for a fourth term in the Senate in 2006, losing to an anti-war candidate in the Democratic primary, but won in a surprising upset in the general election as a third-party independent on the “Connecticut for Mr. Lieberman” ballot line. did.
With his presidential hopes dashed, Lieberman attended the Republican National Convention in 2008 and endorsed his friend, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, for president. Mr. McCain vetted Sen. Lieberman as his running mate, but ultimately chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who lost the election to Sen. Barack Obama.
Mr. Lieberman was a virtual outcast within his own party and had stopped attending the Democratic Senate caucus. But after a humbling meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, he was allowed to continue as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee and reinstated his caucus.
As the senators neared retirement, they endorsed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who ran against Donald J. Trump in the 2016 presidential race and Joseph R. He endorsed Vice President Biden's victory over Trump.
During his time in the Senate from 1989 to 2013, Lieberman was an independent who didn't wear any labels. Although he has described himself as a reformist, centrist, and moderate Democrat, he generally sides with the Democratic Party on domestic issues such as abortion choice and civil rights, and sides with the Republican Party on foreign policy and defense policy. stood.
Although he supported Israel and referred to himself as an “observant” Jew, he was not Orthodox because he did not follow strict Orthodox practices. His family kept a kosher home and attended Shabbat services. To avoid Sabbath transportation, he once attended a service in Georgetown and then walked across town to the Capitol to stop a Republican filibuster.
Although many Democrats criticized Mr. Lieberman's support for the Iraq war, supporters said his strength with voters was his sense of justice, religious faith and compromise.
“He may be a thoroughgoing moderate politically, but he is a true conservative in temperament and style,” The New Yorker said in a 2002 profile. “His world is an orderly place, where people stand in line, wait their turn, and generally behave well.”
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Mr. Lieberman ordered the Senate to create the Department of Homeland Security, a Cabinet agency that would combine 22 federal agencies to coordinate counterterrorism and response to natural disasters. led the effort. He was appointed chairman of the new Senate Homeland Security Committee in 2003.
He also cast the 60th casting vote under Senate rules to pass Obama's 2010 Affordable Care Act, the most important health care bill since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. .
After Lieberman's death, Bush said in a statement: “As a Democrat, Joe was not afraid to engage with senators from across the aisle and worked hard to win votes from outside his party.” Ta. “He engaged in serious and thoughtful discussions with his opponents on important issues.”
Mr. Lieberman, a Yale-educated lawyer, began his political career in 1970 by ousting Ed Marcus, the Democratic majority leader in the Connecticut Senate. He credited a young Yale Law student on his staff, Bill Clinton, with leading him to his own important primary victory.
Mr. Lieberman served in the state Senate for 10 years, the last six years as Democratic majority leader, before losing a bid for a seat in the state House in 1980. Three years later, Mr. Lieberman was elected attorney general of Connecticut. This is his first full-time position. In the office he championed consumer and environmental protection and was re-elected in 1986, but resigned from his post after first winning election to the Senate in 1989.
In the Senate, he supported free trade and unions, and led a campaign against sex and violence in video games. This effort led to the birth of the video rating system in the 1990s and brought Lieberman national recognition.
His second term campaign in 1994 saw the largest landslide in history for the Connecticut Senate. He collected his 67 percent of the ballots, annihilating his opponent by a margin of 350,000 votes. He served as chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council for six years. Then, in 1998, after Bill Clinton's affair with Lewinsky was revealed, Lieberman publicly criticized the president.
“That was very difficult for me because I liked him,” he told neocon critic Bill Kristol. “But I felt that what he did was really terrible.'' A remorseful Clinton later called Lieberman and said, “I realized that he didn't say anything in that speech that I didn't agree with.'' I just want them to stay safe.''
In 2000, when he ran for vice president on Gore's ticket, Lieberman also won 64 percent of the vote in the Senate, defeating Republican Philip Giordano's challenge and easily winning a third term. did. But six years later, Lieberman hit a wall in his bid for a fourth term. Ned Lamont, a Greenwich businessman and critic of the Iraq war, received 52% of the vote in the primary.
Losing a primary is usually a harbinger of death. Campaign funding dries up, colleagues and the press turn away, and losers drop out or run as independents.
But Lieberman didn't give up. Many voters viewed the race as a referendum on President Bush. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's claims that he possesses weapons of mass destruction have been disproved, suggesting that President Bush led the country into war under false pretenses. With broad Republican support, Mr. Lieberman easily defeated Mr. Lamont in the general election for his last term in the Senate. (Mr. Lamont became governor of Connecticut in 2019.)
Mr. Lieberman was also instrumental in the success of Mr. Obama's 2010 effort to eliminate the 17-year-old “don't ask, don't tell” military policy that forced gay and lesbian service members to shut down or be discharged from the military. .
On January 2, 2013, Mr. Lieberman gave his farewell speech in the Senate. The Washington Post reported, “It was a sad farewell.” “As Mr. Lieberman rambled through his speech, thanking everyone from his wife to Capitol Hill maintenance workers, longtime friends trickled in,” among them Susan. Collins, John Kerry, and Sen. John McCain were also included.
“The sparse attendance was not unusual for a farewell address,” the newspaper said, “but in 2000, a major figure in American political history as the first Jew was about to be announced. It was a sad send-off for a man who had been in such a difficult situation.” National tickets of major political parties. He was denied the vice presidency not by the voters but by the Supreme Court. ”
Joseph Isadore Lieberman was born on February 24, 1942 in Stamford, Connecticut, the eldest of three children of Henry and Marcia (Manger) Lieberman. His father owned a liquor store and his mother ran the house.
Joe and his sisters, Rietta and Ellen, grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Stamford. He attended Burdick Junior High School and Stamford High School, where he was elected president of his sophomore and senior year classes, participated in his club in debate, and was the class of 1960 salutatorian.
At Yale University, he majored in political science and economics, joined the NAACP and Democratic Party, served as editor, chairman, and editor-in-chief of the Yale Daily News, and wrote about civil rights advocacy for Southern blacks. He graduated with honors from his bachelor's degree in 1964 and received his law degree from Yale University in 1967.
While attending Yale University in 1963, Mr. Lieberman was part of the first large group of northern white students to travel south for the civil rights movement, joining 65 people on a 1,300-mile journey from New Haven to Mississippi. Joined a caravan of more young people. There, he encouraged black residents to register to vote while enduring harassment from white racists.
The episode became a rich part of his political biography during his 2000 campaign with Mr. Gore, who addressed it in a statement Wednesday night, saying of Mr. Lieberman: When he joined the civil rights movement in the 1960s, he wrote: “I'm going because there's a lot of work to do.” I'm an American. And this is one country or nothing. ” These are the words of a civil rights champion and true patriot, and that's why I shared them when I announced Joe as my running mate. ”
Mr. Lieberman married Betty Haas in 1965, but they divorced in 1982. That same year, he married Hadassah Freilich-Tucker, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. He is survived by his wife. two children from his first marriage, Matthew Lieberman and Rebecca Lieberman; Daughter Hana Lieberman from his second marriage. a stepson from his second marriage, Ethan Tucker; two sisters, Rietta Miller and Ellen Lieberman; and 13 grandchildren.
After leaving the Senate in 2013, Mr. Lieberman moved to Riverdale and joined the Manhattan law firm Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman, which specializes in white-collar defense. Its customers included Mr. Trump when he was a casino magnate facing bankruptcy.
In recent years, Mr. Lieberman helped lead the nonpartisan political organization No Labels as its founding chairman and, most recently, as co-chairman.
In 2017, Trump met with Lieberman to replace the fired FBI director, James Comey, but Lieberman withdrew from consideration. He criticized Trump's withdrawal from the Paris climate change agreement and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. After Trump lost re-election in 2020, Lieberman denied the former president's false claims that Trump won.
In an interview with CNN a few weeks later, Lieberman accused Trump of being a threat to democracy. “Trump lost by 7 million votes. He's hurting our democracy and frankly he's hurting himself with this crazy business,” Lieberman said. “What he's doing is terrible. There's no evidence of fraud.”
Anastasia Marks Contributed to the report.