Jacob K. Javits

Infobox_Senator | name=Jacob K. Javits


jr/sr=United States Senator
state=New York
party=Republican
term=January 9, 1957 – January 3, 1981
preceded=Herbert H. Lehman
succeeded= Alfonse D'Amato
order2= 58th New York State Attorney General
term_start2=January 1, 1955
term_end2=January 9, 1957
governor2=W. Averell Harriman
preceded2=Nathaniel L. Goldstein
succeeded2=Louis Lefkowitz
state3=New York
district3=ushr|New York|21|21st
term_start3=January 3, 1947
term_end3=December 31, 1954
preceded3=James H. Torrens
succeeded3=Herbert Zelenko
date of birth=May 18, 1904
place of birth=New York City, New York
date of death=March 7, 1986 (aged age |1904|05|18|1986|03|07)
place of death=West Palm Beach, Florida
spouse=Marian Ann Borris Javits (born 1925)
religion=Judaism

Jacob Koppel "Jack" Javits (May 18, 1904 – March 7, 1986) was an American politician who served as United States Senator from New York from 1957 to 1981. A liberal Republican, he was originally allied with Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, fellow U.S. Senators Irving Ives and Kenneth Keating, and New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay.

Political career

Javits graduated from New York University and its law school in Manhattan. He was admitted to the bar in 1927. During World War II, he was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army.

He was initially elected to New York's 21st congressional district (since redistricted) in the United States House of Representatives during the heavily Republican year of 1946. He was a member of the freshman class along with John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Richard M. Nixon of California. He served from 1947 to 1954, then resigned his seat after his election as the New York Attorney General.

In 1956, he defeated Mayor of New York City Robert F. Wagner, Jr., in a U.S. Senate race to succeed the retiring incumbent Democratic Senator Herbert Lehman. Like Lehman, Javits was for a time the only Jew in the U.S. Senate.

Javits was generally considered a liberal Republican, and was supportive of labor unions and movements for civil rights. In 1964, Javits refused to support his party's presidential nominee, his conservative colleague, Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona even though Goldwater had said in 1962 that were he a New York voter, he would vote to reelect Javits.

Senator Javits sponsored (1) the first African-American Senate page in 1965 and (2) the first female page in 1971. His background, coupled with his liberal stands, enabled him to win the votes of many historically Democratic voters. He was highly successful in all elections in which he was a candidate from 1946 to 1974.Fact|date=February 2007

Javits played a major role in legislation protecting pensioners, as well as in the passage of the War Powers Act; he led the effort to get the Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act passed. He reached the position of Ranking Minority Member on the Committee on Foreign Relations while accruing greater seniority than any New York Senator before or since (as of 2007). He was also one of the main forces behind the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act that by removing immigration quota that favored Western European nations helped to make the U.S. a truly diverse and multicultural country.

1980 Senate race

Javits served until 1981; his 1979 diagnosis with amytrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) led to a 1980 primary challenge by the comparatively lesser-known Long Island Republican county official Alfonse D'Amato. D'Amato received 323,468 primary votes (55.7 percent) to Javits' 257,433 (44.3 percent). Javits' loss to D'Amato stemmed from Javits' continuing illness and his failure to adjust politically to the rightward movement of the GOP.

Following the primary defeat, Javits ran as the Liberal Party candidate in the general election, having split the Democratic base vote with United States Representative Elizabeth Holtzman of Brooklyn and giving D'Amato a plurality victory.

Death

Javits died of Lou Gehrig's disease in West Palm Beach, Florida, at the age of eighty-one. In addition to Marian, he was survived by three children, Joshua, Carla, and Joy.

Among those who attended the funeral were Governor Mario Cuomo, Mayor Ed Koch, former President Richard Nixon, Attorney General Edwin Meese, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Senator D'Amato, John Cardinal O'Connor, former Mayor Lindsay, former Governor Hugh Carey of New York, and former State Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz.

Also there were U.S. Representative Bella Abzug of Manhattan; then Senators Nancy Kassebaum Baker of Kansas, Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Lowell Weicker of Connecticut, and Gary Hart of Colorado; David Rockefeller, the banker; Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, publisher of "The New York Times"; Victor Gotbaum, the labor leader; Kurt Vonnegut, the writer, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., the actor.

Honors

Javits received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983.

New York's Javits Center is named in his honor, as is a playground at the southwestern edge of Fort Tryon Park. The Jacob K. Javits Federal Building [ [http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=113749 Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, New York City ] ] at 26 Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan's Civic Center district, as well as a lecture hall on the campus of the State University of New York at Stony Brook on Long Island, are also named after him.

The United States Department of Education awards a number of Javits Fellowships to support graduate students in the humanities and social sciences. [ [http://www.ed.gov/programs/jacobjavits/index.html Jacob K. Javits Fellowships Program] , from the U.S. Department of Education website]

References

General references:
*CongBio|J000064Specific references:
*"Who's Who in America, 1966–1967"

External links

* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6856871 Jacob Javits at Find-A-Grave]