Edward William Proxmire (November 11, 1915 – December 15, 2005) was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States senator from Wisconsin from 1957 to 1989. He holds the record for being the longest-serving senator from Wisconsin.
Known as a political maverick and an aggressive critic of wasteful government spending, Proxmire invented and awarded the tongue-in-cheek Golden Fleece Award to appropriations he found particularly egregious. He was a member of the Senate Banking Committee, the Senate Appropriations Committee, and the Joint Economic Committee. On the Joint Economic Committee, he exposed numerous instances of wasteful spending on military programs such as the C-5 aircraft and the F-16 fighter, as well as other government programs such as the development of a supersonic transport airplane (SST).
Early life The son of Dr. Theodore Stanley Proxmire, a Chicago-area surgeon, and Adele (Flanigan) Proxmire, Edward William Proxmire was born in Lake Forest, Illinois, on November 11, 1915. He later used "William" rather than "Edward" out of admiration for actor William S. Hart. He graduated from The Hill School (in Pottstown, Pennsylvania) in 1933,Severo, Richard. "William Proxmire, Maverick Democratic Senator From Wisconsin, Is Dead at 90", The New York Times, December 16, 2005. Accessed October 31, 2007. "The family was well-to-do, and he was sent to The Hill School in Pottstown, Pa., and then to Yale, where he was an English major." Yale University in 1938 (B.A.), Harvard Business School in 1940 (M.B.A.), and Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration in 1948 (M.P.A.). While at Yale, Proxmire joined the Chi Psi fraternity. During 1940 and 1941 Proxmire was a student clerk at J.P. Morgan & Co. and studied public speaking at Columbia University.
During World War II he joined the United States Army as a private, and advanced through the ranks to master sergeant. Proxmire later received a commission in the Military Intelligence branch. Most of his service involved counterintelligence work in the Chicago area, where members of his unit investigated individuals suspected of subversive activity. He served from 1941 to 1946, and was discharged as a first lieutenant. While in the Army, Proxmire also continued to study public speaking at Northwestern University. After discharge, he was an executive trainee at J. P. Morgan before returning to Harvard.
After getting his second master's degree while working as a teaching fellow at Harvard, Proxmire moved to Wisconsin to be a reporter for The Capital Times in Madison and to advance his political career in a favorable state. "They fired me after I'd been there seven months, for labor activities and impertinence," he once said. When he ran successfully for the state legislature in 1950, Proxmire was working as the business manager of the Union Labor News, a publication of the Madison Federation of Labor.
Wisconsin State Assembly
Proxmire served as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from 1951 to 1953.Wisconsin Legislative Reference Library. The Wisconsin Blue Book 1952. Madison, State of Wisconsin, 1952, p. 43. During his Assembly service, Proxmire was one of few members who maintained a perfect attendance record, a trait that he later continued in the U.S. Senate. While in the Assembly, he was employed as president of Artcraft Press of Waterloo. Proxmire was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Wisconsin in 1952, 1954 and 1956.
U.S. Senator In August 1957, Proxmire won the special election to fill the remainder of the U.S. Senate term vacated by the May 2, 1957 death of Joseph McCarthy. After assuming his seat, Proxmire did not pay the customary tribute to his predecessor and stated instead that McCarthy was a "disgrace to Wisconsin, to the Senate, and to America."
Proxmire was reelected in 1958, 1964, 1970, 1976 and 1982; all but his 1964 win were by wide margins, including 71 percent of the vote in 1970, 73 percent in 1976 and 65 percent in 1982. In both of his last two campaigns, Proxmire refused contributions and spent less than $200 out of his own pocket, which covered the expenses related to filing re-election paperwork, and he mailed back unsolicited contributions. He was an early advocate of campaign finance reform. Throughout his Senate career, Proxmire also refused to accept reimbursements for travel expenses related to his official duties.
Consecutive roll call votes Proxmire holds the U.S. Senate record for consecutive roll call votes cast: 10,252 between April 20, 1966, and October 18, 1988. In doing so, he surpassed the previous record of 2,941, which was held by Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine. In January 2016, Chuck Grassley broke Proxmire's record for longest amount of time between missed votes, but during his time without missing a roll call, Grassley had cast about 3,000 fewer votes than Proxmire.
Committee memberships Proxmire served as the chair of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs from 1975 to 1981 and again from 1987 to 1989. During his first tenure in this position, Proxmire was instrumental in devising the financial plan that saved New York City from bankruptcy in 1976–77. Proxmire's subcommittee memberships included Financial Institutions, Housing and Urban Affairs, and International Finance and Monetary Policy.
In addition to his work on the Banking Committee, Proxmire rose through seniority to become a high-ranking member of the Appropriations Committee and was active on several subcommittees, including Defense, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Related Agencies, and Postal Service and Related Agencies.
Issues and legislation In October 1961, Proxmire issued a statement opposing a planned $22 million renovation of the U.S. Capitol by arguing that a "large part of the space created by the extension" would be used "to house private hideaway offices" for 23 senators. Proxmire continued to oppose the renovation, and the debate continued until the project was completed in the early 1970s.
In March 1964, Proxmire charged that political concerns, not national defense needs, were keeping too many naval shipyards open, which resulted in a waste of federal funds: "On the basis of every statistical study, both by the Navy and independent groups, private shipyards can build, repair or modernize five ships for the same number of dollars needed to turn out four ships in navy shipyards." Proxmire unsuccessfully favored proposals that awarded contracts to the lowest bidder to save money and close unneeded facilities, and he pointed out that "the advantages of this free enterprise approach" had been recognized by Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense and a former corporate chief executive officer.
From 1967 to 1986, Proxmire gave daily speeches noting the necessity of ratifying the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. He gave that speech every day that the Senate was in session for 20 years, for a total of 3,211 times. On February 11, 1986, the U.S. Senate ratified the convention.
In March 1969, Proxmire introduced legislation that would have regulated the credit life and disability insurance industries. He declared that Americans were being overcharged $220 million a year.
Proxmire was an early and outspoken critic of the Vietnam War and frequently criticized Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon. On the Senate Armed Services Committee, he exposed wasteful military spending and was instrumental in blocking military pork barrel projects. Despite his support of budgetary restraint, he regularly sided with dairy interests and supported dairy price supports."Backward March", Time, October 27, 1967.
Proxmire was head of the campaign to from NASA's budget. In response to a segment about space colonies run by the CBS program 60 Minutes, Proxmire stated that; "it's the best argument yet for chopping NASA's funding to the bone.... I say not a penny for this nutty fantasy." Proxmire introduced an amendment into the 1982 NASA budget that effectively terminated NASA's nascent SETI efforts before a similar amendment to the 1994 budget, by Senator Richard Bryan, terminated NASA's SETI efforts for good. With those positions, Proxmire drew the enmity of many space advocates and the science fiction fandom. Arthur C. Clarke attacked Proxmire in his 1960 short story "Death and the Senator". Later, the short story "The Return of William Proxmire" (1989) by Larry Niven and the 1991 novel Fallen Angels, written by Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael F. Flynn, were directed against the senator.
In May 1971, Proxmire charged the Food and Drug Administration with violating federal law after it authorized residues of a cancer‐inducing hormone to come into contact with consumers. He asserted that the FDA's move was in violation of the Delaney amendment in the Food Additives Amendment of 1958 and called for an immediate ban on diethylstilbestrol.
In September 1971, Proxmire asserted the safety margin of the C‐5A cargo plane was threatened in spite of doubling costs and charged the US Air Force with not disclosing information on the costs to Congress.
In 1972, Proxmire urged the Air Force to recall General John D. Lavelle to active duty for the purpose of court-martial. Lavelle had been forced to retire as a major general due to alleged misconduct concerning Vietnam War bombing missions while he served as commander of Seventh Air Force. Lavelle was not recalled or court-martialed, and in 2007, newly declassified and released information exonerated Lavelle by showing that President Richard M. Nixon had authorized the bombing missions.
In November 1973, after Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned, and Robert Bork took over as Acting Attorney General, Proxmire wrote in a letter that Bork was serving illegally as Acting Attorney General since 30 days had passed with him being in office and not having a confirmation by the Senate. He said that any actions taken by Bork in the period after the 39 had passed could be met by challenge, and he called on President Nixon to rectify the situation. Assistant Attorney General Robert G. Dixon Jr. disputed Proxmire's claim by saying that similar occurrences of Acting Attorneys General that went over 30 days without Senate confirmations had happened six times earlier.
In January 1977, Proxmire was one of five Democrats to vote against Griffin Bell, President Jimmy Carter's nominee for United States Attorney General.
In January 1978, Carter wrote Proxmire on the responsibilities of New York City denizens in his plan to have the city avoid bankruptcy. In April, after New York Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jacob Javits introduced a Carter administration bill that would provide New York City with $2 billion in loan guarantees, Javits stated that he did not believe Proxmire would try killing the measure by bottling it up in committee.