Javits, Jacob K. 1904-1986

Jacob Koppel Javits ( JAV-its; May 18, 1904 – March 7, 1986) was an American lawyer and politician from New York. During his time in politics, he served in both chambers of the United States Congress, a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1947 to 1954 and a member of the United States Senate from 1957 to 1981. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as Attorney General of New York from 1955 to 1957. Generally considered a liberal Republican, he was often at odds with his own party. A supporter of labor unions, the Great Society, and the civil rights movement, he played a key role in the passing of civil rights legislation. An opponent of the Vietnam War, he drafted the War Powers Resolution in 1973. Born to Jewish parents, Javits was raised in a tenement on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He graduated from the New York University School of Law and established a law practice in New York City. During World War II, he served in the United States Army's Chemical Warfare Department. Outraged by the corruption of Tammany Hall, Javits joined the Republican Party and supported New York Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1946 and served in that body until 1954. In the House, Javits supported President Harry S. Truman's Cold War foreign policy and voted to fund the Marshall Plan. He defeated Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. in the 1954 election for Attorney General of New York, and defeated Democrat Robert F. Wagner Jr. in the 1956 U.S. Senate election. In the Senate, Javits supported much of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society programs and civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He voted for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution but came to question Johnson's handling of the War in Vietnam. To rein in presidential war powers, Javits sponsored the War Powers Resolution. Javits also sponsored the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, which regulated defined-benefit private pensions. In 1980, Javits lost the Republican Senate primary to Al D'Amato, who campaigned to Javits's right. Nonetheless, he ran in the general election as the Liberal Party nominee. He and Democratic nominee Elizabeth Holtzman were defeated by D'Amato. Javits died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1986.