R.I.P., F.R.L.
By Jeffrey Page
The late Sen. Frank Lautenberg
Frank Lautenberg could be devastating if he thought he or his friends were being unfairly attacked. So in 2004, with John Kerry’s war record in Vietnam being torn apart by the Bush forces, it was the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey who was recognized on the floor of the Senate for remarks.
In that short talk, Lautenberg gave as good as Kerry was getting, and once again proved that if Democrats were smart, they’d search for some more pugnacious candidates like himself and stop being so damned polite.
Lautenberg referred to “chicken hawks,” a species he described as having an appetite for war but only if they could find someone else to fight it for them. Lautenberg was never one to speak quickly and then break for lunch. So he went on to identify Dick Cheney as “the lead chicken hawk.”
He continued: “We know who the chicken hawks are. They talk tough on national defense and military issues and cast aspersions on others, but when it was their turn to serve, they were AWOL from courage.” His outrage extended to the shameless GOP trashing of Senator Max Cleland of Georgia, a triple amputee from Vietnam, as somehow not strong enough on defense matters.
Calling the vice president of the United States a coward was a variation on the old Democrats-are-soft-on-defense drivel the Republicans had been spewing for years. Now it was in their faces. And they yelped that it was unfair.
Lautenberg had the standing to make the case. He had spent four years in the Army during World War II while Cheney spent about the same amount of time getting his five deferments during Vietnam and while George W. Bush was finding himself a cozy place in the Texas Air National Guard.
President Obama would be in a much stronger position these days if he had a few more Lautenbergs to call on when his party, his supporters and himself are slimed by the Right. When Congressional Neanderthals play dirty, Democrats often seem quick to shrug their shoulders, look sincere, and announce to anyone who’s listening that they’re ready to work with the other side. They’ve yet to figure out that the other side has no interest whatever in working with them. Democrats ought to listen to tapes of Lautenberg when he was angry and stop being so characteristically courteous.
It isn’t just Lautenberg’s partisan mouth that will be missed. He was a passionate national politician.
–He led the struggle for a national drinking age of 21. For years, New Jersey teenagers drove across the state line to New York to drink. The Jersey drinking age was 21; New York’s was 18. There were comparable situations elsewhere. Using the possible loss of federal highway funds as a club, Lautenberg persuaded all the states to adopt that higher age.
–Lautenberg was an advocate of a national blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent. If your BAC is higher, the law presumes you’re drunk and incapable of driving safely. Again, no state could be forced to adopt the lower BAC. But neither are the feds required to write highway-aid checks to states that refuse to comply. Today, 50 states subscribe to the 0.08 level.
–He was a strong supporter of the Secaucus railroad station, a $500 million project in the Jersey Meadows that was designed to allow NJ Transit rail commuters to switch trains and ride into midtown Manhattan or to Newark instead of traveling to Hoboken and the PATH trains.
–Just two things about Secaucus. There was an early proposal to spend $200,000 on a statue of Lautenberg for the station, an idea thankfully laid to rest by then-Governor Jim McGreevey, a fellow Democrat. I checked the clips to be certain and could find no story suggesting that Lautenberg opposed the idea of a statue of himself. I think he kind of liked the idea. Anyway, he got the next best thing; the station’s official name is the Frank R. Lautenberg Secaucus Rail Station, but most people just call it “the transfer,” and wonder why it’s such a confusing place.
–It was Lautenberg who led the fight to outlaw smoking on most domestic passenger flights. Remember what it was like when smoke drifted from the smoking section to the nonsmoking section? Remember the headaches? Remember thinking how much you’d pay for a breath of fresh air? Remember the smell of your clothes?
He had other issues: One of his environmental measures requires manufacturers to inform local officials of the chemicals they have on hand and use. He supported gun control. His intervention sped up federal assistance to survivors of Hurricane Sandy.
Lautenberg was one of the wealthiest members of Congress but he fought the people’s fights. The party and the people need a few more like him.
Tags: Cleland, Democrat, Frank Lautenberg, Jeffrey Page, Kerry, New Jersey, Senate
June 6th, 2013 at 11:30 pm
As a former New Jersey resident and union leader I met Lautenberg at a conference on behalf of the Communications Workers of America, the CWA. Though a wealthy founder of a fair-sized corporation, Frank was down-to-earth and pro-union.
It hasn’t been reported after his death, but he reluctantly came out of retirement and successfully re-ran for the Senate mainly to prevent a right-wing Republican from winning the seat.
I didn’t always agree with his positions, particularly in his desire to maintain a 55 mph national speed limit, but I always knew that Lautenberg was guided by principles, rather than a desire for personal gain and fame. Frank Lautenberg will be sorely missed.
June 7th, 2013 at 12:55 pm
He will be missed, and not just in our region. As Lin-Kaatz Chary of Indiana Toxic Action, observed: “He was a staunch supporter of public health and of the environment,” which was overlooked in the obituary that appeared in the NY Times. Chary especially singled out “his ongoing effort over the past few years to pass a new chemicals safety act to replace TSCA.” She added, however, that the current Lautenberg-Vitter bill is a “sad compromise from what was a not perfect, but very progressive bill (championed by Lautenberg) called the Safer Chemicals Act. “Those of us in public health please note, among other things, the new clauses in the ‘compromise’ bill (compromise in quotes because in the effort to get bipartisan support, all the compromising was on the progressive end in capitulation to the American Chemistry Council) that severely restrict health providers from obtaining information and sharing information without going through a lot of hoops set up to protect the chemical industry.”