For the last roughly 90 years Rhode Island has been a Democratic state. This was not always so, but immigration of Irish Catholics as well as the Democratic Party gaining the ability to win Senate seats in the state thanks to direct election of senators resulted in the state’s Democratic orientation, it being the first of the New England states to become Democratic in the long term since the founding of the Republican Party. One figure, however, who defied the modern trend was John Chafee (1922-1999), although he was a different sort of Republican than those of the age of Republican dominance.
Chafee’s political career began in the 1950s, and in 1956 he won a seat in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, later being elected minority leader. He also survived the 1960 election, in which Rhode Island was Kennedy’s best performing state and many Republicans lost reelection. His status as a leader and as a survivor made him a top candidate for the upcoming gubernatorial election. In 1962, Chafee ran and narrowly won in the closest gubernatorial race in the state’s history, winning by a mere .12%. Despite the 1964 election being yet another catastrophe for Republicans in Rhode Island (LBJ won 81% of the vote there), Chafee defied this trend and won reelection with 61% of the vote, carrying all counties. He did even better in 1966, with 63% of the vote. He was a productive governor, enacting public transportation and conservation legislation, and was a supporter of civil rights measures. However, Chafee’s record as governor was marked in some cases with inconsistency, particularly on the issues of public sector unions and pensions, such as supporting collective bargaining for teachers, but not government workers, and backing retaining a minimum age requirement for receiving pensions for government workers but removing it for teachers (Frias).
Despite Chafee having won reelection so strongly in 1964 and 1966, he narrowly lost reelection in 1968 over the issue of enacting a state income tax (he was for it after being against it) and that he stopped campaigning after his 14-year-old daughter tragically died from being kicked in the head by a horse. With this loss, however, came opportunities with the incoming Nixon Administration, and he was nominated and confirmed as Secretary of the Navy, his tenure being marked by his bold decision-making. In 1972, he resigned to run for the Senate.
Chafee’s run for the Senate was a significant undertaking and one in which he actually had a chance despite the state’s Democratic orientation. The 1972 election was initially looking bad for incumbent Claiborne Pell, and he was losing in early polls. However, the Senate overall turned out to be a disappointment for Republicans despite Nixon’s landslide win, and Chafee lost by 8 points. Although Chafee was down, this was the most significant challenge Pell ever faced, and he was not out! In 1976, he tried again for the open seat being vacated by John O. Pastore, and he won.
Senator Chafee
John Chafee was a Rockefeller Republican. He was pro-choice, anti-death penalty, pro-affirmative action and busing, a supporter of strict gun control, a supporter of gay rights, opposed to school prayer, and supported the creation of the Department of Education. Chafee also was a leading advocate of environmental legislation throughout his time in office, and sponsored numerous laws on the subject, including establishing the superfund program. On foreign policy, Chafee was frequently liberal, backing foreign aid as well as the Panama Canal Treaties. Although not a rigid adherent to free market principles, he opposed the Chrysler bailout in 1979. His scores from Americans for Constitutional Action ranged from a mere 14% in 1982 to a 58% in 1984 (the last year ACA did ratings), and from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action ranged from 30% in 1995 to 90% (although this is based on not counting his favorable pair for an abortion measure) in 1988. Chafee’s DW-Nominate score is 0.084.
During the Reagan Administration, although Chafee as had almost all Republicans supported tax reduction, he opposed the portion indexing taxation to inflation and in 1984 sponsored an amendment delaying tax indexing’s implementation to 1988. On fiscal issues, Chafee could sometimes be conservative, and he supported some defense measures backed by conservatives, including backing President Reagan on his sale of Airborne Warning and Control systems to Saudi Arabia. Chafee’s independence from the national Republican Party was a winner in Rhode Island and certainly helped him narrowly win reelection in 1982. He would solidly win reelection in 1988 and 1994, the former being particularly notable as Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis won the state. Despite his frequent dissents from Republican orthodoxy, Chafee was elected chairman of the Senate Republican Conference in 1985, the third highest ranking position in party leadership, and served in this role until 1991. Although for the Supreme Court he backed William Rehnquist for chief justice and Clarence Thomas, he voted against Reagan’s nomination of Robert Bork in 1987. Some other notable votes Chafee cast included his vote for entering the Gulf War in 1991 and for NAFTA in 1993.
Chafee was, as might be expected, far from fully on board with the policies pushed with the Republican Revolution of 1994, and he had sponsored a compromise measure on healthcare which included an individual mandate. He also opposed the impeachment of President Clinton, voting against both counts. By this time, Chafee’s health was declining, and he announced on March 15, 1999, that he would not be a candidate for reelection. Before his term was up, he died on October 24th, mere weeks after being one of four Republicans to vote for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty pushed by the Clinton Administration. His very last vote was for a resolution expressing the Senate’s support of Roe v. Wade. His son, Lincoln, was appointed to the Senate to succeed him, and he was elected to a full term in his own right in 2000 before losing reelection six years later to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. The Chafees remain the last Republicans to have been elected to the Senate from Rhode Island.
References
Chafee, John Hubbard. Voteview.
Retrieved from
https://voteview.com/person/14500/john-hubbard-chafee
Frias, S. (2012, December 28). The past haunts RI’s pension reform. Cranston Herald.
Retrieved from
https://cranstononline.com/stories/the-past-haunts-ris-pension-reform,77989
John Hubbard Chafee. Naval History and Heritage Command.
Retrieved from
Senator John Chafee dies at age 77. (1999, October 26). Cape Cod Times.
Retrieved from
https://www.capecodtimes.com/story/news/1999/10/26/senator-john-chafee-dies-at/51023808007/
Mad Politics: The Bizarre, Fascinating, and Unknown of American Political History 