1. John Lester Hubbard Chafee was an American politician and officer in the United States Marine Corps.
36 Facts About John Chafee
1. 2.
John Chafee was the son of Janet Melissa and John Sharpe Chafee.
3.
John Chafee's uncle, Zechariah Chafee, was a Harvard law professor, and a notable civil libertarian.
4.
John Chafee's cousin was Frederick Lippitt, former House Minority Leader for the Rhode Island House of Representatives.
5.
John Chafee had two daughters and four sons, one of whom is former Rhode Island Governor and former United States Senator Lincoln Chafee.
6.
John Chafee's eldest child, John H Chafee, is a UCLA alumnus.
7.
John Chafee graduated from a coeducational primary school, Providence's Gordon School, in 1931 and then attended Providence Country Day School.
8.
John Chafee was in his third year as an undergraduate at Yale University when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
9.
John Chafee interrupted his undergraduate studies and enlisted in the Marine Corps, spending his 20th birthday fighting on the island of Guadalcanal from August 8 until November 1942, when the First Marine Division was relieved.
10.
John Chafee became active in behind-the-scenes Rhode Island politics by helping elect a mayor of Providence in the early 1950s.
11.
John Chafee successfully ran for a seat in the Rhode Island House of Representatives in 1956 and later became the minority leader.
12.
John Chafee was re-elected in 1958 and 1960, the latter a year when many Republicans were swept from office in his state.
13.
However, John Chafee quickly became popular with both Rhode Island's Republicans and Democrats, allowing him to win re-election by margins of almost 2-to-1 in 1964 and 1966.
14.
John Chafee served as governor until 1969, when he was surprisingly defeated by underdog Democrat Frank Licht.
15.
Reasons ascribed for the defeat include the fact that, after running three times on a strong anti-income tax platform, John Chafee now said that such a tax was imperative ; and that he stopped campaigning after his daughter was killed.
16.
John Chafee was appointed Secretary of the Navy in 1969 by President Richard Nixon.
17.
John Chafee served as Secretary of the Navy until 1972, when he resigned to run for the US Senate.
18.
John Chafee was the first Republican to win a Rhode Island Senate election since 1930.
19.
John Chafee joined the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in 1977 and made environmental matters a chief concern, often breaking with his party to the delight of conservation groups.
20.
John Chafee chaired that committee during his last term in office, from 1995 to 1999.
21.
John Chafee was an architect of the 1980 Superfund program to clean up hazardous waste sites as well as the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.
22.
John Chafee authored the Coastal Barrier Resources Act of 1982, establishing the Coastal Barrier Resources System.
23.
John Chafee was pro-choice on abortion and supported the North American Free Trade Agreement.
24.
John Chafee took a moderate stance on taxes and government assistance to the needy.
25.
John Chafee opposed the death penalty, school prayer, and the ban on homosexuals serving in the military.
26.
John Chafee was one of the few Republicans to support strict gun control laws.
27.
John Chafee voted in favor of the nomination of William Rehnquist as Chief Justice of the United States and the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the US Supreme Court, but voted against the nomination of Robert Bork.
28.
John Chafee supported legislation to expand Medicaid coverage for low-income children and pregnant women, sponsored legislation to expand the availability of home and community-based services for persons with disabilities, and worked to enact legislation to establish Federally Qualified Health Centers.
29.
John Chafee sponsored legislation that increased funds to states to assist youths in making the transition from foster care to independent living; recognized the need for special help for youths ages 18 to 21 who have left foster care; offered states greater flexibility in designing their independent living programs; and, established accountability for states in implementing independent living programs.
30.
John Chafee sat on the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee's Subcommittee on Health Care, but his biggest imprint was on environmental concerns.
31.
John Chafee served in his party's leadership, chairing the Senate Republican Conference from 1985 to 1990.
32.
On February 12,1999, John Chafee voted against both articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton.
33.
On March 15,1999, John Chafee announced he would not seek re-election in 2000.
34.
In October 1999, less than two weeks before his death, John Chafee was one of four Senate Republicans to vote in favor of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
35.
On October 24,1999, around seven months after John Chafee announced his retirement from the Senate, he died from heart failure at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, two days after his 77th birthday.
36.
John Chafee believed it was essential to the preservation of our democratic system.