Jacob K. Javits

New York liberal Republican who championed labor, civil rights, and the era's bipartisan center.

Overview

The son of immigrant parents, Javits served in the House from 1947 to 1954, as New York attorney general, and then in the Senate from 1957 to 1981. He co-authored the ERISA pension protection law of 1974 and the War Powers Resolution of 1973, backed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, opposed a school prayer amendment, and advocated detente with the Soviet Union. Defeated in 1980 in a three-way race won by Al D'Amato, he died in 1986, remembered as the model of the urban liberal Republican.