My Late N J Representative, Frank Lautenberg Was a Real American Hero (318 hits)
(CNN) -- Frank Lautenberg grew up in Paterson, New Jersey -- a tough mill town. Served in World War II, where he scampered up improvised rickety poles to string wire to keep the lines of communication open. Frank Lautenberg, the son of a Paterson, New Jersey, silk mill worker and the last World War II veteran serving in the US Senate, took his cues from another political time: a time when liberals were bold and unapologetic, a time when it was understood that government could and should do great things.
One of the few members of Congress who could remember listening to Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the radio and going to college on the initial GI Bill, Lautenberg served five terms in the US Senate as a champion of great big infrastructure investments—especially for Amtrak and urban public transportation—great big environmental regulations, great big consumer protections and great big investigations of wrongdoing by Wall Street.
It can fairly be said that the New Jersey senator, who died Monday at age 89, kept the New Deal flame lit. Indeed, one of his last major pieces of legislation proposed to renew one of FDR’s greatest legacies: the Works Progress Administration, which provided public-works employment for millions of Americans during the Great Depression that defined Lautenberg’s youth.
New Jersey's Republican Gov. Chris Christie has set a special election for October 16 to replace Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat who died Monday. A primary will be held on August 13. At a news conference, Christie said he will name an interim senator by next week to serve until the special election. He told reporters he did not think it was right for someone to serve on an interim basis until November 2014.
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