Floyd Haskell
United States Senator
from Colorado
In office
January 3, 1973 – January 3, 1979
Preceded byGordon Allott
Succeeded byWilliam L. Armstrong
Member of the Colorado House of Representatives
In office
1965-1969
Personal details
Born
Floyd Kirk Haskell

(1916-02-07)February 7, 1916
Morristown, New Jersey, U.S.
DiedAugust 25, 1998(1998-08-25) (aged 82)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political partyRepublican (before 1970)
Democratic (1970–1998)
Spouse(s)Eileen Nicoll (1941-1976; divorced; 3 children)
Nina Totenberg (1979-1998; his death)
Alma materHarvard University
Military service
Allegiance United States
Branch/service United States Army
Years of service1941-1945
RankMajor
Battles/warsWorld War II

Floyd Kirk Haskell (February 7, 1916 – August 25, 1998) was an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a U.S. Senator from Colorado from 1973 to 1979.

Early life and career

Floyd Haskell was born in Morristown, New Jersey, to Edward Kirk and Gladys (née Clarkson) Haskell.[1] His father was an investment banker.[2] He attended Harvard College, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1937.[3] During college, he played on the football, rugby, and soccer teams, later developing as a tennis player, and was president of the Rocky Mountain Club.[4][5][6] He received a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1941.[3] That same year he married Eileen Nicoll, to whom he remained married until their divorce in 1976; they had three daughters, Ione, Evelyn, and Pamela.[7]

During World War II, Haskell served in the U.S. Army from 1941 to 1945, seeing action in Asia, viewing the immediate aftermath of Hiroshima, and reaching the rank of major.[3] He was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for his intelligence work.[7] Following his military service, he was admitted to the bar in 1946 and moved to Denver, Colorado, where he worked as a tax lawyer.[2]

In 1964, Haskell was elected as a Republican to the Colorado House of Representatives from Arapahoe County, serving until 1969.[3] As a state legislator, he became assistant majority leader in 1967 and also served as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the House Education and Finance Committees.[7] In 1970, he left the Republican Party and became a Democrat in protest of President Richard Nixon's invasion of Cambodia.[2]

U.S. Senate

In 1972, Haskell decided to challenge three-term Republican incumbent Gordon L. Allott for a seat in the U.S. Senate. He defeated state Senator Anthony Vollack (later chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court) in the Democratic primary.[8] In the general election, he narrowly won[9][10] a four-way race between Allott[11] and candidates from the Raza Unida Party[12] and the American Independent Party,[13] receiving only 49% of the vote.[10][14] He defeated his closest competitor, Senator Allott, by less than 10,000 votes while President Nixon carried Colorado by over 267,000 votes.[10]

Haskell was sworn into the Senate on January 3, 1973.[3] He served as a member of the Senate Finance and Energy and Natural Resources Committees, where he earned a reputation as a tax reformer and advocate for the environment.[2] He supported the historic Alaska Lands legislation and regulation of auto emissions, the Panama Canal treaties, and alternative sources of energy.[15] In 1978, lacking campaign funds and media acumen, he was defeated for re-election by Representative and future Colorado Christian University president William L. Armstrong, the first in Colorado to raise over a million dollars, losing by a landslide margin of 59%-40%.[16]

Later life and death

After his Senate career, Haskell established his residence in Washington, D.C., where he practiced law before joining Common Cause and a bipartisan group of retired lawmakers calling for campaign finance reform and an end to congressional gridlock.[15] In 1979, he married Nina Totenberg, the legal affairs correspondent for National Public Radio; they remained married until his death in 1998.[7]

Haskell suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in 1994 after falling on ice near his home in Washington.[15] He died of pneumonia four years later, at age 82, while returning from a vacation in Maine with his wife.[2]

References

  1. ↑ "Unkelbach, Evelyn Cary". Hartford Courant. March 25, 2005.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Alvarez, Lizette (August 26, 1998). "Floyd Haskell, 82, Ex-Senator From Colorado". The New York Times.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "HASKELL, Floyd Kirk, (1916 - 1998)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
  4. ↑ "CRIMSON SOCCER TEAM TREKS TO JUNGLELAND". The Harvard Crimson. November 9, 1935.
  5. ↑ "Listing of Harvard Clubs". The Harvard Crimson. June 21, 1951.
  6. ↑ "Lining Them Up". The Harvard Crimson. October 22, 1935.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "MEMORIALIZING FORMER UNITED STATES SENATOR AND STATE REPRESENTATIVE FLOYD K. HASKELL". Colorado General Assembly. Archived from the original on September 8, 2005. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
  8. ↑ Rosenthal, Jack (September 10, 1972). "Primary Season Stretches On, With 9 More Tuesday". The New York Times.
  9. ↑ 457,545
  10. 1 2 3 "Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 7, 1972" (PDF). Clerk of the United States House of Representatives.
  11. ↑ 447,957
  12. ↑ 13,228
  13. ↑ 7,353
  14. ↑ "United States Congressional Elections 1972 - Colorado". The Elections Geek. Retrieved October 12, 2018.
  15. 1 2 3 "Floyd Haskell Dies". The Washington Post. August 26, 1998.
  16. ↑ "Statistics of the Congressional Election of November 7, 1978" (PDF). Clerk of the United States House of Representatives.
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