Free Republic

Lowell P. Weicker Jr., who swaggered through three terms as Connecticut’s last Republican senator, challenging Richard Nixon over Watergate and the GOP’s rightward shift under Ronald Reagan, then willed the state’s income tax into existence in a second act as a third-party governor, died Wednesday. He was 92. His death at Middlesex Hospital was announced by his family. Weicker left elective office in January 1995 as Connecticut’s 85th governor, capstone to a career dominated by two decades in Washington, where he emerged as a fierce defender of abortion rights, the separation of church and state, and funding for social services,...