Javits, Jacob K. (Jacob Koppel), 1904-1986

Jacob Koppel Javits (May 18, 1904 – March 7, 1986) was an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Republican Party, Javits served in the U.S. House of Representatives representing New York's 21st congressional district from 1947 to 1954, as the 58th Attorney General of New York from 1955 to 1957, and as a U.S. Senator from New York from 1957 until 1981.

After graduating from New York University School of Law, he established a law practice in New York City. During World War II, he served in the United States Army's Chemical Warfare Department. Outraged by the corruption of Tammany Hall, Javits joined the Republican Party and supported New York Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia. He won election to the United States House of Representatives in 1946 and served in that body until 1954. In the House, Javits supported President Harry S. Truman's Cold War foreign policy and voted to fund the Marshall Plan. He defeated Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. in the 1954 election for Attorney General of New York, and defeated Democrat Robert F. Wagner Jr. in the 1956 United States Senate elections. Javits won re-election to the Senate in 1962, 1968, and 1974.

In the House and Senate, Javits established himself as a liberal Republican. He opposed the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 and supported much of Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society programs and civil rights legislation. He voted for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution but came to question Johnson's handling of the Vietnam War. To rein in presidential war powers, Javits sponsored the War Powers Resolution. Javits also sponsored the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which regulated defined-benefit private pensions. Supportive of labor unions and movements for civil rights, Senator Javits sponsored the first African-American Senate page in 1965 and the first female page in 1971. His liberalism was such that he tended to receive support from traditionally Democratic voters, with many Republicans defecting to support the Conservative Party of New York.

Diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 1979, Javits lost the 1980 Republican Senate primary to Alfonse D'Amato, who campaigned to Javits's right. Javits nonetheless ran in the election as the nominee of the Liberal Party; D'Amato defeated Javits and Democratic nominee Elizabeth Holtzman. Javits died of ALS in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1986. He is interred at Linden Hill Jewish Cemetery in Queens, New York.