Frank Lautenberg

Frank Lautenberg
Born	Frank Raleigh Lautenberg January 23, 1924
Birthplace	Paterson, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	June 3, 2013 New York City, New York, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Businessman, politician
Known for	Longest-serving U.S. Senator from New Jersey; co-founder and CEO of Automatic Data Processing; anti-drunk driving legislation; Amtrak advocacy
Education	Columbia University (B.S.)
Spouse(s)	Lois Levenson (m. 1956; div. 1988), Bonnie Englebardt (m. 2003)
Children	6
Awards	Sentinel of Safety Award (2006)

Frank Raleigh Lautenberg (January 23, 1924 – June 3, 2013) was an American businessman and politician who served as a United States Senator from New Jersey for five terms spanning nearly three decades. A member of the Democratic Party, Lautenberg first took office in December 1982 and served three consecutive terms before retiring in 2001. He returned to the Senate in January 2003 under unusual circumstances, replacing Robert Torricelli on the ballot, and won an additional term in 2008, serving until his death in office on June 3, 2013. With a total of 28 years, 5 months, and 8 days in the Senate, Lautenberg remains New Jersey's longest-serving senator. Before entering politics, Lautenberg co-founded and served as chairman and chief executive officer of Automatic Data Processing (ADP), building it into one of the largest computing services companies in the United States. In the Senate, he became known for his legislative efforts against drunk driving, his advocacy for Amtrak and urban public transportation, his support for stronger environmental regulations and consumer protections, and his investigations of wrongdoing on Wall Street. He has been described as "the last of the New Deal liberals."

Early Life

Frank Raleigh Lautenberg was born on January 23, 1924, in Paterson, New Jersey, to Sam and Mollie Lautenberg, working-class Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. His father, Sam, worked as a weaver in one of Paterson's silk mills, and the family lived in modest circumstances during the Great Depression. Growing up in Paterson's immigrant community, the young Lautenberg experienced economic hardship firsthand. A formative moment came in 1936, when the twelve-year-old boy wanted to play baseball on a Saturday but was shaped by the realities of his family's financial struggles and his father's grueling work in the textile industry.

The Lautenberg family's economic difficulties left a lasting impression on Frank, instilling in him a belief in the role of government as a force for social uplift — values that would later define his political career. He attended Paterson public schools and, like many young men of his generation, saw his education and early adulthood interrupted by World War II.

In 1942, at the age of eighteen, Lautenberg enlisted in the United States Army. He served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and was deployed overseas as part of the war effort, serving from 1942 to 1946. His military service deepened his interest in American political affairs and public service. After returning home from the war, Lautenberg took advantage of the G.I. Bill to pursue higher education — an experience that reinforced his belief in the transformative power of government programs and would become a touchstone of his later political messaging.

Education

Following his discharge from the Army in 1946, Lautenberg enrolled at Columbia University's School of Business in New York City, using the G.I. Bill to finance his education. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from Columbia in 1949. Lautenberg frequently credited the G.I. Bill with making his education and subsequent business career possible, and he cited his own experience as evidence of the importance of government investment in education and opportunity. His time at Columbia provided him with the business acumen and connections that would prove essential in his career in the computing services industry.

Career

Business Career at Automatic Data Processing

After graduating from Columbia, Lautenberg embarked on a career in business that would make him one of the wealthiest members of the United States Senate. In 1952, he co-founded Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP), a payroll processing and computing services company based in New Jersey. Under Lautenberg's leadership as chairman and chief executive officer, ADP grew from a small startup into one of the largest computing services firms in the country, processing payroll and business data for thousands of companies. His success at ADP provided the financial foundation for his later political career and gave him credibility as a businessman-turned-politician — a profile he leveraged in his first Senate campaign.

Lautenberg's business background distinguished him from many of his Senate colleagues and informed his approach to legislative matters involving finance, technology, and corporate responsibility. He served as chairman and CEO of ADP until he entered politics in the early 1980s.

First Senate Career (1982–2001)

Lautenberg entered electoral politics in 1982, running for the United States Senate seat from New Jersey. He won the general election and took office on December 27, 1982, succeeding Nicholas F. Brady, who had been appointed to fill a vacancy. As a political newcomer with a successful business career behind him, Lautenberg positioned himself as a pragmatic Democrat with deep roots in New Jersey's working-class communities.

He was reelected in 1988, defeating his Republican challenger despite expectations from some in the Republican Party that they could unseat the freshman senator. The New Jersey GOP had considered various candidates, including the possibility of nominating an African American candidate, but ultimately went in a different direction. Lautenberg won a third term in 1994, securing his place as one of New Jersey's most durable political figures.

During his first stretch in the Senate, Lautenberg established himself as a consistent liberal voice and became particularly associated with several signature legislative causes. Among the most prominent was his campaign against drunk driving. He authored the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which required states to raise their legal drinking age to 21 or face a reduction in federal highway funding — a law that public health researchers credited with saving thousands of lives. He also fought the alcohol and tobacco industries on a range of public health issues, earning a reputation as a tenacious advocate for consumer safety.

Lautenberg was a strong supporter of Amtrak and urban public transportation, using his position on the Senate Appropriations Committee to direct federal funding toward rail infrastructure, particularly in the Northeast Corridor, which was critical to New Jersey commuters. He repeatedly clashed with Republican administrations that sought to reduce Amtrak funding.

Environmental regulation was another central pillar of Lautenberg's legislative agenda. He supported stronger clean air and clean water standards and worked to hold polluters accountable. His interest in environmental and public health protections would later culminate in his advocacy for reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act during his final years in the Senate.

In 1999, at the age of 75 and nearing the end of his third term, Lautenberg announced that he would not seek reelection. He later expressed regret over this decision. He was succeeded by Jon Corzine, a fellow Democrat, when his third term ended on January 3, 2001.

Return to the Senate (2002–2013)

Lautenberg's retirement proved short-lived. In 2002, his Senate colleague Robert Torricelli, who had been running for reelection, withdrew from the race amid an ethics scandal just weeks before the general election. New Jersey Democrats, facing the prospect of losing a Senate seat, persuaded Lautenberg to step in as the replacement candidate. The substitution was challenged legally by the Republican Party, but the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the switch was permissible, and Lautenberg went on to win the November election. He returned to the Senate on January 3, 2003, succeeding Torricelli.

During his fourth and fifth terms, Lautenberg continued to champion the causes that had defined his earlier career. He remained a vocal advocate for Amtrak funding, environmental protections, and consumer safety. He also engaged in high-profile disputes with the administration of President George W. Bush on issues ranging from energy policy to transportation spending.

Lautenberg's voting record placed him consistently among the most liberal members of the Senate. His record was evaluated by various policy organizations, including the Drum Major Institute, which assessed his votes on issues of economic fairness and middle-class prosperity.

In 2008, Lautenberg ran for a fifth term. Despite his advanced age — he was 84 at the time — he won the Democratic primary and the general election, securing another six-year term. He became the oldest sitting senator in the 112th and 113th Congresses.

In February 2010, Lautenberg was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He underwent treatment and returned to the Senate, continuing to serve and vote on legislation despite the health challenges.

In his final years, Lautenberg focused significant energy on reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the federal law governing chemical safety. He introduced legislation — the Safe Chemicals Act — aimed at requiring chemical manufacturers to demonstrate the safety of their products before they could be sold, reversing the burden of proof that had been in place under the original 1976 law. While the legislation did not pass during his lifetime, it laid the groundwork for the eventual bipartisan reform of TSCA that was enacted in 2016, three years after his death.

Death in Office

Lautenberg died on June 3, 2013, at the age of 89 in New York City, while still serving his fifth term in the Senate. His office released a statement confirming his death early that Monday morning. At the time of his death, he was the last World War II veteran serving in the Senate. He was the sixth senator to die in office since 2000. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie appointed Jeffrey Chiesa to serve as an interim senator until a special election could be held; Cory Booker won that special election in October 2013.

Lautenberg was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on June 7, 2013, with full military honors, reflecting his service in World War II.

Personal Life

Lautenberg married Lois Levenson in 1956. The couple had four children together before divorcing in 1988. He later married Bonnie Englebardt in 2003, and through her he gained two stepchildren, bringing the total number of children in his family to six.

Throughout his life, Lautenberg maintained a connection to his roots in Paterson, New Jersey, and to the working-class, immigrant community in which he was raised. His Jewish faith and his family's experience as immigrants informed his political worldview and his commitment to social welfare programs.

In addition to his cancer diagnosis in 2010, Lautenberg faced other health challenges in his later years but continued to maintain his Senate duties. He commuted between his homes in New Jersey and New York and his office in Washington, D.C., remaining active in legislative work until the final months of his life.

Recognition

Lautenberg received a number of awards and honors over the course of his career. In 2006, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) presented him with its Sentinel of Safety Award in recognition of his dedication and commitment to aviation safety.

In 2018, Rutgers University's Eagleton Institute of Politics hosted an exhibition of Lautenberg's senatorial papers, offering scholars and the public access to the documentary record of his nearly three decades in the Senate. The exhibition highlighted the breadth of his legislative interests, from transportation and environmental policy to public health and consumer protection. Rutgers noted that Lautenberg "left an outsized imprint on state politics and national policy by the time he died while in office in 2013."

His burial at Arlington National Cemetery reflected both his military service and his standing as a long-serving public official. The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, the 2016 reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act, was named in his honor, recognizing his years of work on chemical safety legislation.

Legacy

Frank Lautenberg's nearly three decades in the United States Senate left a substantial mark on American public policy, particularly in the areas of transportation, public health, environmental regulation, and consumer protection. His authorship of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act is among the most consequential public health measures enacted by Congress in the late twentieth century, credited with significantly reducing alcohol-related traffic fatalities among young Americans.

His sustained advocacy for Amtrak and public transportation shaped federal investment in rail infrastructure in the Northeast Corridor and beyond, and his environmental work, particularly on chemical safety, bore fruit with the passage of the law bearing his name in 2016. The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act represented the first major overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act in forty years and was a bipartisan achievement that drew directly on the legislative framework Lautenberg had spent years developing.

As a self-made businessman who built ADP into a corporate giant before entering politics, Lautenberg embodied a particular strand of post-World War II American liberalism — one rooted in the belief that government programs like the G.I. Bill could transform lives and that the private sector and the public sector each had important roles to play in building a prosperous society. His career trajectory from working-class Paterson to the boardroom of a major corporation to the floor of the United States Senate was itself a reflection of the mid-century American promise of upward mobility.

Described as "the last of the New Deal liberals," Lautenberg represented a generation of Democratic politicians who came of age during the Great Depression and World War II, whose political convictions were shaped by the experience of economic hardship and military service, and who believed in an activist federal government as a force for the common good. His record of 28 years and 5 months in the Senate remains unmatched by any other New Jersey senator, a mark of both his electoral durability and his deep connection to the state's voters.

The archiving of his papers at Rutgers University ensures that scholars and future generations will have access to the documentary record of his career, preserving the legislative and political history of one of New Jersey's most consequential public figures.