Former Connecticut Governor Lowell Weicker was eulogized as a larger-than-life figure in state and national politics at his funeral in Greenwich on Monday.
Governor Ned Lamont, who considers Weicker his mentor, praised the late governor for his political courage, especially as a freshman Republican U.S. Senator, Weicker took a principled stand against President Richard Nixon during Watergate.
“He loved the back and forth and give and take of politics, no question about it. He loved to win, but unlike most politicians he wasn’t afraid to lose,” said Lamont.
That fearlessness helped Weicker introduce a state income tax as an independent governor in the early 1990s, despite the largest protest outside the state Capitol in history.
“There were 40,000 protesting like heck outside," Lamont said. "They hung him in effigy. The security detail said, ‘Governor, maybe we ought to go into the Capitol through the back door.’ He said ‘no, Lowell Weicker does not go in through the back door.” He walked right through that crowd.”
Weicker was laid to rest at Putnam Cemetery in Greenwich.
