- Born
- Died
- Birth nameEdward William Proxmire
- Williams Proxmire is an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States Senator from Wisconsin from 1957 to 1989, the longest term served by a Wisconsin senator.
Proxmire was a member of the Senate Banking Committee, The Senate Appropriations Committee, and the Joint Economic Committee. In each of those committees he was an aggressive critic of wasteful government spending. While serving on the Joint Economic Committee, he exposed numerous instances of wasteful spending on military programs such as the C-5 aircraft and the F-16 fighter, and other government programs such as the supersonic aircraft.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Bazza the Beast
- SpousesEllen Hodges Sawall(1956 - December 14, 2005) (his death)Elsie Rockefeller(? - 1955) (divorced)
- Senator from Wisconsin who served from 28 August 1957 to 3 January 1989.
- He graduated from Yale University and Harvard Business School. He served with military intelligence in World War II. After the war he moved to Wisconsin to begin his career in politics.
- Became a household name for his monthly "Golden Fleece Awards" started in 1975 to highlight the biggest or most ridiculous or most ironic example of government waste. The ceremony as such was a speech on the Senate floor.
- He was first elected to the US Senate in 1957, to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Joseph McCarthy, the Republican senator who was infamous for his communist witch hunts.
- In Congress, he had a strong independent streak. He introduced amendments without consulting Democratic party leaders, and even criticized the dictates of then-Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson.
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