James L. Buckley
Buckley in the 1970s
Senior Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
In office August 31, 1996 – August 18, 2023
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
In office December 17, 1985 – August 31, 1996
Appointed by	Ronald Reagan
Preceded by	Edward Allen Tamm
Succeeded by	John Roberts
21st Counselor of the Department of State
In office September 9, 1982 – September 26, 1982
President	Ronald Reagan
Preceded by	Robert McFarlane
Succeeded by	Ed Derwinski
6th Under Secretary of State for International Security Affairs
In office February 28, 1981 – August 20, 1982
President	Ronald Reagan
Preceded by	Matthew Nimetz
Succeeded by	William Schneider Jr.
United States Senator from New York
In office January 3, 1971 – January 3, 1977
Preceded by	Charles Goodell
Succeeded by	Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Personal details
Born	James Lane Buckley (1923-03-09)March 9, 1923 New York City, U.S.
Died	August 18, 2023(2023-08-18) (aged 100) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political party	Conservative (until 1976)[a] Republican (from 1976)
Spouse	Ann Cooley ​ ​ (m. 1953; died 2011)​
Children	6
Parent	William F. Buckley Sr. (father)
Relatives	William F. Buckley Jr. (brother) Reid Buckley (brother) Priscilla Buckley (sister) Patricia Buckley Bozell (sister) Christopher Buckley (nephew) L. Brent Bozell III (nephew) William F. B. O'Reilly (nephew)
Education	Yale University (BA, LLB)
Military service
Branch/service	United States Navy
Years of service	1942–1946
Rank	Lieutenant (junior grade)
Battles/wars	World War II

James Lane Buckley (March 9, 1923 – August 18, 2023) was an American politician and judge who served in the United States Senate as a member of the Conservative Party of New York State in the Republican caucus from 1971 to 1977 and additionally held multiple positions within the Reagan administration. He was also the Republican nominee in the 1980 Connecticut Senate race, but he was defeated by Democrat Chris Dodd.

In 1970, Buckley was elected to the U.S. Senate as the nominee of the Conservative Party of New York; he won the race with 39% of the vote^[1] and served from 1971 until 1977. During the first Reagan administration, Buckley served as Undersecretary of State for International Security Affairs. He was also President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from 1982 to 1985.

Buckley was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on October 16, 1985. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 17, 1985, and he received his commission on December 17, 1985. Buckley assumed senior status on August 31, 1996.^[2] He was one of the few people in modern times to have served in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the American federal government.

James Lane Buckley was born on March 9, 1923, in Manhattan, New York City, to Aloise Steiner and William Frank Buckley Sr., the fourth of ten children to the couple.^[3][4][5] Because their home language was Spanish, Buckley and siblings learned Spanish before they learned English.^[6] He was the older brother of the late conservative writer William F. Buckley Jr. and the uncle of Christopher Taylor Buckley. He was also the uncle of Brent Bozell III and political consultant William F. B. O'Reilly. His mother, from New Orleans, was of Swiss-German, German, and Irish descent, while his paternal grandparents, from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, were of Irish ancestry.^[7]

Buckley attended Millbrook School, and in 1943 earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University,^[8] where he was a member of Skull and Bones.^[9][10][11] He enlisted in the United States Navy in 1942, and during World War II he participated in the battles of Leyte, Lingayen Gulf, and Okinawa. Buckley was discharged with the rank of Lieutenant (junior grade)^[4] in 1946. After receiving his Bachelor of Laws from Yale Law School in 1949, he was admitted to the bar of Connecticut in 1950 and practiced law until 1953, when he joined The Catawba Corporation as vice president and director.^[12] In 1965, he managed his brother's campaign for Mayor of New York.^[5] Meanwhile, in May 1953, he married Ann Frances Cooley, with whom he had six children. She died on December 30, 2011.^[4][13]

In 1968, Buckley ran for the senatorial nomination of the Conservative Party of New York State, after his brother William F. Buckley Jr. had served as the party's mayoral nominee in the 1965 New York City mayoral election. Buckley won the party's nomination on April 2, 1968, with the unanimous support of all forty state committeemen.^[14] Buckley placed third in the general election behind Republican nominee Jacob Javits and Democratic nominee Paul O'Dwyer after receiving 1,139,402 votes (17.31%).^[15]

On March 16, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy announced that he would seek the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party for the 1968 presidential election.^[16] After winning four primaries Kennedy was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan in Los Angeles, California, on June 6.^[17]

Kennedy's death left a vacancy in the United States Senate that would be filled through an appointment by Governor Nelson Rockefeller. John W. Gardner, John Lindsay, Burke Marshall, C. Douglas Dillon, Charles Goodell, Ogden Reid, and Whitney Young were all mentioned as possible candidates for the appointment.^[18] On August 11, a spokesman for Rockefeller stated that the main choices for the appointment were Gardner, Goodell, and Reid.^[19] On September 10, Rockefeller appointed Goodell, a member of the House of Representatives from the 38th congressional district, to fill the vacancy.^[20]

On April 6, 1970, Buckley announced that he would seek the Conservative Party's senatorial nomination again.^[21] The Conservative State Committee convened inside Hotel McAlpin in Manhattan, New York City, on April 7, to select the party's nominees in the general election. Kevin P. McGovern attempted to force a primary campaign between himself and Buckley but failed to receive the 25% of delegate votes necessary for a primary. Buckley received nearly ninety percent of the delegate votes and the remainder was split between McGovern and abstaining delegates.^[22][23]

On June 20, F. Clifton White, Buckley's campaign manager, announced that Buckley's campaign would circulate petitions in an attempt to gain another ballot line named the Independent Alliance Party.^[24] Enough valid signatures were collected to gain the additional ballot line, but New York Secretary of State John P. Lomenzo ruled that the Independent Alliance's emblem, an outline of New York with Buckley's name inside, was illegal as New York's election law limited the number of times that a candidate's name could appear on a ballot line to one.^[25] Lomenzo later allowed the party onto the ballot after the emblem was changed to a shield with the letter "I" inside.^[26]

In the general election Buckley defeated Goodell, and Richard Ottinger.^[27] Although the Independent Alliance Party received over 100,000 votes in the general election, more than the 50,000 votes required to become an official party and automatic ballot access, it did not become an official party as its only candidate was Buckley, who ran in the Senate election and not in the gubernatorial election where the 50,000 votes were required to come from.^[28]

In 1971, Buckley spoke to the Republican National Finance committee about running for reelection in the 1976 elections with the Republican nomination.^[29] Peter A. Peyser challenged him in the Republican primary, but Buckley defeated him. Buckley gained Rockefeller's support by agreeing to not support Ronald Reagan's campaign against Gerald Ford in the Republican presidential primaries.^[30] Buckley lost the general election to Democratic nominee Daniel Patrick Moynihan by a margin of 54% to 45%.^[31]

During his tenure in the United States Senate Buckley's political affiliation was referred to as Conservative-Republican of New York (C-R-N.Y).^[32] The Republican caucus in the Senate voted 36 to 3 in favor of admitting Buckley into their caucus, with Senators Jacob Javits, John Sherman Cooper, and William B. Saxbe all opposing Buckley's admittance to the caucus.^[33][34]

In 1971, Buckley was appointed to the air and water pollution, roads, and economic development sub-committees within the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.^[35] Buckley supported Richard Nixon during the 1972 presidential election and called for the Conservative Party, which had not supported Nixon during the 1968 presidential election, to support Nixon in the current election cycle.^[36]

In 1974, Buckley proposed a Human Life Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. If passed, the Amendment would have defined the term "person" in the Fourteenth Amendment to include the embryo.^[37] His enacted legislation includes the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) that governs use of student records and the Protection of Pupils' Rights Act (PPRA) which requires parent notification, right to review, and consent for administration of student surveys to minors if the survey collects information on any of eight specified topics.^[38]

In the spring of 1974, with the Watergate scandal continuing to grow in magnitude and seriousness, Buckley surprised and, in some cases, angered some of his allies among Republicans when he called upon the increasingly-embattled Richard M. Nixon to voluntarily resign the presidency.^[39] Buckley said that in doing so, he was making no judgment as to Nixon's technical legal guilt or innocence of the accusations made against him and in fact denounced those "in and out of the media who have been exploiting the Watergate affair so recklessly" in what he called an effort "to subvert the decisive mandate of the 1972 election." However, he said that the burgeoning scandal might result in an impeachment process that would tear the country even further apart and so he declared: "There is one way and one way only by which the crisis can be resolved, and the country pulled out of the Watergate swamp. I propose an extraordinary act of statesmanship and courage—an act at once noble and heartbreaking; at once serving the greater interests of the nation, the institution of the Presidency, and the stated goals for which he so successfully campaigned"—Nixon's resignation.^[40] Buckley was the first major conservative figure to call for resignation. Nixon did not resign at that time but eventually did lose the support of key Republican figures, including Senator Barry Goldwater.^[41] Nixon ultimately resigned on August 9, 1974.^[42]

Buckley was the lead petitioner in a landmark Supreme Court case, Buckley v. Valeo (1976), which "shaped modern campaign-finance law".^[43]

During the 1976 Republican National Convention, then-Senator Jesse Helms encouraged a "Draft Buckley" movement in an effort to stop the nomination of Ronald Reagan for president. (Reagan had announced that Pennsylvania Senator Richard Schweiker would be his running mate; Helms objected to this decision, believing Schweiker to be too liberal.) The "Draft Buckley" movement was rendered moot when President Gerald Ford narrowly won the party's nomination on the first ballot.^[44][45]

After his loss in the 1976 election, Buckley worked for Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, becoming a member of the executive committee and of its board of directors and eventually advancing to the position of corporate director.^[46]

After his 1980 loss in Connecticut, Buckley served in the Reagan administration, first as an undersecretary of State for security assistance, managing military aid to strategically located countries, and then as President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich from 1982 to 1985.^[47][48]

On October 16, 1985, Buckley was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The seat had previously been held by Judge Edward Allen Tamm. Buckley was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 17, 1985, and received his commission on December 17, 1985. He assumed senior status on August 31, 1996.^[12]

During the 2016 presidential election Buckley was critical of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump. He stated that his brother William and Reagan would have been shocked by Trump's actions. He suggested that he mostly agreed with Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson.^[49]

Buckley became the oldest living former U.S. senator following the deaths of Jocelyn Burdick and Fritz Hollings in 2019.^[50]

Buckley turned 100 on March 9, 2023. He died from injuries suffered in a fall, in Washington, D.C., on August 18, 2023, at age 100.^[3][51]

Buckley introduced and led the passage of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, but later in 2010 he publicly supported amendment of the legislation due to college athletic departments using the legislation to hide sexual abuse allegations.^[52] He voted against a minimum wage increase in 1974. Buckley was one of eight senators to vote against the Equal Rights Amendment.^[53]

1976 U.S. Senate election in New York^[31]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Democratic	Pat Moynihan	3,238,511	51.26%
	Liberal	Pat Moynihan	184,083	2.91%
	Total	Pat Moynihan	3,422,594	54.17%
	Republican	James L. Buckley (incumbent)	2,525,139	39.96%
	Conservative	James L. Buckley (incumbent)	311,494	4.93%
	Total	James L. Buckley (incumbent)	2,836,633	44.89%	N/A
	Communist	Herbert Aptheker	25,141	0.40%	0.37
	Socialist Workers	Marcia Gallo	16,350	0.26%	0.20
	Libertarian	Martin E. Nixon	10,943	0.17%	0.17
	U.S. Labor	Elijah C. Boyd	6,716	0.11%	0.11
Total votes			6,318,377	100.00%
	Democratic gain from Republican

• If Men Were Angels: A View from the Senate (1975)^[55]
• Gleanings from an Unplanned Life (2006)^[56]
• Freedom at Risk: Reflections on Politics, Liberty, and the State (2010)^[57]
• Saving Congress from Itself: Emancipating the States & Empowering Their People (2014)^[58]

• Moore, John; Preimesberger, Jon; Tarr, David, eds. (2001). Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections. Congressional Quarterly. ISBN 1568026021.

• Buckley, James Lane (1975). If Men Were Angels: A View From the Senate. New York: Putnam. ISBN 0-399-11589-7.
• Buckley, James Lane (2006). Gleanings from an Unplanned Life: An Annotated Oral History. Wilmington: Intercollegiate Studies institute. ISBN 978-1-933859-11-8.
• Buckley, James Lane (2010). Freedom at Risk: Reflections on Politics, Liberty, and the State. New York: Encounter Books. ISBN 1-59403-478-8.
• Buckley, James Lane (2014). Saving Congress from Itself: Emancipating the States and Empowering Their People. New York: Encounter Books.

• United States Congress. "James L. Buckley (id: B001026)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• James Lane Buckley at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
• Official website of James L. Buckley [incorrect link]
• Appearances on C-SPAN