Richard Lamm

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Richard Lamm

Governor of Colorado
In office 1975 – 1987
Lieutenant	George L. Brown
Preceded by	John David Vanderhoof
Succeeded by	Roy R. Romer

Born	August 12, 1935 (1935-08-12) (age 72) Madison, Wisconsin
Political party	Democratic
Profession	Co-Director of the Institute for Public Policy Studies at the University of Denver

Richard Douglas "Dick" Lamm is an American politician and lawyer. He served three terms as Governor of Colorado as a Democrat (1975–1987) and ran for the Reform Party's nomination for President of the United States in 1996.

1 Early life and education
2 Political activities
3 Writer and novelist
4 Activities since leaving political office
5 External links

[edit] Early life and education

Richard Douglas Lamm was born August 3, 1935, in Madison, Wisconsin. He was raised in Wisconsin and attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he majored in accounting. But Lamm was not a typical accounting student. Instead of spending summers crunching numbers at an office, Lamm worked as a lumberjack in Oregon, a stock-boy in New York, and even helped out on an ore boat. Lamm graduated from college in 1957, then served as a first lieutenant in the United States Army until 1958. From 1958-1960 Lamm held jobs as an accountant, tax clerk and a law clerk.

After graduating from University of Wisconsin-Madison, Lamm attended law school at the University of California, graduated in 1961, then moved to Denver in 1962, where he set up a law practice. Lamm took to the Colorado lifestyle, becoming an avid skier, mountain climber and hiker. In 1969 Lamm joined the faculty of the University of Denver. He is married to "Dottie" Lamm, a politician in her own right.

[edit] Political activities

In 1964 he was elected to the Colorado House of Representatives as a Democrat from an affluent district near the University of Denver. As a first year legislator, he drafted and succeeded in passing the nation's first liberalized abortion law. He was an early leader of the environmental movement, and was President of the First National Conference on Population and the Environment.

In 1972, as a member of the Colorado General Assembly, Lamm led the movement against Denver's hosting of the 1976 Winter Olympics. Denver had already been awarded the games, but the movement succeeded in cutting off public funding for the games, forcing the city to cancel its hosting. Innsbruck, Austria replaced Denver as the host.

Lamm was elected as Governor of Colorado in 1974. Reacting to the high cost of campaigning, he had walked the state in his campaign.

In 1984, his outspoken statements in support of physician-assisted suicide generated some controversy, specifically over his use of the phrase "we have a duty to die." Lamm later explained that he "was essentially raising a general statement about the human condition, not beating up on the elderly," and that the exact phrasing in the speech was "We've got a duty to die and get out of the way with all of our machines and artificial hearts and everything else like that and let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life." [1]

One of his acts as governor was designating folk music poet John Denver as the Poet Laureate of Colorado.

When he left office in 1987, he was the longest serving governor of the state.

In 1990, state party leaders tried to get Lamm to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Tim Wirth, also a Democrat. Lamm declined, saying that the Senate was "nothing but a big head trip" that had "the illusion of power." By 1992, however, he apparently changed his mind and made a run for the U.S. Senate but suffered his first political defeat. Ben Nighthorse Campbell beat him in the Democratic primary and went on to win the seat. (Nighthorse Campbell later switched to the Republican Party.)

[edit] Writer and novelist

In 1985, while still in the governor's office, he tried his hand at published fiction as a novelist. The resulting novel, 1988, was a story about a former Democratic governor of Texas running for U.S. President on a populist, third-party ticket, declaring himself a "progressive conservative." The main character bore a number of similarities to Lamm himself, in his stated political positions, his background as a Democratic governor, as well as presaging Lamm's own unsuccessful run for the Reform Party nomination in 1996. Interestingly, though, the main character in 1988 was also portrayed as a pawn of an international conspiracy to capture the White House.

A voluminous writer, Lamm's other works include Population and the Law (1972), Some Reflections on the Balkanization of America (1978), Megatraumas: America at the Year 2000 (1980), Energy Activities in the West (1980), The Angry West: A Vulnerable Land and Its Future (1982), Campaign for Quality: An Education Agenda for the 80's (1983), Pioneers and Politicians: Ten Colorado Governors in Profile (1984), Copernican Politics (1984), The American West: A poem (1985), Immigration Time Bomb: The Fragmenting of America (1985), The Lamm Administration: A Retrospective (1986), California Conspiracy (1988), Hard Choices (1989), Crisis: The Uncompetitive Society (1989), The fall and Rise of the American Economy (1989), Indicators of Decline: An article from The Futurist (1993), The Supply Factor in Health Care Cost Containment (1993), The Ethics of Excess: An article from The Hastings Center Report (1994), Health Care Workforce Reform.: An article from State Legislatures (1994), The West at Risk (1994), Futurizing America's Institutions.: An article from The Futurist (1996), The price of Modern Medicine (1997), Mountains of Colorado (1999), Government does, indeed, ration health care: An article from State Legislatures (1999), Redrawing the Ethics Map.: An article from The Hastings Center Report (1999), Vision for a Compassionate and Affordable Health System (2001), Brave New World of Health Care (2003), The Brave New World of Health Care (2004), The Challenge of an Aging Society: The Future of U.S. Health Care (2005), Two Wands, One Nation: An Essay on Race and Community in America (2006) and Condition Critical: A New Moral Vision of Health Care (2007).

[edit] Activities since leaving political office

After leaving office, Lamm has continued to speak publicly on environmental, immigration reduction, and health care issues. He has said he left the Democratic Party because of what he believed to be its demagoguery on the Medicare issue during the budget debate of 1995-96 and because of the tight rein special interest groups, especially trial lawyers, now have on the party. When asked why he didn't become a Republican, he said special interests, such as the Christian Coalition, also control the GOP. In 1996 he unsuccessfully challenged Ross Perot for the nomination of the Reform Party for the U.S. Presidency. In 2004 he unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club. He serves as the Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), and on the Board of Directors of the Diversity Alliance for a Sustainable America (DASA). He is currently the Co-Director of the Institute for Public Policy Studies at the University of Denver. He is also a Certified Public Accountant. He authored a book, The Brave New World of Health Care, a criticism of current United States health care policies and proposals for reforming them. (Fulcrum Publishing, ISBN 1-55591-510-8)

In 2005, a 2004 speech of his on the dangers of multiculturalism in the United States entitled "I Have a Plan to Destroy America", became famous after being frequently forwarded as an email.

Some statements from his 2006 book Two Wands, One Nation generated controversy:

"Let me offer you, metaphorically, two magic wands that have sweeping powers to change society. With one wand you could wipe out all racism and discrimination from the hearts and minds of white America. The other wand you could wave across the ghettos and barrios of America and infuse the inhabitants with Japanese or Jewish values, respect for learning and ambition."

"I suggest that the best wand for society and for those who live in the ghettos and barrios would be the second wand."

In July 2006 Dick Lamm said that many Blacks and Hispanics had formed an underclass whose cultures were "not success-producing" in the midst of a national immigration debate that is especially strong in Colorado.

Dick Lamm currently sits on the board of directors for the Energy Literacy Advocates.