Everything about Richard Lamm totally explained
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.
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 wasn't 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.
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'd 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."
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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.)
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).
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's especially strong in Colorado.
Dick Lamm currently sits on the board of directors for the
Energy Literacy Advocates.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Richard Lamm'.
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