Frank Lautenberg

Lautenberg was born in Paterson, New Jersey, the son of Mollie (née Bergen) and Sam Lautenberg, Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia, who had arrived in the United States as infants. He was named after his maternal grandfather, Frank Bergen, and close family friend and Paterson community activist, Raleigh Weintrob.

When Lautenberg was 19, his father, who worked in silk mills, sold coal, farmed, and once ran a tavern, died of cancer. His mother then opened a sandwich shop to support the family.

After graduating from Nutley High School in 1941, Lautenberg served overseas in the 3185th Signal Service Battalion of the United States Army Signal Corps during World War II from 1942 to 1946. Then, financed by the GI Bill, he attended and graduated from Columbia Business School's now-defunct undergraduate program in 1949 with a degree in economics.

He worked as a salesman for Prudential Insurance and was the first salesman at Automatic Data Processing (ADP), a payroll-management company. He became the company's CEO in 1975.

He was the executive commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey from 1978 to 1982.

Lautenberg also served in roles with a number of Jewish and pro-Israel organizations, including as a member of the Jewish Agency for Israel's board of governors and as president of the American Friends of the Hebrew University. In 1974, he became the youngest chair ever in the history of the United Jewish Appeal. Within a year Lautenberg had increased its charitable intake to the second-highest level in its history. He was also named to the President's Commission on the Holocaust in the late 1970s.

Family

Frank Lautenberg married Lois Levenson in 1956; they had four children: Ellen, Nan, Lisa, and Joshua. Their 31-year marriage ended in divorce, in 1988. On 25 January 2004, he married his companion of nearly 16 years, Bonnie S. Englebardt. He also had two stepdaughters, Danielle Englebardt and Lara Englebardt Metz with Bonnie; and 13 grandchildren.

Lautenberg resided in Montclair, New Jersey for much of his Senate career and last resided in nearby Cliffside Park. In 2024, Lautenberg was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden, a Senate colleague for over two decades.

Health

On February 19, 2010, his office announced that Lautenberg had been diagnosed with a diffuse large b-cell lymphoma (an aggressive but curable blood cancer that appears in organs like the stomach) at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. He had been hospitalized with profuse gastric bleeding following a fall in his Cliffside Park, New Jersey, home shortly after returning from a Haiti trip with a 12-member congressional delegation. He was released from the hospital on February 25, 2010. Six to eight chemotherapy treatments of the intensive R-CHOP regimen followed every 21 days over several months, and a doctor for Lautenberg at the time said a full recovery was expected. Lautenberg continued his Senate work between treatments. On June 26, 2010, the senator announced that he was cancer-free.

Agriculture – In 2007, Lautenberg voted for an amendment to the 2007 farm bill which would have limited the amount of subsidies that a married couple could receive to $250,000; the amendment failed. However, he voted against eliminating farm price supports and eventually voted for the 2007 farm bill as well. He supported increasing the minimum wage.

Civil liberties – Lautenberg was not in the Senate at the time of the original Patriot Act in 2001; when the 2005 re-authorization came to the Senate floor, Lautenberg voted against cloture, but voted in favor of accepting the conference report. In March 2011, he stated to an assembled group of constituents that Tea Party Republicans "don't deserve the freedoms that are in the Constitution... but we'll give them to them anyway".

Environment and energy – Lautenberg, who had a pro-environment voting record, wrote a bill in 1986 that established the Toxics Release Inventory, which required companies to disclose the chemicals they released into the environment. He also co-sponsored the Consumer First Energy Act of 2008, which would have repealed $17 billion in tax breaks for oil companies and re-invested the $17 billion in renewable energy development and energy efficiency technology. However, the Senate rejected a cloture motion on the bill in June 2008. One of his main priorities in his final term was a bill he authored with Republican Senator David Vitter that would overhaul chemical safety laws. Lautenberg favored alternative energy sources, and voted in favor of giving tax incentives to those who use them.

Foreign policy – In 1996, Lautenberg voted against a bill that eliminated the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the United States Information Agency, the Agency for International Development, and the International Development Cooperation Agency and allowed the President to withhold 20% of funds appropriated to the United Nations if any agency of the organization does not implement consensus-based decision-making procedures on budgetary matters that assure that significant attention is given to the specific interests of the United States. He opposed capping foreign aid, and voted to give billions of dollars to the International Monetary Fund. He voted against implementing both the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Central American Free Trade Agreement. He called for action to be taken at the World Trade Organization against members of the OPEC cartel which sets production quotas that raise prices for crude oil, and consequently, America's gasoline. Lautenberg was an opponent of the Iraq War, though he was not in office when it was voted on.

Gun control – Lautenberg was a consistent supporter of gun control. He sponsored the Domestic Violence Offender Gun Ban, more commonly known as the "Lautenberg Amendment". This piece of legislation prohibits individuals (including law enforcement officers and military service members), convicted of a state or federal misdemeanor involving the use or attempted use of physical force, or the threatened use of a deadly weapon, among family members, from possessing a firearm. One of his last speeches on the Senate floor was in support of a failed bi-partisan measure for increased gun control.

Homeland security – Lautenberg was a proponent of the Container Security Initiative which would screen cargo containers bound for the United States for radiological contents. This policy is intended to identify threats before they arrive at U.S. ports. The Bush administration argued that the policy would be too expensive to implement, as U.S. inspection teams, with equipment, would need to be installed in 700 foreign ports.

Public health – In 1984, Lautenberg wrote the National Minimum Drinking Age Act that set the national drinking age at 21. In 2000, his legislation set 0.08 as the blood alcohol level threshold for drunk driving. He also wrote legislation that banned smoking on airplanes, in federal buildings, and in federally-funded buildings that serviced children.

Social issues – Lautenberg was pro-choice on abortion, and voted against banning "partial-birth abortions" in 1999. He voted in favor of expanding embryonic stem cell research. The NAACP gave him a 100% rating, indicating his strong support for affirmative action.Lautenberg was a strong supporter of same-sex marriage, and also voted to prohibit job discrimination based on sexual orientation and to expand the federal definition of hate crimes to include sexual orientation. He voted against a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, and expressed his support for equal marriage rights for LGBT couples in later years. Lautenberg did, however, vote in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. The Human Rights Campaign gave him a 100% rating, indicating his strong support for LGBT rights. Lautenberg also cosponsored a bill in 2012 that would have removed the deadline for the Equal Rights Amendment and a new attempt for the ERA in 2013.

Tax policy – Lautenberg voted against repealing and restricting the Alternative Minimum Tax and the estate tax. Lautenberg voted for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which contained $280 billion in tax breaks by expanding the earned income tax credit, child tax credit, home energy credit, and college credit, introducing a homebuyer credit and a credit for workers earning less than $75,000, along with an increased ceiling for the AMT and extended tax credits to companies for renewable energy production, along with a new policy making more companies eligible for a certain tax refund. In 2008, he voted to raise taxes on those earning more than $1 million per year. In 2006, he voted in favor of repealing the Bush-era tax cut on capital gains.

Transportation – Lautenberg supported federal funding of public transportation, such as Amtrak and New Jersey Transit. Lautenberg was primary sponsor of the S.294 [110th] "Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008" (Full Text), which would fund Amtrak for the next five years and provide opportunity for expansion. With the dramatic rise of gasoline prices from 2007 to 2008, Amtrak ridership has reached record levels. The bill passed the House, but Senate and House differences were never resolved. He was also a strong supporter of the commuter rail project Access to the Region's Core. When New Jersey Governor Chris Christie cancelled the project, Lautenberg called his move "one of the biggest public-policy blunders in New Jersey history", and said that, "All he knows how to do is blow hot air." The Frank R. Lautenberg Rail Station at Secaucus Junction was dedicated in 2003 with his name, because he helped allocate federal funds to build it.

Miscellaneous – Since the advent of the late 2000s recession, Lautenberg supported a number of Democratic bills designed to deal with the resulting problems plaguing Americans. In 2009, he voted in favor of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, popularly dubbed the stimulus bill. He later voted for the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights and the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009.