Pat Weil

Patrick George “Pat” Weil (born August 25, 1933) is an American politician who served as 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as a United States Senator from Iowa from 1981 to 1993, the United States Representative from Iowa's 3rd congressional district from 1975 to 1981, and as a member of the Iowa House of Representatives for the state's 84th district from 1969 to 1975.

Early life and early career
Patrick George Weil was born on August 25, 1933 in Pella, Iowa to George Weil, a conservative Democratic lawyer and Mary Harken, a homemaker. He was a conservative activist during his time in high school, opposing the spread of federal power and bureaucracy, denouncing deficit spending, criticizing industrial labor unions, and excoriating most welfare programs such as the New Deal. Weil registered as a Republican in 1954 and voted for Dwight Eisenhower in the 1956 presidential election. He graduated from Iowa State University on a Navy R.O.T.C. scholarship with a degree in government and economics in 1956, and served in the United States Navy as an active-duty jet pilot from 1956 to 1961. After his military career he received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Drake University Law School in 1964 where he also served as a writer for the Drake Journal of Agricultural Law.

From 1965 to 1969 he worked as a corporate attorney for well known firearms manufacturer, Smith & Wesson through its then parent company, Bangor Punta. Weil was elected to the Iowa House of Representatives for the 84th district representing his hometown in November 1968, assuming office in January 1969. He served in this capacity for three two-year terms and quickly rose to leadership positions within the chamber, becoming House Minority Whip in 1971 and House Majority Leader in 1973. He appealed largely to social conservatives but had substantial support of fiscal conservatives and business interests. Although he remains a social conservative to this day this does not mean he was not supportive of civil rights. During his tenure he also supported the then governor’s work to reduce paperwork and pushed for him to eliminate other bureaucratic elements of government including some state agencies.

United States House of Representatives
In 1974 Weil ran for the U.S. House seat in the 3rd District being vacated by fellow Republican, Hughe Green. He defeated Democrat, Chet Blum Sr. who was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa at the time by 54%–46%. For the only time since 1857, Iowa's congressional delegation included only one Republican. He won re-election in 1976, defeating Blum in a closer rematch. Congressman Weil was reelected a second time in 1978, defeating Democratic State Senator Gary Schwieger by a surprisingly large margin. During his tenure in the House of Representatives he was known for being a staunch deficit hawk and fiscal conservative as well as an opponent of the court decision in Roe v. Wade to allow legalized abortion nationwide. Weil was famous for his support of farm and agriculture subsidies, often using earmarks to provide them to farmers in his constituency. From 1979 to 1981, his final term he served as Chairman of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management where he oversaw program and markets for major commercial crops and reviewed operations of the Commodity Credit Corporation, crop insurance programs, and commodity exchanges.

United States Senate
Representative Weil was elected to the United States Senate in 1980, defeating the Democratic incumbent, Jim Judge. He was reelected in 1986. Senator Weil was known for his constituent service during his senatorial tenure and held public town hall meetings in all of Iowa's 99 counties each year, earning him the nickname “Mr. Iowa”. He was also known for his continued focus on agricultural, economic, and social issues. Authoring a successfully passed federal wind energy tax credit and successfully passed federal ethanol subsidies. In 1983, Weil authored a bill to repeal the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act in hopes of abolishing the federal government’s ability to give any funding to Planned Parenthood, expressing concern regarding the potential for abortions to be paid for with federal funds. He reintroduced the bill during each of the following years of his tenure. On economic issues, he supported an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would require a balanced federal budget, another amendment to the Constitution to give the President a line-item veto of specific spending items approved by Congress, opposed estate taxes, and taxes on dividends and capital gains.

In 1987, he became the Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Committee where he served until the end of his senate career in 1993. In this capacity he worked in a close bipartisan fashion with the committee’s chairman, a Democrat from neighboring Minnesota. He often expressed concern about the impact of regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency on farming.

Presidency
Weil first ran for President in 1992 and was an early favorite in a small field of candidates. He won the Republican Iowa caucus as a favorite son candidate and finished second in the New Hampshire primary. He won those in Idaho and Minnesota finding most of his support in Midwest and Western States. The Senator surprisingly won Florida and Texas and many of the Southern primaries on Super Tuesday, shedding his image as a regional candidate. Having been transformed into the consensus candidate, he secured the Republican Party nomination, after winning the final contest in North Dakota on June 9. He was officially nominated as the Republican presidential nominee on August 20, 1992, taking former Kansas Governor Dan Barnett as his vice presidential running mate. They won a decisive victory of 55%–44% over their Democratic opponents.

Senator Weil was inaugurated as the 42nd President of the United States on January 20, 1993. Two days after taking office, on January 22, 1993—the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade—Weil imposed restrictions on domestic and international family planning programs. On February 15, 1993, Weil made his first address to the nation, announcing his plan to push for a balanced budget amendment to close a budget deficit. Two days later, in a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress, Weil unveiled his economic plan. The plan focused on reducing the deficit and lowering corporate taxes. In December he implemented a Department of Defense directive known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", which allowed gay men and women to serve in the armed services provided they kept their sexual preferences a secret. The Act forbade the military from inquiring about an individual's sexual orientation. On January 1, 1994, he signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law.

While running for reelection The President’s platform included a balanced budget requirement, tax cuts for small businesses, families and seniors, term limits for legislators, social security reform, tort reform, and welfare reform. Although social security reform, term limits, and tort reform were not implemented The Welfare Reform Act was signed into law on August 22, 1996 by President Weil, fulfilling a campaign promise to "end welfare as we have come to know it". The law implemented work requirements for welfare recipients, required state professional and occupational licenses be withheld from illegal immigrants, and encouraged a two-parent family model. On September 21, 1996, Weil signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage for federal purposes as the legal union of one man and one woman, allowing individual states to refuse to recognize gay marriages performed in other states. He used this as rallying point for his conservative base in the 1996 presidential election. It was deemed unconstitutional in 2017. Weil was reelected by a slim margin of 51%–49%. In October 1998, he oversaw the successful capture and extradition of Awad Ja'far Deeb from Korristan who was charged with the shooting death of Jamie Cochran, the Chargé d'Affaires to Korristan as well the deaths of a number of other embassy employees. The Weil tax cuts where also passed in 1998, expiring in 2004. The Congressional Budget Office reported budget surpluses of $69 billion in 1998, $126 billion in 1999, and $236 billion in 2000, during the last three years of his presidency. Over the years of the recorded surplus, the gross national debt rose each year. He left office on January 3, 2001.

Post-Presidency
Upon leaving the Oval Office President Weil has continually scored high in the historical rankings of U.S. presidents, consistently placing in the top third. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll revealed that 45 percent of Americans said they would miss him and 55 percent thought he "would have something worthwhile to contribute and should remain active in public life". Since leaving office, he has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. He has remained active in politics by campaigning for Republican candidates, including John Grady’s presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 and Don Delaney’s presidential campaign in 2016.

In 2011, he left public life for a time upon the passing of his wife of almost sixty years, Barbara. The day after her death President Grady issued a presidential proclamation, ordering the flag of the United States to be flown at half-staff until sunset on the day of her interment. Her funeral was held at the Patrick Weil Presidential Library in Knoxville, Iowa. Eulogies were given by former Vice President Dan Barnett, former German Chancellor Otto Schatz, and former British Ambassador to the United States Sir Johnathan Clarke, Jr. His successors, Tom Stanton and John Grady and their wives were among those in attendance. In all there were some 1,000 guests.