See the
Guardian,
"At a time when Washington politics are mainly mean and nasty, the death of the former Democratic senator for Wisconsin, William Proxmire, at the age of 90, is a reminder that they could be fun.
At the seat of US power, Proxmire was a gleefully teasing court jester, but no fool. His style was mocking, and his manner droll in deflating the financial absurdities and extravagances of the system. He was best known for his annual Golden Fleece awards, through which, from 1975 to 1988, he publicised outlandish government spending, bureaucratic wastage or money misused in the cause of self-advancement.
He also practised the austerity he preached, spending almost nothing on his campaigns and writing three books attacking state profligacy. A fitness enthusiast - managing 100 press-ups every morning followed by a four-mile run - he wrote two books on the subject. Sadly, his last decade was blighted by Alzheimer's disease.
(More Fleece below fold)
Proxmire was in Washington from 1957, when he replaced the notorious Senator Joe McCarthy, until 1989, when he retired. He was difficult to label politically: he was said to be left, but voted for (and later regretted) the 1964 Tonkin Gulf resolution that started the US war in Vietnam. Despite scorning needless government spending, he supported dairy farm subsidies for the lush pastures of his home state.
In a remarkable feat of persistence, for 19 years from 1967 he made a speech every day Congress convened - a total of 3,211 orations - in support of the genocide convention. When the US finally ratified the pact in 1986, he stopped. Altogether, he attended 10,000 senatorial vote calls, and his record of consecutive votes still stands.
Although Proxmire's father was a wealthy Illinois surgeon, and he himself attended Yale and Harvard, he did not find it easy to get into the senate. After war service in counter-intelligence, he took an MA at Harvard and was elected to the Wisconsin state assembly in 1951. But then three attempts at the governorship, between 1952 and 1956, ended in failure. This exposure on the hustings, however, helped him to win the US senate special election that followed McCarthy's death from alcoholism. Proxmire then served just over a year before being elected in his own right in 1958, and four more times after that.
He never sought higher office and was content to serve for many years on the committee on banking, housing and urban affairs, of which he became chairman. The post provided invaluable insights into government spending follies.... On at least two occasions he lambasted scientific research expenses that were nationally beneficial, but he apologised.
Among his Golden Fleece awards were a $28,600 subsidy for surfing in Hawaii; the US navy's use of 64 planes to fly 1,334 pilots to a reunion in Las Vegas that became a sexual harassment scandal; a payment of $6,000 by the army for a 17-page manual on Worcester sauce; a $1.2m grant to a New Jersey town for the historical preservation of a sewer; and a $20,000 government gift to Bedford, Indiana, to construct an 800ft limestone model of the Great Wall of China. In the 1980s, he cracked down on wasteful spending on such items as lavatory seats, hammers and coffee machines, his favourite being doormats that cost the navy $792 each.
But Proxmire also delivered penetrating remarks about government conduct. One that resonates today came as a rider to Lord Acton's dictum on the corruptive nature of power. Proxmire added: "Power exercised on security, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous." He is survived by his second wife, Ellen, whom he married in 1956, their son Douglas and the children of his first marriage, Theodore and Elsie. Another son predeceased him.
· Edward William Proxmire, politician, born November 11 1915; died December 15 2005"
Rest in peace Proxy.