A Tribute to Jim Buckley

James L. Buckley passed away on August 18, 2023, at the age of 100.

On a very cold day in March this year, AEI’s former president Chris DeMuth arrived at AEI to pick me up in a snazzy new convertible. We were going to lunch with Jim Buckley, who would turn 100 years old the next day. Jim loved convertibles, and we drove with the top down from Jim’s home to a lively little pub. Jim was warm and gracious as usual, and he clearly enjoyed the discussion of recent Supreme Court activity and the challenges of the administrative state. I was in heaven. Two of my favorite bosses.

Jim Buckley came to the U.S. Senate in 1971 as a Conservative, after a surprising plurality victory in New York State. I was one of many young staffers. The pre-Reagan era was a lonely time for young conservatives, but our Senate experience served us well. We learned the mechanics of the Congress, but more important, we learned lessons about governance from a deeply principled conservative who was schooled in the wisdom of the Founders. Jim Buckley was the second Republican after Massachusetts Senator Ed Brooke to call on Richard Nixon to resign his office. The Senator “propose[d] an extraordinary act of statesmanship and courage — an act at once noble and heartbreaking; at once serving the greater interests of the nation, the institution of the Presidency, and the stated goals for which he so successfully campaigned — Nixon’s resignation.” He championed the Human Life Amendment. He was a true environmentalist and served on the Environment and Public Works Committee. He championed free speech in the campaign-finance reform case, Buckley v. Valeo, and won.

Buckley is one of a handful of Americans who served in the highest echelons of three branches of government, first as a Senator, then at the State Department, and finally as a judge on the nation’s second highest court, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. He continued to write, and in 2014 published Saving Congress from Itself. Many judges and former staffers attended his portrait unveiling at the court where he had served. Judge Patricia Wald, who probably rarely agreed with Jim, said of him that he was a “man of all seasons, not just intellect and acumen, but patience and tolerance for other person’s point of view, good nature and true restraint.” He was all of those things and much more.