Floyd Haskell

Floyd Kirk Haskell (February 7, 1916 – August 25, 1998) was an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a U.S. senator from Colorado from 1973 to 1979.

Early life and career Floyd Haskell was born in Morristown, New Jersey, to Edward Kirk and Gladys (née Clarkson) Haskell. His father was an investment banker. He attended Harvard College, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1937. During college, he played on the football, rugby, and soccer teams, later developing as a tennis player, and was president of the Rocky Mountain Club. He received a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1941.

During World War II, Haskell served in the U.S. Army from 1941 to 1945, seeing action in Asia, viewing the immediate aftermath of Hiroshima, and reaching the rank of major. In the general election, he narrowly won and candidates from the Raza Unida Party and the American Independent Party, receiving only 49% of the vote. He defeated his closest competitor, Senator Allott, by less than 10,000 votes while President Nixon carried Colorado by over 267,000 votes. In 1978, lacking campaign funds and media acumen, he was defeated for re-election by Congressman William L. Armstrong, the first in Colorado to raise over a million dollars, losing by a landslide margin of 59%-40%.

Later life and death After his Senate career, Haskell established his residence in Washington, D.C., where he practiced law before joining Common Cause and a bipartisan group of retired lawmakers calling for campaign finance reform and an end to congressional gridlock. In 1979, he married Nina Totenberg, the legal affairs correspondent for National Public Radio; they remained married until his death in 1998.

Haskell suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in 1994 after falling on ice near his home in Washington. He died of pneumonia four years later, at age 82, while returning from a vacation in Maine with his wife.