Stephen J. Solarz
Encyclopedia
Stephen Joshua Solarz (ˈsoʊlɑrz; September 12, 1940 – November 29, 2010) was a United States Congressional Representative from New York
. Solarz was both an outspoken critic of President Ronald Reagan
's deployment of Marines to Lebanon
in 1982 and a cosponsor of the 1991 Gulf War
Authorization Act during the Presidency of George H. W. Bush
.
, New York City
, Solarz attended public schools in New York City. He graduated from Midwood High School
, in Brooklyn
, NY., in 1958, and later received a B.A. from Brandeis University
in 1962 and an M.A. in public law and government from Columbia University
in 1967. Solarz taught political science at Brooklyn College
from 1967–1968.
. He was re-elected in 1970 and 1972.
In the 1973 Democratic primary, Solarz ran against Sebastian Leone
for Brooklyn borough president, and lost. That was not unexpected; Solarz had run mostly for improved name recognition and to make political and fund-raising contacts. In 1974, he was a delegate to the Democratic National Mid-term Convention.
in the Democratic primary for the New York 13th District. At the time, Podel was under federal indictment; he was later convicted. In November 1974, Solarz was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, to the 94th Congress, beginning January 3, 1975. He was re-elected eight more times, serving until January 3, 1993.
since the end of the Korean War
, and the first to meet with Kim Il-sung
. In the 1980s, he chaired the Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, an area of growing interest to the American people in that decade. He is remembered for his leadership on the Philippines
. He left Manila
just as Benigno S. Aquino was coming home to challenge President
Ferdinand Marcos
. Following Aquino's assassination, Solarz returned to Manila for the funeral and proceeded to push the Reagan administration to distance itself from the Marcos government. Shortly after Marcos left for exile in Hawaii
, Solarz was at one of the opulent palaces and publicized Imelda
's massive shoe collection. He worked closely with Aquino's widow, Corazon
, who became president, and who dubbed him the "Lafayette of the Philippines."
In 1982 and 1986, Solarz met with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
. In 1998 he led a group of neoconservatives urging President Bill Clinton
to overthrow him.
. After conducting extensive polling, Solarz decided that rather than challenge Democratic incumbent Ted Weiss or Republican incumbent S. William Green
, he would seek election to the open seat in the heavily Hispanic 12th Congressional District. Solarz entered the race damaged by the House banking scandal
, having written 743 overdrafts. Solarz was defeated in the Democratic primary by Nydia Velazquez
. Ironically, neither Weiss nor Green was re-elected, as Weiss died before the election and was replaced on the ballot by Jerrold Nadler
, while Green was defeated by Democrat Carolyn Maloney.
to bring private sector development to central Asia and served from 1993 to 1998.
In 1994, Solarz was a leading candidate to be nominated as the United States Ambassador to India
, however Solarz was forced to withdraw from consideration after scrutiny of his efforts to obtain a visa for a Hong Kong
businessman with a criminal record. Solarz's poor relations with members of the foreign service and the New York state political establishment were also identified as reasons for the failure of his nomination. The post instead went to Frank G. Wisner
.
Since 1994, Solarz had remained active with the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs
. He was also a member of the Intellibridge
Expert Network and of the executive committee of the International Crisis Group
. Solarz was also co-chairman of the American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus, along with Zbigniew Brzezinski
.
on November 29, 2010 in Washington, D.C. at the age of 70.
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. Solarz was both an outspoken critic of President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
's deployment of Marines to Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
in 1982 and a cosponsor of the 1991 Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
Authorization Act during the Presidency of George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
.
Early life and education
Born in ManhattanManhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Solarz attended public schools in New York City. He graduated from Midwood High School
Midwood High School
Midwood High School, at Brooklyn College, is a public, urban, co-ed high school located on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, New York City.Midwood High School was for many years the recipient of multiple accolades because of its competitive educational programs and for the achievements of its students...
, in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, NY., in 1958, and later received a B.A. from Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
in 1962 and an M.A. in public law and government from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in 1967. Solarz taught political science at Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...
from 1967–1968.
New York Assembly
In 1966 Solarz was the campaign manager for an anti-war campaign, for a U.S. House seat. He used that experience to make a successful run two years later, in November 1968, for a seat in the New York State AssemblyNew York State Assembly
The New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature. The Assembly is composed of 150 members representing an equal number of districts, with each district having an average population of 128,652...
. He was re-elected in 1970 and 1972.
In the 1973 Democratic primary, Solarz ran against Sebastian Leone
Sebastian Leone
Sebastian Leone was borough president of Brooklyn from 1970 to 1976.In January 1977 Sebastian Leone was elected to the New York Supreme Court. He served in that capacity until he retired in January 2001.He continues to reside in Brooklyn, New York....
for Brooklyn borough president, and lost. That was not unexpected; Solarz had run mostly for improved name recognition and to make political and fund-raising contacts. In 1974, he was a delegate to the Democratic National Mid-term Convention.
Election and re-elections
In September 1974, Solarz defeated incumbent Democrat Bertram L. PodellBertram L. Podell
Bertram L. Podell was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from New York. Born in Brooklyn, Podell attended St. John's University and Brooklyn Law School. He served in the United States Navy from 1944 until 1946. He was a member of the New York State Assembly from 1955...
in the Democratic primary for the New York 13th District. At the time, Podel was under federal indictment; he was later convicted. In November 1974, Solarz was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, to the 94th Congress, beginning January 3, 1975. He was re-elected eight more times, serving until January 3, 1993.
Involvement in foreign policy
On July 18, 1980, Solarz became the first American public official to visit North KoreaNorth Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
since the end of the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
, and the first to meet with Kim Il-sung
Kim Il-sung
Kim Il-sung was a Korean communist politician who led the Democratic People's Republic of Korea from its founding in 1948 until his death in 1994. He held the posts of Prime Minister from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to his death...
. In the 1980s, he chaired the Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, an area of growing interest to the American people in that decade. He is remembered for his leadership on the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. He left Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
just as Benigno S. Aquino was coming home to challenge President
President of the Philippines
The President of the Philippines is the head of state and head of government of the Philippines. The president leads the executive branch of the Philippine government and is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines...
Ferdinand Marcos
Ferdinand Marcos
Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos, Sr. was a Filipino leader and an authoritarian President of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He was a lawyer, member of the Philippine House of Representatives and a member of the Philippine Senate...
. Following Aquino's assassination, Solarz returned to Manila for the funeral and proceeded to push the Reagan administration to distance itself from the Marcos government. Shortly after Marcos left for exile in Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, Solarz was at one of the opulent palaces and publicized Imelda
Imelda Marcos
Imelda R. Marcos is a Filipino politician and widow of 10th Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. Upon the ascension of her husband to political power, she held various positions to the government until 1986...
's massive shoe collection. He worked closely with Aquino's widow, Corazon
Corazon Aquino
Maria Corazon Sumulong Cojuangco-Aquino was the 11th President of the Philippines and the first woman to hold that office in Philippine history. She is best remembered for leading the 1986 People Power Revolution, which toppled Ferdinand Marcos and restored democracy in the Philippines...
, who became president, and who dubbed him the "Lafayette of the Philippines."
In 1982 and 1986, Solarz met with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
. In 1998 he led a group of neoconservatives urging President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
to overthrow him.
Loss in primary, 1992
The round of redistricting following the 1990 Census divided his district into six pieces, reflecting his cold relations with many state lawmakers in AlbanyAlbany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
. After conducting extensive polling, Solarz decided that rather than challenge Democratic incumbent Ted Weiss or Republican incumbent S. William Green
S. William Green
Sedgwick William "Bill" Green was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from New York....
, he would seek election to the open seat in the heavily Hispanic 12th Congressional District. Solarz entered the race damaged by the House banking scandal
House banking scandal
The House banking scandal broke in early 1992, when it was revealed that the United States House of Representatives allowed members to overdraw their House checking accounts without risk of being penalized by the House bank ....
, having written 743 overdrafts. Solarz was defeated in the Democratic primary by Nydia Velazquez
Nydia Velázquez
Nydia Margarita Velázquez is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1993. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes residential areas of three boroughs...
. Ironically, neither Weiss nor Green was re-elected, as Weiss died before the election and was replaced on the ballot by Jerrold Nadler
Jerrold Nadler
Jerrold Lewis "Jerry" Nadler is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1992. He is a member of the Democratic Party.The district includes the west side of Manhattan from the Upper West Side down to Battery Park, including the site where the World Trade Center stood...
, while Green was defeated by Democrat Carolyn Maloney.
Post-Congressional career
Solarz was appointed by President Bill Clinton as chairman of the U.S. government-funded Central Asian-American Enterprise FundCentral Asian-American Enterprise Fund
Central Asian-American Enterprise Fund was a non-profit corporation funded by a United States government initiative to promote and create private enterprise in the five Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, The Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, created from the disbanding of...
to bring private sector development to central Asia and served from 1993 to 1998.
In 1994, Solarz was a leading candidate to be nominated as the United States Ambassador to India
United States Ambassador to India
American Embassy New Delhi was established Nov 1, 1946, with George R. Merrell as Chargé d'Affaires ad interim.-Chiefs of Mission to India:-See also:*Embassy of India, Washington, D.C.*India – United States relations*Foreign relations of India...
, however Solarz was forced to withdraw from consideration after scrutiny of his efforts to obtain a visa for a Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
businessman with a criminal record. Solarz's poor relations with members of the foreign service and the New York state political establishment were also identified as reasons for the failure of his nomination. The post instead went to Frank G. Wisner
Frank G. Wisner
Frank George Wisner II is an American businessman and former diplomat. He is the son of Frank Wisner . On 31 January 2011, he was sent to Egypt by President Barack Obama to negotiate a resolution to the popular protests against the regime that have swept the country...
.
Since 1994, Solarz had remained active with the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs
National Democratic Institute for International Affairs
The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs is an organization created by the United States government by way of the National Endowment for Democracy to channel grants for furthering democracy in developing nations. It was founded in 1983, shortly after the U.S. Congress created...
. He was also a member of the Intellibridge
Intellibridge
Intellibridge was a strategic analysis firm in Washington DC, founded by David Rothkopf in 1999. Senior management at Intellibridge included former Clinton-era National Security Advisor Anthony Lake. Intellibridge's assets were purchased in 2005 by Eurasia Group, the political risk consultancy....
Expert Network and of the executive committee of the International Crisis Group
International Crisis Group
The International Crisis Group is an international, non-profit, non-governmental organization whose mission is to prevent and resolve deadly conflicts around the world through field-based analyses and high-level advocacy.-History:...
. Solarz was also co-chairman of the American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus, along with Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
.
Death
Solarz died of esophageal cancerEsophageal cancer
Esophageal cancer is malignancy of the esophagus. There are various subtypes, primarily squamous cell cancer and adenocarcinoma . Squamous cell cancer arises from the cells that line the upper part of the esophagus...
on November 29, 2010 in Washington, D.C. at the age of 70.
External links
- NNDB Profile
- Immigration Votes: NumbersUSA
- For Solarz, a Career Ends in Grief and Relief
- “When To Go In”, magazine article by Solarz
- Biography From International Crisis Group
- “Arms for Morocco?”, magazine article by Solarz