| Birth Name: | Floyd Kirk Haskell |
| Jr/Sr1: | This code has been disabled per Template talk:Infobox Officeholder. |
| State1: | Colorado |
| Term Start1: | January 3, 1973 |
| Term End1: | January 3, 1979 |
| Predecessor1: | Gordon Allott |
| Successor1: | William L. Armstrong |
| Office2: | Member of the Colorado House of Representatives |
| Term2: | 1965-1969 |
| Birth Date: | 7 February 1916 |
| Birth Place: | Morristown, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Party: | Republican (before 1970) Democratic (1970–1998) |
| Spouse: | Eileen Nicoll (1941-1976; divorced; 3 children) Nina Totenberg (1979-1998; his death) |
| Alma Mater: | Harvard University |
| Allegiance: |  United States |
| Serviceyears: | 1941-1945 |
| Battles: | World War II |
| Rank: | Major |
Floyd Kirk Haskell (February 7, 1916August 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.
Floyd Haskell was born in Morristown, New Jersey, to Edward Kirk and Gladys (née Clarkson) Haskell.[1] His father was an investment banker.[2] He attended Harvard College, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1937.[3] 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.[4] [5] [6] He received a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1941.[3] That same year he married Eileen Nicoll, to whom he remained married until their divorce in 1976; they had three daughters, Ione, Evelyn, and Pamela.[7]
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.[3] He was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for his intelligence work.[7] Following his military service, he was admitted to the bar in 1946 and moved to Denver, Colorado, where he worked as a tax lawyer.[2]
In 1964, Haskell was elected as a Republican to the Colorado House of Representatives from Arapahoe County, serving until 1969.[3] As a state legislator, he became assistant majority leader in 1967 and also served as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the House Education and Finance Committees.[7] In 1970, he left the Republican Party and became a Democrat in protest of President Richard Nixon's invasion of Cambodia.[2]
In 1972, Haskell decided to challenge three-term Republican incumbent Gordon L. Allott for a seat in the U.S. Senate. He defeated state Senator Anthony Vollack in the Democratic primary.[8] In the general election, he narrowly won[9] a four-way race between Allott[10] and candidates from the Raza Unida Party[11] and the American Independent Party,[12] receiving only 49% of the vote.[13] [14] He defeated his closest competitor, Senator Allott, by less than 10,000 votes while President Nixon carried Colorado by over 267,000 votes.[13]
Haskell was sworn into the Senate on January 3, 1973.[3] He served as a member of the Senate Finance and Energy and Natural Resources Committees, where he earned a reputation as a tax reformer and an environmentalist.[2] He supported the historic Alaska Lands legislation and regulation of auto emissions, the Panama Canal treaties, and alternative sources of energy.[15] 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%.[16]
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.[15] In 1979, he married Nina Totenberg, the legal affairs correspondent for National Public Radio; they remained married until his death in 1998.[7]
Haskell suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in 1994 after falling on ice near his home in Washington.[15] He died of pneumonia four years later, at age 82, while returning from a vacation in Maine with his wife.[2]