Francis Ralph Valeo (January 30, 1916 – April 9, 2006) was the

Secretary of the United States Senate The secretary of the Senate is an officer of the United States Senate. The secretary supervises an extensive array of offices and services to expedite the day-to-day operations of that body. The office is somewhat analogous to that of the clerk ...

and ''ex officio'' member of the

Federal Election Commission The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent regulatory agency of the United States whose purpose is to enforce campaign finance law in United States federal elections. Created in 1974 through amendments to the Federal Election Cam ...

. He was the defendant/appellee for the

federal government of the United States The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fe ...

in ''

Buckley v. Valeo ''Buckley v. Valeo'', 424 U.S. 1 (1976), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on campaign finance. A majority of justices held that, as provided by section 608 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, limits on election expenditu ...

'', 424 U.S. 1 (1976), in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld federal limits on and disclosure requirements for campaign contributions but struck down limits on campaign and independent expenditures.

Life

Valeo was the son of a shoe factory foreman. He was born in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. He was a 1936 political science graduate of

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

, where he also received a master's degree in international relations in 1942. He served in China during World War II. After the war, he was a foreign policy specialist for the Legislative Reference Service of the Library of Congress, and was loaned to the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He traveled repeatedly to Southeast Asia with

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

Senator

Mike Mansfield Michael Joseph Mansfield (March 16, 1903 – October 5, 2001) was an American politician and diplomat. A Democrat, he served as a U.S. representative (1943–1953) and a U.S. senator (1953–1977) from Montana. He was the longest-serving Sen ...

. In 1963, after the

Bobby Baker Robert Gene Baker (November 12, 1928 – November 12, 2017) was an American political adviser to Lyndon B. Johnson, and an organizer for the Democratic Party. He became the Senate's Secretary to the Majority Leader. In 1963, he resigned during ...

scandal shook the Senate, Mansfield appointed Valeo to replace Baker as Majority Secretary, a position he held during the long filibuster over the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1965 he was elected Secretary of the Senate. In 1973, he travelled to

Wilmington, Delaware Wilmington (Lenape: ''Paxahakink /'' ''Pakehakink)'' is the largest city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It lies at the confluence of the Christina ...

to swear in Joe Biden as a Senator at the Delaware Division of the Wilmington Medical Center. Biden was caring for his two sons following a car crash that killed his wife and infant daughter two weeks earlier. Valeo's books include ''The Japanese Diet and the U.S. Congress'' (1983) and ''Mike Mansfield, Majority Leader: A Different Kind of Senate, 1961–1976'' (1999).

Sources

Senate Website
* 1916 births 2006 deaths People from Brooklyn Secretaries of the United States Senate Members of the Federal Election Commission {{US-gov-bio-stub