William Floyd Weld
Former Governor of Massachusetts
William Floyd Weld is an American attorney, businessman, and Republican politician who served as the 68th Governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997. Weld is running for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 2020 election.
A Harvard and Oxford graduate, Weld began his career as legal counsel to the United States house Committee before becoming the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts and, later, the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division. He worked on a series of high-profile public corruption cases and later resigned in protest of an ethics scandal and associated investigations into Attorney General Edwin Meese.
Weld was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 1990. In the 1994 election, he was reelected by the largest margin of victory in Massachusetts history. In 1996, he was the Republican nominee for the United States Senate in Massachusetts, losing to Democratic incumbent John Kerry. Weld resigned as governor in 1997 to focus on his nomination by President Bill Clinton to serve as United States Ambassador to Mexico. However, due to opposition by socially conservative Senate Foreign Relations committee Chairman Jesse Helms, he was denied a hearing before the Foreign Relations committee and withdrew his nomination.
Weld was hosted by The Common Good in March of 2017: History in the Making: Post-Election Panel 2016, alongside Carl Bernstein and Kellyanne Conway, with moderator Alan Schwartz.
Twitter: @GovBillWeld
