Mario Biaggi (October 26, 1917 – June 24, 2015) was an American politician, attorney, and police officer. He served ten terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives from New York from 1969 to 1988.
Prior to his political career, Biaggi became one of the most decorated officers in NYPD history; he killed two criminals who attacked him and was injured 11 times as an officer. He then became an attorney at 49 years of age. First elected a U.S. Representative as a Democrat from the Bronx in 1968, Biaggi was subsequently re-elected nine times, seven times with more than 90% of the vote.
In 1987 and 1988, he was convicted in two trials of receipt of unlawful gratuities, and, facing the prospect of expulsion from the House, he resigned from Congress in August of 1988.
Early life Biaggi was born in a tenement on East 106th Street in East Harlem in Upper Manhattan, New York City, New York to poor Italian immigrants from Piacenza in Northern Italy. His father, Salvatore Biaggi, was a marble setter. His mother, Mary (née Campari), worked as a charwoman.Current Biography Yearbook; 1986, H.W. Wilson Company. He had two younger brothers.
Biaggi graduated from P.S. 171 in East Harlem. Subsequently, in 1934 during the height of the Depression, he graduated from Haaren High School in Manhattan."Biographies of Witnesses, Foreign Assistance for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland; Hearing and Markup Before the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Its Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, House of Representatives, Ninety-ninth Congress, Second Session, on H.R. 4329," March 5 and 6, 1986, Vol. 4, United States Congress House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1986. In 1940 he married Marie Wassil (who died in 1997), and they moved to the Bronx and had two daughters, Barbara and Jacqueline, and two sons, Richard and Mario Jr.
Early career Mailman After working as a shoeshine boy and a stint as a factory worker, at age 18, Biaggi became a substitute letter carrier for the United States Postal Service, for 65 cents per hour.Emily Langer (June 25, 2015). "Mario Biaggi, N.Y. congressman convicted of corruption, dies at 97," The Washington Post. Later, he became a regular letter carrier; his mail route included the home of one of his heroes, New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. He served nearly six years with the Post Office and became an activist in Branch 36 of the National Association of Letter Carriers.
New York City Police Department In 1942, Biaggi joined the New York City Police Department (NYPD), at 25 years of age. He wanted to join the US Army, but police were exempted from the US military at the time, and the fact that his two brothers were in the armed forces was an additional factor. His police career spanned 23 years, until 1965.
He was wounded 11 times. Biaggi received dozens of citations for valor, including the police department’s Medal of Honor (its highest award) and the National Police Officers Association of America’s Medal of Valor, becoming one of the NYPD's most decorated officers. Among his many exploits was his rescue in 1946 on Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan of a girl on a runaway horse, which dragged him 90 feet and trampled his right leg before he subdued it, causing a permanent limp. He used a cane for the rest of his life. In 1944, he shot and killed a man who tried to stab him with an ice pick, and in 1959, he shot and killed a man who tried to rob him at gunpoint; he himself was wounded in the shootout in the Bronx.
In 1952, he was promoted to Sergeant. He retired from the Department in 1965, with the rank of Detective Lieutenant.
Legal career At the age of 45 and near the end of his police career, Biaggi entered law school. The American Bar Association granted him a special dispensation to study law due to his distinguished police career, even though Biaggi had never gone to college and a college degree was a prerequisite. Dean Daniel Gutman offered him a full scholarship to New York Law School, after hearing him speak at a public event. In 1965, he graduated from the law school with an LL.B. In 1966, at the age of 49, he was admitted to the New York State Bar and founded with Bernard G. Ehrlich the Bronx law firm Biaggi & Ehrlich. He represented a Queens woman who was denied the right to be an umpire in minor league baseball in 1969, and won her case at the New York Court of Appeals in 1972.
U.S. House of Representatives Campaigns In 1968, the U.S. House seat in became vacant when eight-term Republican incumbent Paul A. Fino resigned to become a justice on the New York Supreme Court. Biaggi ran for the open seat as a Democrat with the endorsement of the Conservative Party. He won the 1968 election to Congress with 60.5% of the vote in what had previously been considered a traditional Bronx Republican stronghold. He was 51 years old.
Author Gerhard Falk wrote: "Few members of the House of Representatives have ever achieved the popularity of Mario Biaggi."Gerhard Falk (2017). The Assault on American Democracy, . He was easily re-elected in 1970, as a nominee of the Democratic, Republican, and Conservative Parties, with a vote of 130,000-8,000. He won the 1970 election defeating former Bronx Borough President Joseph F. Periconi, the 1972 election with 93.9% of the vote, the 1974 election with 82.4% of the vote, the 1976 election with 91.6% of the vote, the 1978 election with 95.0% of the vote, the 1980 election with 94.5% of the vote, the 1982 election with 93.7% of the vote, the 1984 election with 94.8% of the vote, and the 1986 election with 90.2% of the vote."FEDERAL ELECTIONS 84; Election Results for U.S. President, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives," Federal Election Commission, June 1985."Statistics of the Congressional Election of November 4, 1986," Clerk of the House of Representatives, May 29, 1987.
In the redistricting after the 1970 United States census, Biaggi's district was renumbered the 10th, and included part of Queens. In the redistricting after the 1980 census, his district was renumbered the 19th, and included part of suburban Westchester County.Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, Vol. 41, 1983. From 1972 onward, he was nominated by the Republicans as well. In 1968, 1970, and 1972 he also received the Conservative nomination.Richard Norton Smith (2014). On His Own Terms; A Life of Nelson Rockefeller, Random House. From 1978 onward he got the Liberal nomination.
Tenure Biaggi was known as a law-and-order Democrat, socially conservative, economically progressive, and tough on street crime, and led the institution of a federal ban on armor-piercing "cop killer" teflon-coated bullets, a major concern of police.Kim I. Mills (July 11, 1988). "Mario Biaggi: Lawman to Lawmaker to Law-Breaker," AP News. He also strongly supported the elderly, labor unions, the mentally disabled, hand-gun control, Israel, Soviet Jewry, and peace in Northern Ireland, and opposed brutality in US Army camps and antisemitism. Commenting in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War, Biaggi said: "Israel was attacked in very much the same fashion that Pearl Harbor was attacked."
He was noted for being "a service congressman." John C. Dearie, a former New York State Assemblyman, recalled: "He would do it for the son who needed to get his mother a bed in a nursing home, or the family who needed to resolve a Social Security problem, or the kid who needed help getting a job application at the Parks Department. He would pick up and make the phone call, and when he did, it was like God himself was making the call."
During his tenure in office he was Chairman of the United States House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Navigation, Chairman of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Aging Subcommittee on Human Services, and Chairman of the 120-member bi-partisan Ad Hoc Congressional Committee for Irish Affairs."To Reauthorize and Extend the Older Americans Act of 1965, as Amended; Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, First Session, on H.R. 3046 ... ", Hearing Held in Washington, D.C., on April 29, 1981.
In 1975, Biaggi introduced a joint resolution of Congress, Public Law 94-479, to posthumously promote George Washington to the grade of General of the Armies of the United States and restore Washington's position as the highest-ranking military officer in U.S. history., H.J. Res. 519 It was passed and was approved by President Gerald Ford in 1976, and formalized in Department of the Army Order 31-3 in 1978, with an effective appointment date of July 4, 1976, the United States Bicentennial.Text of H.J.Res. 519 (94th): Joint resolution to provide for the appointment of George Washington to the grade of General of the Armies of the United States. Passed Congress version, October 11, 1976.
Biaggi established the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF). It sponsored the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C. at Judiciary Square, authorized in 1984, which honors 21,183 U.S. law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty throughout American history.
1973 mayoral campaign
In 1973, Biaggi declared his candidacy for Mayor of New York City. He entered the Democratic primary. Biaggi was a fairly conservative Democrat by New York City standards, and had run on the Conservative line for Congress three times. Conservative Party leaders supported him as the party's candidate for mayor, and planned to make him their nominee regardless of whether he received the Democratic line. Initially, he was ahead in the polls.David M. Dorsen (2012). Henry Friendly, Greatest Judge of His Era, Harvard University Press. Biaggi lost the Democratic primary in June, coming in third with 21% of the vote behind Abe Beame (34%) and Herman Badillo (29%), and ahead of Albert H. Blumenthal (16%).
After Biaggi did not win the Democratic primary, while he remained on the Conservative line in the general election, he gave assurances to Democratic county chairmen in late August 1973 that he would not make a "serious run" for Mayor and thereby pull votes away from Democratic nominee Beame, even though he would remain as the Conservative Party nominee inasmuch as New York law did not allow him to withdraw at that stage. He finished in fourth place, behind Beame, John Marchi, and Blumenthal, with 11% of the vote, as Beame won the election.
Unlawful gratuity convictions In 1987 Biaggi was charged with taking an unlawful gratuity. He had accepted payment from his long-time friend former Brooklyn Democratic leader Meade Esposito of a $3,200 spa bill for Biaggi and his companion as he vacationed in Florida in December 1984. Prosecutors said it was in exchange for using his influence to help a ship-repair company that was a major client of Esposito's insurance agency. The defense said it was given by Esposito out of friendship, and no favors were done by Biaggi in return. The judge explained that to convict Biaggi of bribery, the jury would have to find that Biaggi accepted something of value with the understanding it was in exchange for Biaggi's influence on official actions. He said that in contrast an unlawful gratuity is like a tip given for services performed or expected to be performed, but requires no quid pro quo understanding.