Edward Joseph King (11 May 1925-18 September 2006) was the Democratic Governor of Massachusetts from 4 January 1979 to 6 January 1983, interrupting Michael Dukakis' terms.
Biography[]
Edward Joseph King was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts in 1925, and he served in the US Navy at the end of World War II and played professional football for the Buffalo Bills from 1948 to 1949 and for the Baltimore Colts in 1950. He became an accountant in 1953 and became comptroller for the Massachusetts Port Authority in 1959 before serving as Executive Director of Massachusetts Port Authority from 1963 to 1974. King was fired for not consulting with the board before expanding Logan International Airport, and he went on to served as president of the New England Chamber of Commerce and as Governor of Massachusetts from 1979 to 1983. King was a fiscally and socially conservative Democrat who supported capital punishment, offshore oil drilling, increased nuclear power, raising the drinking age to 21, less business regulation, and mandatory sentences for drug dealers. He froze property taxes, reduced state spending on social programs, introduced mandatory minimum sentences, and reintroduced the death penalty in his state, and Ronald Reagan called King his favorite Democratic governor. His administration's corruption resulted in his defeat for renomination in 1982, and King became a Republican in 1985. He died in Burlington, Massachusetts in 2006.