Amos Chafee Barstow, mayor of Providence, was named chairman of the meeting.

( Chafee was defeated in 2006 general election after an expensive primary fight with a more conservative Republican financed in large part by the club.

Warner was among ten GOP Senators who voted against the charge of perjury during Clinton's impeachment ( the others were Richard Shelby of Alabama, Ted Stevens of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Olympia Snowe of Maine, John Chafee of Rhode Island, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, Slade Gorton of Washington and Fred Thompson of Tennessee ).

Chafee was appointed to the United States Senate in 1999 upon the death of his father, Senator John Chafee, and was elected in the 2000 Senate election for a full six-year term.

Chafee was a supporter of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential bid and is currently a co-chair of Obama's re-election campaign.

Chafee was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of Virginia ( née Coates ) and John Chafee.

His great-uncle, Zechariah Chafee, was a Harvard law professor and a notable civil libertarian.

The Chafee family was among the earliest settlers of Hingham, Massachusetts, before moving south to Rhode Island.

Laffey was considered a formidable challenger, as he was much more conservative than Chafee.

Chafee was defeated by Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse in the general election.

In response to a question at a news conference on November 9, 2006, Chafee stated he was unsure whether he would remain in the Republican Party after serving out the remainder of his term.

In December 2006, Chafee announced he was accepting a fellowship to serve as a " distinguished visiting fellow " at Brown University's Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies.

as the incumbent Governor Donald Carcieri ( a Republican re-elected the same day Chafee lost his Senate re-election bid ) was term-limited at the time.

In November 2011, it was reported that Maryland Governor Martin O ' Malley, the Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, had asked Chafee to join the Democratic Party.

When asked if he was considering it, Chafee responded, " I ’ m happy where I am for now.

In 2003, Chafee was one of the three Republican Senators to oppose the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

While Senator, Chafee was a member of the Republican Majority for Choice and Republicans for Choice.

Chafee was the only Republican in the Senate to have voted against authorization of the use of force in Iraq.

Currently Governor Lincoln Chafee, an independent in Rhode Island, is the only serving governor not from one of the two major parties.

On June 27, 2006, Chafee was one of only three Republicans to vote against the proposed Flag Desecration Amendment.

On May 23, 2005, Chafee was one of 14 bipartisan senators to forge a compromise on the Democrats ' use of the judicial filibuster, forestalling the Republican leadership's implementation of the so-called " nuclear option ".

Conservative author and radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt argued that Chafee is one of the greatest roadblocks to creating a permanent Republican majority in the country because of his unwillingness to conform to the party's social goals.

In her 2006 re-election campaign, she was one of two Republican Senate candidates endorsed by the prominent gay rights organization, the Human Rights Campaign ( the other was Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island ).

Harvard's Professor Zechariah Chafee paid tribute to Lowell's defense of Harvard's teachers and students by dedicating his 1920 study Free Speech in the United States to Lowell, " whose wisdom and courage in the face of uneasy fears and stormy criticism made it unmistakably plain that so long as he was president no one could breathe the air of Harvard and not be free.

Reasons ascribed for the defeat include the fact that, after running three times on a strong anti-income tax platform, Chafee now said that such a tax was imperative ( indeed his anti-tax opponent went on to champion one in 1971 ); and that he stopped campaigning after his 14-year-old daughter Tribbie was killed in a riding accident.

Chafee was one of the few Republicans to support strict gun control laws.

Incumbent Senator Lincoln Chafee was one of the most liberal member of the Republican Party in the Senate by 2006, and was challenged for the Republican nomination by Laffey who had criticized Chafee for his liberal voting record in the Senate.

In addition, the Club for Growth also makes independent expenditures to pressure certain moderate Republicans to vote more conservatively ( e. g. running ads against Senators George Voinovich of Ohio, Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island after these Senators objected to certain aspects of President Bush's tax cuts ).

* On April 28, 2009, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter specifically mentioned the Club for Growth's previous activity in supporting conservative primary opponents against Republicans such as Wayne Gilchrest, Joe Schwarz, Lincoln Chafee and Heather Wilson, in his decision to run for re-election as a Democrat in 2010.

However, unlike Snowe, Collins, Specter, Jeffords and Chafee, the rest of the Republicans voted guilty on the second article.

In the 2006 elections after many moderate Republicans were defeated, including then-Senator Lincoln Chafee, Nancy Johnson and Rob Simmons of Connecticut, Charlie Bass of New Hampshire and Jim Leach of Iowa, the prominence of Rockefeller Republicans dwindle even further.

Seven Democrats, James Jeffords ( I ) of Vermont, and Lincoln Chafee ( R ) of Rhode Island voted against the bill ; nine Republicans supported it.

The NRSC generally avoids supporting Republicans in primaries against other party members, though the 2006 Rhode Island Senate primary between Lincoln Chafee and mayor of Cranston Steve Laffey is a notable exception.

Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee and New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, both former Republicans turned independents, also espouse several stances favored by liberal Republicans.

However, Chafee also cast a crucial procedural vote against a Democratic attempt to kill the bill, which failed by only two votes.

Former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee, the other Republican who voted against Bush's tax cuts in 2001, was the only Republican Senator to vote against the Iraq War resolution.

In September 2005, Steve Laffey, the mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island, announced his intention to run against Chafee in the Republican primary.

Chafee opposes the death penalty, and has consistently voted against limiting federal death penalty appeals, has favored including racial statistics in death penalty appeals, and a prerequisite of DNA analysis for all federal executions.

In regards to the case, which would likely result in capital punishment, Chafee said: " The State of Rhode Island must seek to protect both the strong states ' rights issues at stake and the legitimacy of its longstanding public policy against the death penalty.

Chafee voted against the Kerry-Feingold amendment calling for a binding timetable.

Chafee also voted against both the 2001 and 2003 federal tax cut bills.

Chafee also Cosponsored the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, which expanded federal jurisdiction over class-action lawsuits, and voted against a wholesale ban on gifts from employees of lobbying companies.

In 2003, Chafee voted against the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit.

On fiscal issues, she has voiced support for cutting taxes as economic stimulus, although she joined fellow Republican senators Lincoln Chafee and John McCain in voting against the Bush tax cuts in 2003.

However the Secretary of the Navy, John H. Chafee, intervened on Bucher's behalf and no action was taken against Commander Bucher.

After an unsuccessful candidacy for the Senate in 1972 against Democratic incumbent Claiborne Pell, Chafee was elected to that body in 1976, the first Republican to win a Rhode Island Senate election since 1930.

" On February 12, 1999, Chafee voted against both articles of impeachment against Clinton.

The six Republican senators who voted against conviction on both charges were John Chafee of Rhode Island, Susan Collins of Maine, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, William V. Roth, Jr. of Delaware, Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Several members of the Gang of 14 then voted against confirming Alito, including Republican Lincoln Chafee.