Lincoln Díaz-Balart, a ‘Free Cuba’ Republican in Congress, Dies at 70
The New York Times
The Florida scion of an anti-communist political family, he served in the House for 18 years at a time when Cuban Americans exerted peak influence on U.S. policies.
Lincoln Díaz-Balart, a staunchly anti-communist Florida Republican who helped enshrine into law the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba and who defended immigrants’ rights during his nearly two decades in Congress, died on Monday at his home in Key Biscayne, Fla. He was 70.
His death was announced in a statement by his two younger brothers, Representative Mario Díaz-Balart, a Florida Republican, and the television anchor José Díaz-Balart of MSNBC and NBC News. The cause was cancer, according to Representative Díaz-Balart’s office.
The scion of a political family in Cuba, Lincoln Díaz-Balart forged his own political career on the other side of the Florida Straits, becoming a fiery orator and a persuasive behind-the-scenes legislator in the House of Representatives at a time when Cuban Americans exerted their peak influence on U.S. policies and elections.
In the heavily Cuban American, Miami-area district he represented for 18 years, Mr. Díaz-Balart’s name became synonymous with the cause of a free Cuba — so much so that he would sometimes be asked if he hoped to someday seek office in Havana.
As a congressman in 1995, he was arrested outside the White House while protesting President Bill Clinton’s Cuba policy, which was pushing for more engagement, and later helped craft the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which codified the trade embargo and other sanctions into law. The legislation kept Mr. Clinton and subsequent presidents from unilaterally lifting the embargo without the support of Congress. Critics of the embargo say it has failed because Cuba’s communist regime remains unchanged.
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The Florida scion of an anti-communist political family, he served in the House for 18 years at a time when Cuban Americans exerted peak influence on U.S. policies.
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