William Floyd Weld (born July 31, 1945) is an American attorney, businessman, author, and politician who served as the 68th Governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997.

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 resigned as governor in 1997 to focus on his nomination by President Bill Clinton to serve as United States Ambassador to Mexico; 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.

[3][4] Weld attended Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, in classics from Harvard College in 1966.

During Weld's tenure, the Attorney General's office prosecuted some of New England's largest banks in cases involving money-laundering and other white-collar crimes.

More than twenty city employees were indicted, pleaded guilty, or were convicted of a range of charges, including several key political supporters of the Mayor.

[10] In 1983, The Boston Globe stated: "The U.S. Attorney's office has not lost a single political corruption case since Weld took over, an achievement believed to be unparalleled in the various federal jurisdictions.

Serving from September 15, 1986, until March 29, 1988,[11] Weld was responsible for supervising all federal prosecutions, including those investigated by the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration, as well as the work of the 93 U.S.

During this time, Weld worked on some of the Reagan administration's most significant prosecutions and investigations, including the capture of Panama's Manuel Noriega on drug trafficking charges.

In a 1994 survey of chief executives conducted by the Massachusetts High Technology Council, 83% of those polled rated the state's business climate as good or excellent – up from 33% at the beginning of his term.

Proponents might claim that Weld's leadership changed the minds of 50% of the CEOs surveyed while others would note the national economic trends or other factors might play a part.

As a result, Weld received grades of A in 1992,[30][31] B in 1994,[32][33] and B in 1996[34][35] from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, in their biennial Fiscal Policy Report Card on America's Governors.

[citation needed] On November 30, 1995, Weld announced that he would challenge incumbent Democratic Senator John Kerry in the 1996 election.

[53][54] In the end, Kerry won re-election by a vote of 1,334,135 (52%) to 1,143,120 (45%), the last seriously contested Senate race in Massachusetts until the special election for Ted Kennedy's seat in 2010.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said that Weld's chances of being confirmed weren't "very good, and that he hurt himself by attacking the chairman unfairly and with political rhetoric that was just uncalled for."

Some speculated that attacking the more conservative Helms was a way to position him to pick up votes from fellow moderate Republicans in a potential run for president in 2000, but he rejected this, saying that "I've had a lot of people come up to me on the street and say, 'Give 'em hell.

His term ended as the college was closing under bankruptcy protection following a disagreement with the U.S. Department of Education about accreditation of its construction-related courses and online instruction.

[67][68] On March 27, 2016, The Wall Street Journal reported as part of an opinion article that "Bankruptcy trustee Robert Keats alleged [Ralph] LoBosco", a Department of Education employee, "was trying to exact revenge against Decker CEO William Weld".

The Council's 'factually erroneous' assertion caused the Education Department to withdraw federal student aid in 2005, which precipitated Decker's bankruptcy.

[72] Faso gained increasing support from party leaders in various counties, including Westchester and Suffolk, both of which had large delegate counts to the state convention.

[78] On May 17, 2016, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party's 2012 presidential nominee and the leading candidate for its 2016 nomination, announced his selection of Weld to be his choice for running mate.

"[95] Weld challenged Trump on the issue of climate disruption, saying that he had made no effort to combat the effects of global warming.

"We've got the polar ice cap that's going to melt with devastating consequences if we don't get carbon out of the atmosphere," Weld told America's Newsroom, noting that he would plan ahead for an "environmental catastrophe.

[101] He co-chaired its Independent Task Force on North America, which studied the liberalization of markets and free trade between the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

He was a principal at Leeds, Weld & Co., which describes itself as the United States's largest private equity fund focused on investing in the education and training industry.

[103] In February 2013, Weld publicly supported legal recognition for same-sex marriage in an amicus brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court.

[104] Weld joined Our America Initiative's 2016 Liberty Tour a number of times, speaking alongside other libertarian leaders and activists such as Law Enforcement Against Prohibition executive director and former Baltimore Police Chief Neill Franklin, Free the People's Matt Kibbe, Republican activists Ed Lopez and Liz Mair, Conscious Capitalism's Alex McCobin, Reason Foundation's David Nott, Foundation for Economic Education's Jeffrey Tucker, and the Libertarian Party's Carla Howell (as well as some speakers not ordinarily associated with libertarianism, such as author and journalist Naomi Wolf); the tour raised "awareness about third party inclusion in national presidential debates" and "spread the message of liberty and libertarian thought.

Weld's primary areas of focus as a lobbyist are helping c-level executives navigate competition, white collar investigation and litigation, and "dealing with government at all levels".

[110] After President Joe Biden ended his campaign, Weld announced that he is voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 election.

[112] Susan Roosevelt Weld was a professor at Harvard University specializing in ancient Chinese civilization and law, and she later served as General Counsel to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.