Joseph I. Lieberman, the independent four-term U.S. senator from Connecticut, who was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000s, becoming thew first Jewish candidate on the national ticket of a major party, died on March 27 in New York City. He was 82.

Mr. Lieberman served 10 years in the state Senate, the last six as majority leader before running the open U.S. House seat for the New Haven area. Following that loss, he ran for state attorney general and swept to victory. He won reelection four years later and then took o U.S. Sen. Lowell P. Weiker, Jr., a three-term liberal Republican.

In Washington, Mr. Lieberman became known as a serious-minded legislator, adept at working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle. In private life, Mr. Lieberman was a strict observer of Orthodox Jewish practice. He kept a kosher4 diet, prayer daily, and declined to campaign on the Sabbath. He brought moral certitude to his public life as well, denouncing gratuitous sex and violence in films, television shows, and pop music. One of Mr. Lieberman’s enduring themes was that religion in general, not just the Jewish faith, deserved a more prominent place in public life.

In his 2012 farewell Senate speech, he said, “The greatest obstacle I see standing between us and the brighter American future we all want is  right here in Washington. It is the partisan polarization of our politics that prevents us from making the principled compromises on which progress in a democracy depends.”