[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 144 (Thursday, October 6, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 6, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                   TRIBUTE TO CONGRESSMAN DON EDWARDS

                                 ______


                       HON. GEORGE E. BROWN, JR.

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 6, 1994

  Mr. BROWN of California. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to 
rise today to honor and pay tribute to Congressman Don Edwards who is 
retiring after 32 years of service to this institution. It has been a 
personal and professional privilege for me to have worked with Don 
Edwards over the last three decades serving the people and State of 
California. I would like to take this opportunity to call the attention 
of my colleagues to an editorial by Albert R. Hunt of the Wall Street 
Journal which pays homage to a Congressman of unwavering principles and 
commitment to public service.

             [From the Wall Street Journal, Sept. 29, 1994]

                 The Congressman From the Constitution

                          (By Albert R. Hunt)

       Henry Hyde, the Illinois congressman, calls his retiring 
     colleague ``a man of unshakable beliefs and integrity * * * a 
     genuine asset to this place.'' You would think he was 
     lamenting the departure of a fellow conservative Republican.
       Instead, he's talking about Don Edwards, a liberal 
     California Democrat. Reps. Hyde and Edwards, as the two top 
     members on the House Judiciary Committee's Constitutional 
     Rights Subcommittee, have clashed repeatedly on some of the 
     most divisive issues in American politics, such as abortion 
     and the death penalty. But these two gifted legislators are 
     exceptions to the decline of civility in American politics. 
     ``I don't agree with Don on very much, but I have the utmost 
     respect for him as a person and legislator,'' says Rep. Hyde. 
     ``I only wish he and I were 20 years younger to carry on 
     longer.''
       Rep. Edwards, whose birth certificate says he's 79 years 
     old, though he looks and acts more than a decade younger, is 
     retiring after a 32-year career. Proponents of civil 
     liberties and civil rights are losing one of their greatest 
     champions. And the huge 52-member California congressional 
     delegation is losing its dean, who was able to maintain some 
     cohesion among this unruly lot.
       He leaves an impressive legislative record. He also leaves 
     a marker for the way politics ought to be practiced. In a 
     time when political fingers constantly test prevailing winds 
     Don Edwards--like his adversary Henry Hyde--sticks to 
     principles even if it means sailing against those winds. Amid 
     all the clamor for term limits, he's a reminder of the value 
     of experience and institutional memory. And in an environment 
     of simplistic sound bites and cynicism, he's a testament to 
     thoughtfulness and decency.
       W. Donlon Edwards arrived in Washington in 1963 with an 
     unusual background for a liberal Democrat. He was a former 
     FBI agent and a former Republican. (He was the president of 
     California Young Republicans during Richard Nixon's 1950 
     Senate race.) But he switched parties and came to Congress a 
     committed champion of civil rights.
       In one of his first votes, the San Jose lawyer was one of 
     only 20 members who tried to kill the House Unamerican 
     Activities Committee. Back in his district many thought that 
     would end his career. But he went on to win 15 more elections 
     and continued to champion causes he thought were right, 
     whether politically popular or not.
       In 1967 he was one of 16 legislators to vote against a bill 
     to make it a federal crime to desecrate the American flag. 
     That legislation subsequently was declared unconstitutional 
     by the Supreme Court. And in 1990 when President Bush 
     advocated a constitutional amendment to prohibit flag 
     burning, Rep. Edwards successfully led the fight against 
     changing the Constitution.
       This World War II Navy veteran has little use for people 
     who tarnish the flag. But, in the spirit of Hugo Black, he 
     passionately believes the Constitution protects outrageous 
     speech as well as rational speech. ``I consider him the 
     congressman from the Constitution,'' says Nat Hentoff, the 
     columnist and civil liberties expert. ``Don is very low-key, 
     but he's about the most passionate person I've known in 
     politics about the Bill of Rights.''
       This was on display again earlier this year when Congress 
     moved to denounce a speech of Khalid Muhammad, the Louis 
     Farrakhan disciple, who was peddling anti-Semitic, anti-
     Catholic and anti-white venom. ``Each of us ought to condemn 
     the terrible obscene things that Mr. Muhammad said,'' Rep. 
     Edwards told his colleagues. ``It is terrible, really it is 
     disgraceful.'' But, the California Democrat went on, ``We 
     have no business officially attacking a speech and condemning 
     it. * * *
       Yes, it is hateful speech, but it is entitled to be 
     heard.'' He was in a minority of 34.
       On constitutional matters he doesn't worry about political 
     correctness. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee 
     considering the impeachment of President Nixon in 1974, Rep. 
     Edwards insisted that the proceedings not be treated like a 
     grand jury and that the president's lawyer, James St. Clair, 
     be allowed to participate and question witnesses. And he 
     opposes the speech codes forbidding offensive language that 
     are in vogue on some liberal college campuses today.
       As chairman of the Constitutional Rights Subcommittee, the 
     16-term legislator's infinite patience has proved invaluable. 
     ``There is a lot of bad legislation that is not on the books 
     because Don had the capacity to sit on it.'' says Abner J. 
     Mikva, a former House colleague and the about-to-be White 
     House counsel. Don Edwards may have stopped more 
     constitutional measures than James Madison wrote.
       But Chairman Edwards is rarely heavy-handed; he's 
     unfailingly courteous and generous to the powerful and 
     nonpowerful alike. Unlike more than a few of his fellow 
     liberals, Don Edwards likes human beings as well as humanity. 
     And like more than a few other successful politicians, his 
     career has been helped immeasurably by the fact he married 
     above himself; his wife, Edith Wilkie, who runs the 
     bipartisan Congressional Arms Control Caucus, has had a 
     profound influence on the California Democrat for the past 
     two decades.
       A dyed-in-the-wool liberal, he was one of the first 
     opponents of the Vietnam War, has been in the forefront of 
     all civil rights legislation and has consistently espoused 
     efforts to help the poor and create ``a more caring 
     society.'' But he's not a knee-jerk. The best recent attorney 
     general, he believes, was a Republican, Edward Levi, who 
     served under President Ford. And there's considerable mutual 
     respect between Reps. Edwards and Hyde: ``I disagree with 
     most of Henry's views, but I trust him totally; we have no 
     secrets from one another,'' Rep. Edwards say. He totally 
     agrees with the Illinois Republican's complaint that the 
     current fad of ``in-veighing against careerism is know-
     nothingism at its worst.'' Mr. Edwards opposes term limits 
     but thinks restricting tenure on committees would be healthy. 
     While Congress may not be as fun or collegial as it used to 
     be, he says it's a lot more ethical; ``$100 bills used to 
     pass around freely.''
       Although liberalism is in retreat these days, Rep. Edwards 
     thinks it'll come back, and he views the past three decades 
     with enormous satisfaction. ``When I came here, the 11 states 
     of the Old South practiced apartheid. There was a House 
     Unamerican Activities Committee. And the FBI was out of 
     control threatening individual liberties. This is a much 
     better country today.''
       Once in 1970, for personal reasons, he considered retiring. 
     An aide brought a news clipping to J. Edgar Hoover, the 
     dictatorial FBI director, who wrote, ``Good riddance.'' It's 
     a better country today because it was Mr. Hoover who left the 
     scene a few years later while Don Edwards, who was to play a 
     critical role in cleaning up the FBI's abuses, served almost 
     a quarter-century more.

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