[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 149 (Thursday, December 1, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: December 1, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                        TRIBUTE TO SENATOR BOREN

  Mr. JOHNSTON. Mr. President, during his 15 years in the Senate, and 
before that, during his legislative and gubernational career in 
Oklahoma, Senator David Boren's legislative agenda could be summed up 
in three words, innovation, reform, and education. With energy, 
uncommon intelligence, highly developed parliamentary skills, and 
rigorous honesty, he has advanced that agenda much farther than anyone 
would have thought possible, and both Oklahoma and the Nation are in 
his debt.
  Building on educational programs he instituted during his term as 
Governor of Oklahoma--at the time, the youngest Governor in the United 
States--Senator Boren established in 1985 the Oklahoma Foundation for 
Excellence. He serves as the chairman of this innovative effort to 
provide private sector support for the Oklahoma public school system.
  As chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator 
Boren led the effort to reorder American priorities for a post-cold war 
world, stressing bipartisan cooperation and streamlined intelligence 
operations. In the Finance Committee's Subcommittee on Tax Policy, 
which he also chairs, he has worked to reform Federal tax and energy 
policy. As a leading member of the Agriculture Committee, he authored 
the Farm Credit Act of 1987 which saved thousands of farmers from 
bankruptcy.
  In 1992, the Congress recognized Senator Boren's commitment to making 
government institutions more honest, efficient, and responsive. He was 
appointed chairman of the Joint Committee on the Organization of 
Congress, and asked to lead an investigation into congressional 
bureaucracy and gridlock. Unfortunately for the Congress, academe made 
him a better offer. He is leaving the Senate to become president of the 
University of Oklahoma. I can only say, speaking for myself and his 
colleagues in this body, that the search committee made a superlative 
choice, and predict that in this new career David Boren will once again 
perform superlatively.

                          ____________________