[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 169 (Monday, October 30, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H11423-H11424]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           IN MEMORIAM: HON. B.F. ``BERNIE'' SISK (1910-1995)

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Radanovich] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RADANOVICH. Madam Speaker, it is my sad duty to inform the House 
of the loss of one of our former Members, the Honorable Bernice 
Frederic Sisk. ``Bernie,'' as he was widely and popularly known was 
first elected to Congress in 1954. His service began in the 84th 
Congress and continued for 11 succeeding Congresses. He was not a 
candidate for re-election in 1978, returning to his Fresno, California 
home where he lived and served the community in many ways until he went 
to his final rest on Wednesday of this week--October 25.
  Mr. Speaker, I have the honor to represent today much of the area of 
California that Congressman Sisk served during his near quarter century 
in this House. Thus, I am familiar with his legacy and I know from 
countless constituents the admiration and respect in which he was held.
  What was written by Capital commentators over time about Congressman 
Sisk is worth recalling as we honor his memory. In the 1972 Almanac of 
American Politics, reference is made to how his ingratiating 
personality and conservative record saw him, an important figure in the 
House, become a candidate for Majority Leader in late 1970.
  I feel a kinship with my late predecessor, Mr. Speaker, not only 
because of geographical identity and his conservatism--even though my 
party was not his--but also because of his main legislative interest, 
namely, agriculture, and his sponsorship of major water projects for 
California's Central Valley. Indeed, the San Luis Dam of the Central 
Valley Project is named for him.
  Our community also applauded ``Bernie'' Sisk's legislative leadership 
in 1977 when he moved to the fore in connection with health care cost 
control related to Medicare. According to Congressional Quarterly 
Almanac, he relayed concerns from his district about the effects of an 
administration plan. He said, according to CQ, ``hospitals must have 
some way to control the cost of their supplies if they were required to 
control their revenues.'' The publication reports that Congressman Sisk 
said hospitals in his area had complained that Federal regulations had 
become too binding, preventing economy measures that the hospitals 
wanted to institute. ``There must be more flexibility,'' he is reported 
as saying.
  Probably no better statement of the legacy of Congressman Sisk could 
be expressed than that of our former colleague, Congressman Tony 
Coelho, who once served as Congressman Sisk's administrative assistant 
here on the Hill. Tony told me today, ``No single individual did more 
to advance the economy and growth of the Central Valley than Bernie 
Sisk.''
   Mr. Speaker, Congressman Sisk's passing is a loss to our community 
and country. To his family, friends, and all he served with great 
distinction, I express my sincerest sympathy.
  In further esteem for his memory, I ask that there be included with 
my remarks the published obituary from the Fresno Bee of October 26, 
1995, entitled ``Congressman Leaves Legacy.''

                       Congressman Leaves Legacy

                 (By Felicia Cousart and Michael Doyle)

       Former Congressman B.F. Sisk, who emerged from a Dust Bowl 
     childhood to become a longtime political power broker in the 
     nation's capital, died Wednesday in Fresno after a lengthy 
     illness.
       He was 84.
       Mr. Sisk, a moderate Democrat from Fresno who served in 
     Congress from 1955 to 1979, worked with six presidents and 
     four House speakers during his long tenure representing the 
     Valley.
       The one-time tire salesman was one of the most influential 
     lawmakers to come from the region, benefiting not only Valley 
     interests but shaping national policy as well.
       ``There's nobody who had a greater impact on the San 
     Joaquin Valley than Bernie Sisk,'' said Tony Coelho, former 
     House majority whip and Mr. Sisk's one-time administrative 
     assistant. ``You can go up and down the Valley and find the 
     projects he put there.''
       But Mr. Sisk's story is much more than the legacy of a 
     political mover-and-shaker. How he got there is just as 
     fascinating, especially for a man who professed to never have 
     any political ambitions until that day in 1954 when Mr. Sisk, 
     then 43, decided to run for office.
       He upset Republican Oakley Hunter in what was then 
     California's 12th District and never looked back.


                          `political accident'

       Mr. Sisk's years in Congress stretched from the laid-back 
     days of Eisenhower to the turmoil of Vietnam and Nixon's 
     Watergate to the early years of the Carter administration.
       ``I was a political accident,'' Mr. Sisk said in his easy 
     Texas drawl in 1978 when he announced he would retire. He 
     said he never caught what is called ``Potomac fever.''
       For a ``political accident,'' Mr. Sisk's work had far-
     reaching consequences, from his relentless pursuit of the San 
     Luis water project in the Valley to serving on a committee 
     that helped land the first man on the moon.
       He showed a remarkable aptitude for the political game and 
     became a consummate player. As a member of the House Rules 
     Committee and House Administration Committee, he did for 
     other lawmakers so that they could do for him.
       ``That gave him a very powerful place,'' said former Sen. 
     Alan Cranston. ``He'd start something in the House, or I'd 
     start something in the Senate and then we'd work together.''
       Mr. Sisk's greatest single Valley contribution is the San 
     Luis Unit of the Central Valley Project. Recently, the San 
     Luis Dam was re-named B.F. Sisk San Luis Dam. The project 
     includes the vast reservoir near Los Banos and 115 miles of 
     canals that help irrigate farmland between Los Banos and 
     Kettleman City.
       At more than 2 million acre-feet, the San Luis Reservoir is 
     the largest reservoir in the world without a natural stream.
       ``I'm not sure anybody else could have gotten it through,'' 
     Coelho said.
       And there are other projects that exist because of Mr. 
     Sisk.
       Communities like Sanger, Selma, Madera and others tapped 
     into federal funds because of him. The huge Internal Revenue 
     Service center in Fresno, with its 3,500 permanent employees, 
     is in Fresno because of Mr. Sisk. The federal building in 
     downtown Fresno is named after Mr. Sisk.
       But his reach went far beyond the Valley. When the Soviet 
     Union sent Sputnik into orbit in 1957, Washington went into a 
     tailspin. Within hours, House Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas 
     put together a blue-ribbon committee on science and 
     astronautics and appointed Mr. Sisk.
       The committee acted to create the National Aeronautics and 
     Space Administration, a move that climaxed with the United 
     States landing Apollo 11 on the moon in 1969.
       In 1961, Rayburn again picked Mr. Sisk for another plum 
     assignment: serving on the power-wielding Rules Committee.
       The panel is for insiders only--its members set the rules 
     for debate and decide which amendments can be voted on.
       That committee in the early 1960's helped change history. 
     President Kennedy pushed to 

[[Page H 11424]]
     add Mr. Sisk and five other members to dilute the power of the Southern 
     Democratic chairman who was blocking Kennedy's agenda.
       With the balance shifted, the committee moved ahead on more 
     progressive Democratic proposals that included civil rights, 
     minimum wage and education aid legislation.


                            important issues

       Not all of Mr. Sisk's efforts were of such weighty 
     magnitude, but they were just as important to him.
       A baseball fanatic who played the game in high school and 
     college, Mr. Sisk campaigned fevently to keep a professional 
     baseball team in Washington, D.C., when the Senators 
     announced they were leaving in 1971. He and other congressmen 
     even got a committee together.
       In 1973, The Touchtown Club of Washington, one of the major 
     athletic clubs in the nation, gave Mr. Sisk its ``Mr. Sam 
     Award'' in recognition of his efforts.
       Mr. Sisk had the ability to separate his personal 
     relationships from his political positions. For example, even 
     as he resisted Southern California's recurring bids for 
     water, he maintained good relations with all sides.
       ``He used to hate my client but he and I got along great,'' 
     said Bob Will, a longtime lobbyist for the Metropolitan Water 
     District of Southern California.
       ``He was one of the fairest guys I ever dealt with. If he 
     had a problem, he summoned me to his office and we tried to 
     work it out,'' Will said. ``Bernie was one of the real 
     doers.''
       He did not always get what he wanted. He tried for the 
     position of House majority leader once and failed. Then he 
     tried for the chairmanship of the House Democratic caucus and 
     failed.
       He had his rivals for power in California, like the late 
     San Francisco Congressman Phil Burton and they would maneuver 
     for advantage against one another.
       But Mr. Sisk was never short of admirers.
       ``Congressman Sisk helped establish a tradition of moderate 
     Democrats from the Valley who are committed to furthering the 
     cause of Valley agriculture,'' said Rep. Cal Dooley, D-
     Hanford. ``His tradition is one that I and other valley 
     legislators have tried to follow.''
       His Republican colleague, Rep. George Radanovich of 
     Mariposa, said the community and nation lost a leader.
       ``Bernie Sisk's service and his special concerns for 
     California's Central Valley set a standard that all of us 
     respect and will long remember,'' he said.
       ``I wouldn't even call him a politician,'' said Tim Dillon, 
     former lobbyist for the Westlands Water District. ``He would 
     never connive. Bernie was just a fine person from the 
     standpoint of integrity''


                             his beginnings

       He was born Bernice Frederick Sisk on Dec. 14, 1910, in a 
     house in rural Montague County in Texas. It was a family of 
     traditional Southern Democrats.
       His father, Arthur Lee Sisk, was a farmer and his mother 
     was the former Lavina Thomas. He was the oldest of three 
     children.
       It was a time when young Bernie rode to school on a horse 
     named Beauty, and he remembered at the age of 7 ``going with 
     my parents in the Model T to the Baptist Church in Alanreed 
     to listen to a new invention called a radio.''
       In school, history was his favorite subject. He finished 
     high school in Meadow, Texas, where he was class 
     valedictorian.
       It is also where he met his first wife, Reta. It was not 
     exactly love at first sight. Mr. Sisk had fallen for another 
     and ended up on a double date. Reta was the date of the other 
     fellow.
       ``Well, Reta and I soon found out we liked each other 
     better and became engaged to be married before we graduated 
     from high school,'' Mr. Sisk recalled.
       They were wed on April 20, 1931, and were married for 54 
     years until her death in January 1986.
       Reta helped keep him a down-to-earth man. She would play 
     annual April Fool's Day jokes on him that rarely failed to 
     get his goat.
       After high school, Mr. Sisk enrolled in a business college 
     and later attended Abilene Christian College.
       The Depression and drought in Texas made times tough for 
     the Sisks and everyone else. Their first child, Bobbye, was 
     born in February 1932, and their second child, Marilyn, was 
     born in February 1935.
       Mr. Sisk found different kinds of jobs, like running a 
     service station and working for his father at a cotton gin, 
     but it got to the point where there ``were just no jobs to be 
     had.'' He managed to get work as a truck driver but it meant 
     long hours away from the family.
       By 1937, it was time to move and California seemed the best 
     destination.
       His first job paid 30 cents an hour to thin nectarines. 
     From there, he picked other crops until he landed a job at 
     California Growers Wineries near Cutler. He helped organize a 
     union there and was its first shop steward.
       When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, Mr. Sisk 
     was 31 and volunteered for officer candidate school. He went 
     to work as a flight dispatcher at Sequoia Field in Visalia.
       After the war, the Sisks moved to Fresno, and Mr. Sisk 
     found a job as a tire salesman, eventually becoming general 
     manager for the General Tire and Rubber Co.


                          in tune with valley

       It was this job that put Mr. Sisk in tune with what was 
     happening throughout the county. As he visited with farmers 
     on the Valley's west side, he learned of their water 
     problems.
       Mr. Sisk also noted there were few Democratic leaders in 
     the area and complained about it.
       Then one day in 1954, Mr. Sisk was invited by lawyer Ken 
     Andreen and labor newspaper editor Charles Clough to meet at 
     the old Sequoia Hotel on Van Ness Avenue.
       Mr. Sisk thought he was going to make another tire sale. 
     But they wanted to sell him on something--running for 
     Congress.
       ``Man, I almost fell out of my chair,'' Mr. Sisk recalled, 
     ``I said, `You people are mixed up. I work for General Tire 
     and Rubber Company.' ''
       They said: ``We understand that's the work you do, but we 
     have been told that you're a Democrat and frankly we're 
     needing a candidate.''
       The rest is history.
       Mr. Sisk worked with some of the most powerful men in 
     America's political history. He worshiped Rayburn, who 
     appointed him to those prized spots on the Rules Committee 
     and the aeronautics committee.
       He said his favorite president was Kennedy. ``I was a 
     disciple of Camelot,'' he said. ``I came to love that guy. I 
     never felt more of a personal attachment for a president.''
       Once retired, Mr. Sisk returned to Fresno and threw himself 
     into a number of projects.
       After Reta's death, Mr. Sisk married again seven months 
     later to Virgie Mitchell, whose late husband was a brother of 
     Reta.
       For Mr. Sisk, responding to thousands of constituents' 
     queries was just as important as running in the high-powered 
     circles of Washington.
       Andreen, who became a justice for the 5th District Court of 
     Appeal, would share a story at a 1978 testimonial dinner for 
     Mr. Sisk about the farmer whose tractor was stuck in the mud 
     because the Friant-Kern Canal was flooding his land.
       Mr. Sisk, just elected, was in the process of moving into 
     his Washington office. In 2\1/2\ hours, Mr. Sisk called the 
     farmer back.
       ``He did not say, `I'm going to get on it' or `I told so-
     and-so to do something,' '' Andreen said. ``No, he told the 
     farmer, `The leak is fixed and your tractor is out of the 
     mud.' Nothing happens that fast in government--unless it 
     comes to the attention of Bernie Sisk.''


                                tributes

       ``Bernie was everybody's congressman. He was always 
     enormously helpful to his constituents. He knew when to leave 
     partisan politics outside the room. . . . His heart and mind 
     were always back home.''--Charles ``Chip'' Pashayan, former 
     U.S. representative.
       ``Congressman Sisk helped establish a tradition of moderate 
     Democrats from the Valley who are committed to furthering the 
     cause of Valley agriculture. His tradition is one that I and 
     other Valley legislators have tried to follow.''--Rep. Cal 
     Dooley, D-Hanford.
       ``Our community and our country have lost a leader. Bernie 
     Sisk's service and his special concerns for California's 
     Central Valley set a standard that all of us respect and will 
     long remember.''--Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa.
       ``Bernie Sisk will go down in history as a person that 
     probably has done more for agriculture, particularly in terms 
     of helping to provide irrigation water. He was very 
     instrumental in the construction of the San Luis Dam. And 
     those who served with him, whether they agreed with him or 
     not, will always remember him as a true gentleman.''--John 
     Krebs, former U.S. representative.
       ``There's nobody who had a greater impact on the San 
     Joaquin Valley than Bernie Sisk. You can go up and down the 
     Valley and find the projects he put there.''--Tony Coelho, 
     former House majority whip and B.F. Sisk's one-time 
     administrative assistant.
       ``He was one of the fairest guys I ever dealth with. If he 
     had a problem, he summoned me to his office and we tried to 
     work it out. Bernie was one of the real doers.''--Bob Will, a 
     longtime lobbyist for the Metropolitan Water District of 
     Southern California.
       ``I wouldn't even call him a politician. He would never 
     connive. Bernie was just a fine person from the standpoint of 
     integrity.''--Tim Dillon, former lobbyist for the Westlands 
     Water District.
       ``Man, I almost fell out of my chair. I said `You people 
     are mixed up. I work for General Tire and Rubber Company.' 
     ''--Sisk, when asked to run for Congress.
       ``His number one thing was to take care of the 
     constituents. He never held himself out to be a world leader. 
     What Bernie had, that very few folks have, was the ability to 
     disagree with you without making you angry.''--Gordon Nelson, 
     Sisk's former administrative assistant.

                          ____________________