[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 95 (Tuesday, June 25, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H6724-H6725]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             REMEMBERING OUR GREAT COLLEAGUE, BILL EMERSON

  (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to join with my colleagues in 
remembering our great colleague, Bill Emerson. I was downstairs 
listening to a number of the remarks made about Bill's great 
contribution to the process of representative government, and I would 
like to take a brief period of time to talk about a very special 
relationship that I had with Bill.
  Back in 1993, following some of the scandals that surrounded this 
place, in a bipartisan way, we saw the Democratic leadership put 
together the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. It was 
the first time in a half a century that a bipartisan, bicameral effort 
to look at institutional reform was assembled. I will tell Members that 
of the large number of Senators and House Members who were part of this 
organization, no one was

[[Page H6725]]

more active and participated at a higher level than Bill Emerson.

                              {time}  1230

  There is a very important reason for that, Mr. Speaker. Bill Emerson, 
as I am sure was stated by my colleagues earlier, loved and revered 
this institution. He understood the fact that it was the greatest 
deliberative body known to man. He is one who spent a great deal of 
time trying to see the view held by the American people shift from what 
is tragically a corrosive cynicism back to what Will Rogers had, which 
is really a healthy skepticism. Thomas Jefferson wanted the American 
people to have a skeptical view of us, he thought that to be very 
healthy, and Will Rogers, again, said that time and time again.
  Bill Emerson, as one who loved and revered this institution, wanted 
us very much to get back to that, and that is the reason that Bill 
Emerson spent so much time working with us on trying to make this 
institution more accountable to the American people and trying to make 
this institution as deliberative as it should be.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I would simply like to say that I, of course, had a 
long and very warm personal relationship with him. I am a native of the 
``Show Me'' State and in fact was just there yesterday. And on several 
occasions I had the opportunity to visit Bill in his southeastern 
Missouri district, and I spent time with him here in the Capitol 
because we were elected together back in 1980, the 97th Congress, a 
large group of 54 new Republicans to come, and Bill and I were among 
the two who defeated Democrat incumbent Members of the House of 
Representatives. So he will be sorely missed.
  I have had great opportunities to spend personal time with Bill and 
his wife Jo Ann and other members of their family and it is a very sad 
day as we note his passing, and I wish all of his relatives and other 
friends Godspeed.

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