[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 140 (Wednesday, October 2, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12193-S12194]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO RETIRING SENATORS


                         Senator Howell Heflin

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I have already spoken and put in the 
Record various praiseworthy notes of my association over the years with 
these outstanding Senators, both Republican and Democrat, who are 
leaving us. None have been closer to me, on the one hand, over on this 
side than Howell Heflin of Alabama. We have been in each other's States 
several times. I have gotten to know him and his distinguished wife, 
Mike--Elizabeth, I think, is her full name, if I am not mistaken. He is 
what someone would call a Senator's Senator. He had to serve in the 
role as chairman of our Ethics Committee. You can see the sensitivity 
of a Senator's Senator in the regard in any kind of local matter. I see 
they all have picked up the same thing I thought, or I picked up what 
they thought, relative to being the peanut Senator. The agricultural 
community in Alabama is going to be missing in representation, to a 
degree, because no one really can replace Howell Heflin.
  We in the law field otherwise are going to be penalized because he, 
as a former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, has had 
profound judicial knowledge and also judicial feel for the particular 
statutes and the issues before this particular body.
  So I just cap it off by saying that this Senator is going to miss his 
humor. He has always had a good way of taking these complex human 
problems and issues and bringing them right down to the ground with 
some humorous story about someone he remembered back down in Alabama.


                        Senator Nancy Kassebaum

  We are fortunate in South Carolina to have the grandchildren of Nancy 
Kassebaum. I have always admired her for what the Senator from Rhode 
Island just said. She is a woman of steel, who makes up her own mind 
and takes the very difficult stands for her politically, because 
sometimes her very colleagues and others around may be voting 
otherwise. But you can bet your boots Senator Kassebaum of Kansas has 
studied, from all angles, a particular problem and made her own 
judgment as to what is fair and right in the interest of the people.

  With respect to our friend, Bill Cohen, he is the one literate 
Senator that we have. I envy him, because in the evenings when we would 
be attending the various parties and receptions for the different 
groups visiting from your home State, and otherwise, we would always 
miss Bill. You would find out Bill is writing another book, reading 
some important document, or something else. We have read and not only 
heard his poetry and his books, but his sum-up talk here. Just this 
past week, I am getting a copy of that one for the good of the Senate 
and getting it printed, because I think it more or less sums up what 
has been occurring here in Government and politics, particularly in the 
U.S. Senate, good and bad, over the past 20-some years. We are going to 
miss him most of all, in my opinion.


                            Senator Sam Nunn

  Mr. President, My neighbor is Sam Nunn. No one knows the defense 
budget better. No one is more conscientious about the Nation's 
security. No one has studied, in depth, the disarmament problem, and no 
one has worked to solve these particular problems, and no one has a 
greater respect for integrity amongst his colleagues than Sam Nunn of 
Georgia.


                          Senator David Pryor

  Mr. President, I now want to mention my friend, David Pryor. I hope 
we can get him back here by morning. As we all know, his wonderful son 
has been under surgery down in Texas. And, of course, that is his first 
obligation, and we all understand that. We need every vote we can 
possibly get, but the most popular, obviously--and everybody will 
agree--was David Pryor's, because Pryor always had a good word for 
everyone, and he centered on those things, such as the taxpayers' 
relief from the IRS, and something about the drug companies, or 
whatever it was. He went into it and stuck with it and then listened to 
the other Senators with respect to their particular interests.

[[Page S12194]]

 That is the value of service in the U.S. Senate--education. We are 
supposed to learn. And that is why I have always stayed in politics, 
because I learn something new every day. I have also learned when to 
hush when the hour is past 6 o'clock and staff is looking at me like an 
aberration.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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