[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 56 (Monday, May 5, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E824]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        PROFILE OF FRAN QUIGLEY

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. LEE H. HAMILTON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                          Thursday May 1, 1997

  Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I am inserting the attached article from 
the Indianapolis News into the Congressional Record.

              [From the Indianapolis News, Apr. 24, 1997]

                          From the Outside In

                           (By Nelson Price)

       Just about any way you look at it, he's an unusual chief of 
     staff for a member of the U.S. Congress.
       Fran Quigley lives in Indianapolis, not Washington, D.C.
       He's a young, white man who works for an African-American 
     woman, the first elected to the House of Representatives from 
     Indianapolis.
       He was a stay-home dad for two or three years.
       Before that his most spectacular case as an attorney 
     involved a class-action lawsuit against the Center Township 
     trustee's office.
       Ironically, Quigley, 34, met U.S. Rep. Julia M. Carson, a 
     Democrat, when she was elected to the office he was suing on 
     behalf of the city's homeless.
       And Quigley, who comes from a large Catholic family long 
     involved in social work and social-justice issues, is a 
     lifelong political outsider and advocate for the 
     disenfranchised.
       Yet here he is in a fourth-floor office Downtown, serving 
     as the top staffer for a politician.
       ``I've always been on the outside,'' Quigley says. ``I'm 
     sure I'll go back to being on the outside. This is an 
     exception because Ms. Carson is an exception, a politician 
     who personifies social-justice issues and who lifted herself 
     out of poverty, racism and sexism.''
       His move from the outside ``in'' was baptism by fire. 
     During Quigley's first day on the job, Jan. 3, Carson 
     underwent open-heart surgery in Methodist Hospital.
       The crisis came just four days before she was supposed to 
     take the oath of office. But Quigley, a brown-haired, preppy-
     looking man, stresses that he never was a de facto 
     congressman.
       ``Ms. Carson was in intensive care, but somehow managed to 
     finagle a phone in there with her, which I'm told is unheard 
     of,'' Quigley says. ``Almost from the beginning, she was 
     leaving phone messages for me starting at 5:30 in the 
     morning.''
       Carson, 58, whose 10th Congressional District includes much 
     of Marion County, arrived on Capitol Hill in early March.
       Quigley remains in Indianapolis, overseeing five staff 
     members here and five in Washington.
       A congressional chief of staff based in a politician's 
     hometown rather than in Washington is unusual. Quigley, who 
     travels to the nation's capital about once a month, says 
     Carson preferred the arrangement as a grass-roots way to deal 
     with constituents. (U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton's chiefs of staff 
     usually have lived in Indiana.)
       ``Julia has a great find in Fran,'' says Richard Waples, an 
     Indianapolis attorney. ``He's an intelligent, caring person 
     with a great, big heart.''
       Waples, then a lawyer for the Indiana Civil Liberties 
     Union, teamed with Quigley, a public defender, to bring the 
     class-action lawsuit against the Center Township trustee in 
     the late 1980s.


                        Battled to get services

       They sought a major expansion of the trustee's services to 
     the homeless and won a blockbuster court ruling against then-
     Trustee Bill Smith. Then, as Quigley tells it, the lawyers 
     battled daily to get the services provided to their clients. 
     In the midst of the conflicts, Carson was elected trustee in 
     1990.
       That set up Quigley's first encounter with his future boss, 
     a meeting he assumed would be adversarial.
       ``It was anything but,'' he says. ``Ms. Carson told me, 
     `Look, I've got a $17 million debt to deal with in this 
     office. I don't want to have to pay a lot of lawyers. If your 
     clients have problems, come directly to me.'
       ``Then she backed up what she said.''
       Quigley's efforts on behalf of the homeless are par for the 
     course in his family. He grew up as the eighth of nine 
     children in a household known for community involvement.


                         a family of volunteers

       His father, Bill Quigley, has volunteered extensively for 
     the Cathedral Food Kitchen, the Catholic Youth Organization 
     and the St. Vincent de Paul Society; Bill Quigley received 
     The Indianapolis Star's Jefferson Award in 1989 for his 
     charitable activities.
       Fran's mother, also named Fran, is a retired physical 
     therapist. She is active in a Catholic group that promotes 
     peace and has volunteered for many of the same organizations 
     as her husband as well as Christ the King Catholic Church.
       ``I don't think we ever preached community involvement, at 
     least in terms of verbalizing it,'' Mrs. Quigley says. ``We 
     just always tried to help our community and church. Frankly, 
     we've learned as much about what the world needs from Fran 
     and our other children as they have from us.''
       The younger Fran says his influences include his older 
     brothers Bill Jr., a lawyer involved in social causes in New 
     Orleans, and Tim, who headed up the Indianapolis Peace and 
     Justice Center before moving to Kansas a few years ago.
       Tim Quigley also was a stay-home dad for a while. So was 
     one of Fran's brothers-in-law. With them as role models, the 
     decision to stay home after his son was born seemed natural, 
     Quigley says.
       ``It was the hardest job I ever had,'' he recalls, ``but 
     also the best.''
       Now, his wife, Ellen White Quigley, cares for the couple's 
     two children while working part-time as an attorney. Their 
     children are Sam, 5, and Kate, 3.
       ``Ellen and the kids have a `stay-at-home' fun day each 
     week,'' says Quigley, whose devotion to his family comes 
     across in conversation. ``I'm jealous when I leave in the 
     morning to go to the office.''


                           Taught poverty law

       Quigley didn't go directly from his home to the Carson 
     campaign. In between was a stint at the Indiana University 
     School of Law-Indianapolis. He taught a clinic on poverty 
     law, overseeing students as they helped needy clients; 
     Quigley is on a leave of absence to serve as Carson's chief 
     of staff.
       When Carson announced her candidacy last year, Quigley 
     signed on as a volunteer. That led to the job offer after 
     Carson defeated Republican Virginia Blankenbaker last 
     November.
       ``I never would have predicted Fran would be in politics,'' 
     his mother says. ``One of his attributes--and I do think it's 
     an attribute with Fran--is that he's very frank. He never 
     says anything he doesn't believe. Many people in politics say 
     what the listener wants to hear.''
       Cause-oriented as ever, Quigley says he and Carson have 
     been talking about possible ``community outreach'' efforts 
     for the office. They hope to establish ``office'' hours at 
     libraries and community centers to be more accessible to the 
     elderly, veterans and others.
       ``She's very driven, and she's not in office by accident,'' 
     he says of Carson. ``She's the smartest `people person' I've 
     ever known. Ms. Carson can meet someone and `read' them 
     instantly--correctly.''

     

                          ____________________