[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 93 (Friday, June 27, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S6788]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        KATHRYN O'LEARY HIGGINS

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I wholeheartedly endorse the confirmation 
of Kathryn O'Leary Higgins as Deputy Secretary of Labor. Kitty Higgins 
is the right person with the right experience at the right time. As 
chief of staff for former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, she showed that 
she knows how to pull the levers, she knows how to motivate people, she 
knows how the Labor Department works and she knows how to make the 
Department work for people.
  I've known and admired Kitty Higgins for years. She is the kind of 
person we need more of in Government. She's intelligent and efficient 
and tenacious. She's idealistic and pragmatic. And, if that's not 
enough, she's from South Dakota. In fact, she is the highest-ranking 
South Dakotan in the administration.
  Kitty Higgins has spent her entire career in public service. For the 
last 2 years, she has served as Assistant to the President and Cabinet 
Secretary in the White House. Before that, she was Bob Reich's chief of 
staff at Labor. She is a former administrative assistant to Congressman 
Sander Levin and a former minority staff director for the Senate Labor 
and Human Resources Committee under Senator Kennedy. In addition, she 
has served as the former assistant director for domestic policy during 
the Carter administration and a former Manpower specialist with the 
Department of Labor.
  She understands the executive branch of Government, the House and the 
Senate. More importantly, she understands what each of us needs to be 
able to work in good faith with the others to get results.
  There is one other chapter in Kitty Higgins life that I believe makes 
her the right person at the right time. Kitty Higgins started her 
working life at the Department of Labor as a clerk-typist. When her two 
sons were still young, her husband, Bill, died. She raised her sons as 
a single mother. She knows what it's like to be stretched thin between 
work and home. She understands the pressures that so many families are 
under today and she is determined to help alleviate those pressures for 
other working parents.
  The national economy is the best its been in years. The deficit is 
down, interest rates are down. The stock market is up, as well as 
employment and business investment and home ownership and virtually 
every other economic indicator that ought to be up. But there are still 
people left out of this recovery. Making sure that working families 
benefit from this economic recovery--keeping the American dream alive--
is the most important thing this Congress can do. And it is the most 
important thing the Labor Department can do. Kitty Higgins has the 
right qualities and the right background to help both institutions live 
up to that responsibility. I wish her the best of luck.

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