[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 150 (Friday, October 31, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11546-S11547]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. LIEBERMAN (for himself and Mr. Dodd):
  S. 1355. A bill to designate the U.S. courthouse located in New 
Haven, CT, as the ``Richard C. Lee United States Courthouse''; to the 
Committee on Environment and Public Works.


           the richard c. lee federal courthouse act of 1997

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I am pleased and honored today to 
introduce legislation with my colleague Senator Dodd to name the 
Federal courthouse in New Haven, CT, after our dear friend and the 
former eight-term mayor of New Haven, Richard C. Lee. Congresswoman 
Rosa DeLauro is introducing the same proposal in the House of 
Representatives.

  If it may be said that Federal buildings should help reflect the very 
best of the principles, purposes and spirit of America, then this 
courthouse could have no more appropriate name above its doors than 
that of Mayor Lee. For Dick Lee is the quintessential American, proud, 
principled, hardworking, and productive. In New Haven, he shook loose 
entrenched bureaucracies and forged new community coalitions dedicated 
to rebuilding New Haven after years of neglect and blight. He became a 
nationally recognized urban pioneer and helped to change the landscape 
of the American city.
  Dick Lee was born in New Haven. He loves the city and its richly 
diverse people. In May of last year, Mayor Lee was honored by the New 
Haven Colony Historical Society. During that tribute, Prof. Robert Wood 
of Wesleyan University drew inspiration from Mayor Lee's eloquence 
about his work. Dick Lee said that the core of a mayor's job was 
``wiping away tears from the eyes'' of a city's people so that ``each 
tear becomes a star in the sky'' and not a source of daily despair. 
``Filling the sky above with stars'' was his highest calling. ``The 
tears in the eyes of the young and the old, the hungry, the unloved, 
the ill-housed, the ill-clothed, and worst of all, the ignored'' were 
not to be tolerated.
  Dick Lee was raised in a devout Irish Catholic family that was not 
blessed with wealth but with greater gifts: with faith, talent, and the 
willingness to work hard to better themselves and their community. He 
served for many years on the Board of Aldermen of New Haven and held a 
number of journalism jobs, including 10 years in public relations at 
Yale University. In 1949, he became the youngest man to run for mayor 
in New Haven's history. He lost that year by 712 votes. He lost 2 years 
later by only two votes. But he did not give up on himself, or the city 
of New Haven and was elected mayor in 1953.
  Once in office, Dick Lee devoted himself with extraordinary energy 
and imagination to the human and physical renewal of New Haven. One of 
his most provocative ideas was that the greatest post-World War II 
problems in our cities--poverty, unemployment, and poor housing--could 
not be solved by the cities or States alone. The Federal Government had 
to become a partner in America's urban redevelopment.
  Dick Lee worked tirelessly and with enormous success during the 
Eisenhower Administration to bring Federal programs to New Haven. As 
head of the Urban Committee of the Democratic National Committee in 
1958, Lee authored the first versions of Model Cities and War on 
Poverty legislative proposals. And after his dear friend, John F. 
Kennedy was elected, Dick Lee exercised a large and constructive 
influence on the national effort to renew America's urban areas and to 
restore hope and opportunity to the people who lived in them.
  Dick Lee also understood that just as the human face of New Haven 
needed reinvigoration, so did the city's physical appearance and 
infrastructure. For this, Dick Lee turned first to a plan by Maurice 
Rovital who developed a blueprint for New Haven while a member of the 
Yale faculty. But then he boldly invited many of America's greatest 
architects to design buildings for his city, making New Haven one of 
America's greatest architectural crossroads.
  Dick Lee appointed a deputy mayor and administrator of redevelopment. 
From there, the real work began. That work included rebuilding downtown 
New Haven, salvaging the Long Wharf area, restoring Wooster Square, 
constructing the Knights of Columbus headquarters and the Coliseum, 
residential rehabilitation, rent supplements, nonprofit housing 
sponsors and the renewal of inner-city neighborhoods.
  Mayor Lee forged new coalitions to reaffirm his city's sense of 
community and make it easier to get things done. His Citizens Action 
Commission was a unique amalgam of business, labor and civic leaders 
and was designed to build support for the redevelopment effort.
  Robert Dahl, in his book ``Who Governs? Democracy and Power in the 
American City,'' wrote that Mayor Lee ``had an investment banker's 
willingness to take risks that held the promise of large long-run 
payoffs, and a labor mediator's ability to head off controversy by 
searching out areas for agreement by mutual understanding, compromise, 
negotiation, and bargaining.

       He possessed a detailed knowledge of the city and its 
     people, a formidable information gathering system, and an 
     unceasing, full-time preoccupation with all aspects of his 
     job. His relentless drive to achieve his goals meant that he 
     could be tough and ruthless. But toughness was not his 
     political style, for his overriding strategy was to rely on 
     persuasion rather than threats.


[[Page S11547]]


  Robert Leeney, former editor of the New Haven Register and a wise and 
eloquent observer of the local scene wrote:

       New Haven and the problems of New Haveners have shaped Dick 
     Lee's life. When the Senate seat, later filled by Thomas 
     Dodd, hung like a plum within his grasp he wouldn't reach for 
     it because the Church Street project was badly stalled and 
     home needs took first priority in his public vision and on 
     his personal horizons. His simple belief in--and his 
     unshakeable dedication to--this city and its people started 
     young and they have never ended. . .. He grew up to 
     citizenhood with a classic, almost a Greek, sense of the 
     city-state's call upon his talents and of its shaping effect 
     upon his life and the lives of his neighbors. . ..

  Mr. President, law is the way we choose to express our values as a 
community, our aspirations for ourselves and our neighbors. In that 
fundamental sense, naming the grand federal courthouse in New Haven 
which sits proudly on the old New Haven Green and next to city hall is 
an honor which Mayor Dick Lee thoroughly deserves. In his public 
service, he worked tirelessly to express the best values of his 
community and to help its people realize their dreams for themselves.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill 
be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 1355

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. DESIGNATION OF RICHARD C. LEE UNITED STATES 
                   COURTHOUSE.

       The United States courthouse located in New Haven, 
     Connecticut, shall be known and designated as the ``Richard 
     C. Lee United States Courthouse''.

     SEC. 2. REFERENCES.

       Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, 
     or other record of the United States to the United States 
     courthouse referred to in section 1 shall be deemed to be a 
     reference to the ``Richard C. Lee United States Courthouse''.

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President. I am pleased to join with my fellow 
colleague from Connecticut, Senator Lieberman, in introducing this bill 
which would designate the U.S. courthouse in New Haven, CT, as the 
``Richard C. Lee United States Courthouse.'' I strongly believe that 
this designation would be a fitting tribute to Dick Lee's service and 
commitment to the city of New Haven, and I commend my good friend and 
colleague for putting this legislation forward.
  A self-educated man who was legendary for his charm, Dick Lee is 
widely considered as one of the most forceful, most capable, and most 
dedicated mayors that the State of Connecticut an this country has ever 
known.
  After losing two bids to become mayor, Dick Lee went on to win eight 
straight elections, serving as the mayor of New Haven from 1954 to 
1969. His first two elections were very close, losing by only two votes 
in his 1951. Dick Lee learned from these narrow defeats, and they 
helped to shape his political career. He realized that every single 
person mattered, and he always did everything in his power to help his 
constituents, particularly those who were in need. He was always eager 
to tackle, rather than turn away from constituents' problems. He also 
exhibited great foresight in anticipating the problems that awaited New 
Haven and other cities, and he offered imaginative and progressive 
solutions to these concerns.
  The focus of his ideas was to preserve and rehabilitate 
neighborhoods, and to engage in urban planning done with the community, 
not for it. He supervised the clearance of slums in New Haven and 
revitalized once decaying areas by rebuilding businesses and homes. He 
oversaw the building of two new public high schools and a dozen 
elementary schools. To ensure that residents would have a greater 
investment in their communities, he pushed for the building of housing 
that low-income families could buy rather than rent. And Hew Haven was 
also the first major U.S. city to create its own antipoverty program.
  Many viewed Dick Lee's views as ahead of his time, and he quickly 
established a national reputation as a visionary of urban 
revitalization. On the strength of this reputation, Mr. Lee became a 
respected advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson on matters of urban 
policy.
  Mr. Lee was approached about a possible cabinet position, but rather 
than lobby for a political appointment for himself, he used his 
political capital to help secure Federal funding for his urban 
redevelopment initiatives back home in New Haven. At one point during 
Dick Lee's tenure, New Haven was receiving more Federal money per 
capita than any other city in the country.
  Dick Lee still lives in New Haven in the same house that he purchased 
more than 30 years ago. In light of all the work that Dick Lee did for 
the people of his home town and his effective advocacy on behalf of all 
of America's cities, I think that it is only appropriate that one of 
New Haven's Federal buildings should bear his name. Therefore I urge 
all of my colleagues to support this bill to designate the Federal 
courthouse in New Haven as the ``Richard C. Lee United States 
Courthouse.''
                                 ______