[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 87 (Monday, July 6, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7343-S7344]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MARYLAND COMPTROLLER LOUIS GOLDSTEIN
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, and to all who are with us in the
proceedings today, I rise with melancholy to pay tribute to a great
Marylander who passed away over this weekend, our beloved and endeared
comptroller, Louie Goldstein. Louie, indeed, was a Maryland treasure--
and he was--to the State, and the State treasured him. Like all
Marylanders, I will miss Louie Goldstein and mourn his passing. As
Maryland's comptroller, he always stood steadfast sentry over the State
purse. He helped make sure that the economy was booming, and he fought
for the economy of our State. He fought for the State to have a triple-
A bond rating. He also was out there absolutely on the side of his
constituents.
It is hard to believe that the State tax collector was the most
popular elected official in the State. This man collected the State
taxes for 40 years. And every tax season he would say ``Don't delay.
File today.'' He crisscrossed the State often going close to 100,000
miles reaching out to rotaries, senior citizen clubs, and League of
Women Voters gatherings always talking about the State's economy, what
the tax dollars went for, and he was beloved.
He ran a tight ship, and Maryland benefited from it for more than 39
years. In his 10 terms as the comptroller, he always made sure that
Maryland kept its triple-A bond rating, which was an indication of our
fiscal soundness.
As the State's tax collector, he prided himself on getting tax
returns back quickly and efficiently to Marylanders. There was no IRS-
type heavy hand on Louie Goldstein's watch.
We always knew that the tax collector's office was run efficiently,
fairly, and a taxpayer could get a hearing and get their refund early
and on time.
Louie was a man of the old school. He was a gentleman. His word was
his bond. He believed in high-tech and reach-out politics. But also he
was a very shrewd businessman. Under his very folksy style in which he
would reach out and always had a laugh and a word of encouragement, he
also knew the power of high-tech. He came from an era of pen and paper.
He would joke about himself, and was maybe even a stylist. But quickly
he saw the power and utility of new technology and worked diligently to
bring high-tech efficiency to the comptroller's office.
Under his leadership, Maryland was the first State to computerize its
tax records. At the time of his death, he was working on a system that
would allow Marylanders to file their taxes electronically.
He also realized the magnitude of the Year 2000 problem. He got a
jump-start on fixing it.
Imagine an 85-year-old comptroller who had served 10 terms doing the
job, had more new ideas and was more farsighted than many of the young
people who want to come into government. He was reshaping Maryland's
computers so they would be ready by 1999.
Now, anyone who met him knew there was much more to Louie Goldstein
than his position as comptroller. When he came up to you, he would
shake your hand, give you his trademark little imitation gold coin that
said ``God bless you, real good.'' He radiated warmth that was truly
genuine. Louie was a tremendous public speaker and, unlike most
politicians, people looked forward to his southern Maryland accent.
However, when other politicians found out he was scheduled to speak,
they always got a little nervous, including yours truly.
Louie Goldstein was a dedicated Democrat and worked tirelessly for a
Democratic ``Team Maryland,'' but would work on a bipartisan basis for
fiscal soundness and business attraction to the State.
Early on, he campaigned for me. He knocked on doors, and he believed
in me, when I was a little upstart politician before I got to be one of
the fortunate 100. All Maryland Democrats owe Louie Goldstein a debt of
gratitude for showing us how to stay in touch with constituents,
whether it was at a church supper or in a business boardroom.
Louie Goldstein was tremendously warm and kind. He loved to laugh and
loved to be on the sunny side of life. I am proud to call him a friend,
a colleague, and a mentor. There was and will be no one like him. We
will find a successor, but we will never find a replacement, nor should
we seek one. He was unique in Maryland politics, and I think he was
unique in American history.
On the day of his death, he was in five different parades, came home,
read the Declaration of Independence to his gathered family, as he had
done for so many years, took a swim, and then God called him to glory.
We salute him. As Louie would say to one and all, I say to him,
``Louie, God bless you, real good.''
I ask unanimous consent that the Baltimore Sun tributes to Louie
Goldstein be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Baltimore Sun, July 4, 1998]
Louis L. Goldstein, 1913-1998
What can you write about Louis L. Goldstein that hasn't
been recorded numerous times during his 60-year career in
public service?
He was truly a legend in his own time, the best-known and
best-liked Maryland politician of the last four decades.
Call him ``Mr. Maryland.'' Or as one speaker put it at a
fund-raiser last year, our ``state fossil.'' Up until his
death last night at age 85, Mr. Goldstein could--and did--run
lesser-aged politicians ragged on the campaign trail and in
the hallways of state government.
Voters elected Louie Goldstein state comptroller a record
10 times. His love of people and his perpetual optimism made
him one of the few tax collectors in America who drew cheers,
not jeers, from constituents.
But Mr. Goldstein was far more than a popular campaigner.
He ran one of the best tax-collection departments in the
nation, receiving awards for keeping his office on the
cutting edge of technology. His latest success: A vast
increase in computerized tax filings this year.
It was on the Board of Public Works, though, that Mr.
Goldstein may have performed his greatest service. This
largely unknown panel--the governor, the comptroller and the
state treasurer--holds immense power over billions of dollars
of state contracts.
It was Mr. Goldstein who acted as board skeptic, grilling
bureaucrats mercilessly on the merits of projects. What a
ferocious fiscal watchdog he was! He poured over voluminous
reports to the point where he knew as much about them as
those making the presentations.
Often, proposals were pulled even before the public
hearing--after Mr. Goldstein had brutally dissected the plan
at the panel's pre-board sessions.
Given the immense power granted the governor in Maryland, the need
for checks and balances is critical. Louis L. Goldstein performed that
role brilliantly. But he did so with a smile on his face and a keen
understanding of the benefits of government when it is made to work in
favor of the best interests of its citizens.
God bless Louie Goldstein, real good.
____
[From the Baltimore Sun, July 5, 1998]
``There Will Be No One Like Him''
(By William F. Zorzi Jr.)
Louis Lazarus Goldstein was the total package:
indefatigable campaigner, skilled financial watchdog and
accessible public servant, a 40-year incumbent who was
unbeatable by challengers of either party.
It seemed as if he had been comptroller of Maryland's
treasury forever. When Goldstein was first elected in 1958,
Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, J. Millard Tawes was
stepping up to be governor and the Baltimore Colts were still
a month away from winning their first national championship.
When he died Friday night after a heart attack at his
Calvert County home, a chapter of Maryland's history was
closed. A career ended that stretched back 60 years, to when
he was first elected to the House of Delegates.
Goldstein, a Democrat who was 85, helped usher Maryland
government into the modern era, overseeing the
computerization of the state's tax and payroll systems. He
fought
[[Page S7344]]
fiercely to protect the state's AAA bond rating, calming
jittery New York bond houses during the state's various
financial crises. And he earned the trust of a public that he
never lost touch with, consistently winning high marks among
Marylanders for a job well done.
``He truly represented the state of Maryland,'' said Robert
A. Marano, a tractor dealer who was watching Towson's Fourth
of July parade yesterday. ``He loved what he was doing and it
showed.''
Said U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski: ``There was and will be
no one like him.''
In a singular honor, Goldstein's body will lie in state for
public viewing tomorrow in the Rotunda of the Maryland State
House. A funeral service is scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday at
Trinity United Methodist Church in Prince Frederick.
Gov. Parris N. Glendening, who ordered state flags to half
staff to mark Goldstein's passing, said the comptroller's
``personal touch would be missed very, very much.''
Glendening, who was to appear with Goldstein in three
parades yesterday, said he found it ``really weird'' not to
see the comptroller in the car behind him.
Goldstein was one of three members--Glendening and Maryland
Treasurer Richard N. Dixon being the other two--of the Board
of Public Works, the powerful panel that oversees billions of
dollars in expenditures each year.
fiscal watchdog
It was as a member of that board that he earned his
reputation as the state's watchdog, a stickler for detail who
often would grill bureaucrats--at times mercilessly--over
even the smallest of contract awards. It was not unusual for
him to impatiently scold them at the crowded meetings, as he
looked up over half-lens glasses balanced on the end of his
nose.
Of particular interest to him were school roofs--a subject
on which he became an expert because the state replaced so
many of them.
``Governors and treasurers have come and gone . . . but
he's been the constant,'' said Dixon, who thought of
Goldstein as the board's ``General Overseer.''
``He ran the show,'' Dixon said. ``He read every page of
those big agenda books before the meetings. He must have
spent the weekend going through the items.''
In fact, before his heart attack Friday evening, Goldstein
spent a portion of the day reviewing the agenda for this
week's board meeting.
State Sen. Robert R. Neall, an Anne Arundel Republican who
as a county executive and legislator has put in time before
the Board of Public Works, praised Goldstein for his work
there.
``You had someone who was very competent at his job,
someone who was very sharp fiscally,'' Neall said. ``He would
be cautioning a governor not to make a mistake that some
governor, like Governor O'Connor, made 50 years ago,'' he
said. ``He just understood state government like no one
else.''
His knowledge of matters financial was such that six weeks
prior to the stock market crash in October 1987, he advised
the Maryland Retirement and Pension Board, which he chaired,
to moved $2 billion in investments out of stocks and into
bonds. The board followed his advice, saving the pension
system from huge losses and bolstering further his national
reputation.
born in 1913
Goldstein was born March 14, 1913, in Prince Frederick to
immigrant merchant Goodman Goldstein and his wife, Belle.
He was first elected to public office in 1938, the year
Herbert R. O'Conor became Maryland's governor and Franklin
Delano Roosevelt was president.
He served one four-year term in the House of Delegates
before entering the Marine Corps during World War II. In
1946, a month after returning stateside, he was elected to
the Maryland Senate, where he spent 12 years, including four
years as president.
In 1958, he ran for comptroller in what would be the first
of 10 terms. Though his state service was uninterrupted, he
did lose one election--to Joseph D. Tydings in the 1964
Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.
successful in business
His distinctive Southern drawl and country-boy manner
belied just how shrewd he was. He was a successful
businessman as a real estate investor, tree farmer and former
Calvert County newspaper publisher.
Over his career, primarily in the 1950s and early 1960s,
Goldstein bought thousands of acres of land in Southern
Maryland and on the Eastern Shore. He advised friends and
acquaintances to do the same, ``because the Good Lord isn't
making any more of it.''
Some of those deals were questioned, particularly when he
sold some of the land at a high profit, but he protested that
he had done nothing wrong.
Goldstein traded on his charm and affable ways,
crisscrossing the state and seeming to turn up at every
rally, fund-raiser or Rotary meeting to which he was invited.
He put as many as 100,000 miles a year on his state car,
which was driven by Maryland State Police bodyguards.
``He was very much a retail, press-the-flesh politician,''
said Marvin A. Bond, Goldstein's long-time assistant and
friend. ``He never had the benefit of a machine or vast
organization, and he believed that Maryland was a small
enough state that people still expected to see you.''
Some of Goldstein's detractors complained privately that he
was an unabashed publicity seeker with a penchant for taking
the politically easy vote.
If true, voters across the state never seemed to notice;
they returned him to office time and again by impressive
margins. He consistently outscored other politicians in polls
that measured name recognition and voter satisfaction--an
unusual occurrence for a state's tax collector.
Goldstein had a remarkable memory, for figures as well as
faces.
Glendening recalled the first time he met Goldstein--at a
Prince George's County crab feast -- just after coming to
Maryland from Florida in 1967. There ``must have been 600 or
700 people there,'' the governor said, and at the time,
Glendening was a mere political science professor at the
University of Maryland, College Park.
``I saw him about a year later, and he said to me, `Hi
professor, how are you?'''
Shocked, Glendening asked Goldstein if he remembered him,
to which the comptroller responded, ``Sure I do, Parris.''
``The state fossil''
Goldstein had been around for so long that in introducing
him, other politicians could not resist making some crack
about his being in Maryland when the colony was founded.
Recently, he was referred to affectionately in an
introduction as ``the state fossil.''
``Louis had become an institution . . . a sort of goodwill
ambassador,'' Neall said. ``He had gone beyond the sort of
typical pol looking to renew his lease.''
At the Towson parade yesterday, J. Kevin Wight, 38, said he
did not remember much about Goldstein's politics, but he did
remember his personality.
``He was always going up to people, waving,' Wight said.
``He always had a smile on his face.''
``God bless you all''
Goldstein's name became synonymous with his trademark
phrase, ``God bless you all real good.'' The expression was
emblazoned on one side of gold-painted coins he handed out
everywhere he went. The other side read simply ``Louis L.
Goldstein, State Comptroller, Maryland.''
After an event, he followed up quickly with thank-you
notes, often dictating them to his secretary over the car
phone as he left.
Goldstein was so popular that Democratic candidates had all
but stopped running against him, and state Republicans put up
only token opposition.
The GOP future brightened for a short time after the 1994
election, when Goldstein announced that he would not seek an
11th term. But that changed after Goldstein's wife of 48
years, Hazel, died in April 1996. With only state business to
turn to, he announced in June of that year that he would run
again. His decision sent virtually everyone who had
considered a bid out of the race.
On Tuesday, Goldstein will be buried next to his wife at
the Trinity churchyard cemetery.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I yield the floor and note the absence
of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, what is the pending business?
____________________