[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 151 (Wednesday, October 21, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S12910]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          TRIBUTE TO FORMER STATE REPRESENTATIVE PERRY BULLARD

 Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I rise to speak of the untimely 
death of former Michigan State Representative Perry Bullard.
  Perry Bullard had a sharp mind, and a tongue to match. He has been 
called outspoken and abrasive. But what he really was was a passionate 
legislator. He had a fundamental belief in democracy, and the 
protection of individual liberties. He served in the Michigan House of 
Representatives for 20 years, rising to the position of Chairman of the 
House Judiciary Committee. His commitment to the rights of individuals 
in a democracy and the rights of individuals to access their government 
are evidenced by the bills he sponsored which have become law. He wrote 
the Michigan Open Meeting Act, the state Freedom of Information Act, 
the Whistleblower Protections Act and the Polygraph Protections Act. He 
was behind the passage of the state's Statutory Will Act, which created 
a fill-in-the-blank will form that allows people to write their own 
wills. Equally important to the bills he passed were the bills he 
stopped. He prevented passage of legislation to loosen requirements for 
police wiretaps, and to allow for police entering homes without a 
warrant. Perry Bullard was a liberal, and unabashedly so. He believed 
that being liberal meant protecting liberty. For him protecting liberty 
meant putting the interests of the public ahead of those of the state. 
He will be missed and our hearts go out to his wife, Kelly.
  Mr. President I ask my Senate colleagues to join me in honoring the 
memory of a passionate legislator, Perry Bullard.

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