[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 130 (Tuesday, October 17, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10607-S10608]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              MEL CARNAHAN

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, it is with a sad heart that I speak this 
morning. We now all know that we have lost the Governor of the State of 
Missouri. Gov. Mel Carnahan was killed in a plane crash last night. 
Like another man from Missouri, Harry Truman, Mel Carnahan was a man of 
plain speech and enormous political courage. I believe he would have 
been a great United States Senator, just as he was a great Governor. 
His death is a loss to the people of Missouri and to all Americans.
  Mel Carnahan spent his life in public service. In this time of 
skepticism and cynicism about politics and politicians, it is worth 
noting that Mel Carnahan could have done anything with his life and 
been a success. His intelligence, his drive, his dedication, his hard 
work, would have landed him at the top of just about anything he chose 
to pursue. But Mel Carnahan made a choice early in his life that he 
would enter public service and that he would use his enormous talents 
to help people, and that is what he did.
  In the State legislature, as State treasurer, as Lieutenant Governor, 
and during his two terms as Governor, he worked to help people, to make 
government efficient, and to use the tools at his disposal to make a 
difference to people's lives.

  Whether it was improving public schools, expanding health insurance 
for children, stricter safety standards for nursing homes to protect 
seniors, or passing some of the toughest anti-crime measures in the 
nation to make communities safer, he made a difference.

[[Page S10608]]

  When Governor Carnahan raised taxes in 1993 to improve Missouri 
schools, it was an act of political courage that he said was part of 
his job. ``It was the right thing to do,'' he said later. It was the 
right thing to do. If one principle could sum up Mel Carnahan's entire 
political career of public service, it would be just that--he saw what 
needed to be done, and he did the right thing, regardless of political 
consequences.
  He saw what needed to be done, and using that strong inner compass of 
right and wrong that steered him through his entire life, he made his 
decisions--not based on polls or focus groups or other political 
considerations, but on what was the right thing to do.
  Last night, we lost a true public servant--the kind whose service on 
behalf of people brings honor to all of us who have chosen a similar 
path for our lives. The fact that his son Randy was with him makes the 
personal tragedy suffered by the Carnahan family all the more crushing. 
Our thoughts and prayers are with Jean Carnahan, and the Carnahan and 
Sifford families in this time of sadness.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.

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