[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 22 (Thursday, February 15, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1453-S1455]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
JOHN JOSEPH MOAKLEY U.S. COURTHOUSE
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 559 just received from
the House.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill by title.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 559) to designate the United States courthouse
located at 1 Courthouse Way in Boston, Massachusetts, as the
John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be
read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be laid
upon the table with no intervening action.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The bill (H.R. 559) was read the third time and passed.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I should note that Senators Kennedy and
Kerry, I believe, will be prepared to speak on this resolution. This is
a resolution designating the U.S. Courthouse in Boston after
Congressman John Joseph Moakley. He is an outstanding individual.
Senator Dodd and I both had the privilege of serving on the Rules
Committee in the House with him the famous Rules Committee--and have
known him for, I guess, 25 years.
I am delighted and pleased that this bill will name this courthouse
after Congressman Moakley.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for taking such
swift action to pass the legislation for the naming of the Federal
courthouse in Boston after my very good friend and beloved figure in
Boston, MA, Congressman Joe Moakley, to rename the Federal courthouse
in Boston after him. This measure is a fitting tribute to a wonderful
friend, and an outstanding leader, for his long and brilliant career in
public service.
Earlier this week, Joe Moakley announced his decision not to seek
reelection next year because of a serious illness that has just been
diagnosed. In the brief time since his announcement, the outpouring of
support and affection for Joe has been extraordinary. The reason is
obvious, Joe Moakley is one of the most beloved political leaders of
our time. All of us in Massachusetts are especially fond of him. We
admire his strength, his wisdom, his leadership, and his dedication to
the people of Boston, our State, and our Nation.
Joe and his wife Evelyn made a wonderful team together, and we
admired and loved them both very much. Vicki and I have such wonderful
memories of the dinners we had together with them.
In addition to this well-deserved tribute today, I hope in the coming
months we can return some of the loyalty, the affection, spirit, and
support that Joe has given to so many of us throughout the years.
Joe Moakley has always been a fighter. He was a boxer in college and
a football star in high school. At the age of 13, he was with his
father who was driving through south Boston, when they saw a
neighborhood bully beating up a local child. Joe's father pulled the
car over to the side of the road and asked his son what he was going to
do about that situation. Joe jumped out of the car and went to the aid
of the child and stopped the bully.
In all the years we have worked with him in Congress, that is the Joe
Moakley we know and love--always fighting for the underdog and all of
those who need our help the most--fighting to provide better jobs,
better education, better health care, better lives, better
opportunities for the people of south Boston, and Massachusetts, and
the Nation. The whole world knows of his magnificent leadership in
protecting democracy in El Salvador.
The naming of the Federal courthouse in Boston for Joe is an
especially fitting tribute because no one has done more to revitalize
the area of south Boston than Joe Moakley. As a child, Joe was a
budding entrepreneur. I heard him tell the story about how he and his
friends from south Boston used to race down to the railyard, where the
courthouse now stands, to meet the trains that delivered farm products
to the city. They collected the fruit that fell off the trains and then
would sell it in the neighborhood. Their favorite fruit was watermelon
because it had the highest resale value.
In half a century, and more, since then, Joe never lost his touch or
his commitment to economic development in south Boston. As a
Congressman, he has fought vigorously to revitalize the entire
community and its neighborhoods for the past 30 years; and what an
outstanding job he has done. Thanks to Joe Moakley, the watermelons
have long since made way for a beautiful new Federal courthouse, a
convention center, the World Trade Center, and several new hotels.
South Boston is booming today thanks to Joe Moakley.
When he was not working to revitalize south Boston's economy or clean
up Boston Harbor, Joe Moakley was teaching his pride and joy--his
french poodle named Twiggy--to sing. I understand Joe and Twiggy used
to sing a famous duet to the tune of ``Everybody Loves Redheads.'' Joe
sang and Twiggy howled, and everyone loved them both.
When I think about all Joe Moakley has done for Boston and
Massachusetts, I also recall how long and hard and well he fought for
funds to rebuild the Central Artery, to build the South Boston Piers
Transitway, to clean up Boston Harbor, to modernize the Port of Boston,
and to preserve Massachusetts's many historic sites--the Old State
House, the Old South Meeting House, the U.S.S. Constitution, Dorchester
Heights, and our famed historic marketplace, Faneuil Hall. Joe Moakley'
efforts to protect and preserve these extraordinary parts of our
heritage guarantee they will be part of our State's history for
generations to come.
In Congress, no one is more effective on the front lines or behind
the scenes than Joe. The dean of our delegation has touched the hearts
of all our people, and he has made a remarkable difference in their
lives and hopes.
He is a voice for the voiceless, and an inspiration to all of us who
know him. He champions the cause of hard-working families and the
middle class. And all of us are proud to stand with him in all these
battles.
[[Page S1454]]
The poet Yeats said it well:
Think where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my
glory was I had such friends.
We love you, Joe, and we are very proud of you.
Mr. KERRY addressed the Chair.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts, Mr.
Kerry.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I thank you and express my gratitude to
Senators Lott, Dodd, and Kennedy for their courtesy and their
assistance in helping to bring us to the point where this important
resolution has been adopted by this Congress with respect to Joe
Moakley.
I thank my colleague for his comments with respect to Joe that we
just shared.
In these last hours since Joe Moakley announced his retirement from
Congress, we have had the opportunity in our State--and I think many
people down here in Washington--to share in a unique outpouring of
support and emotion, all surrounding our friend and our colleague, the
dean of the Massachusetts congressional delegation.
Today, with this resolution in Congress, we have had the opportunity
not only to forever honor Joe, through the John Joseph Moakley United
States Courthouse, but to also share our affection and our perceptions
of this very special public servant, public person, this special
representative of the people of Boston. We have been able to share that
with all of our colleagues in the Congress and, indeed, with our fellow
citizens in this country.
On Monday, as Senator Kennedy just described, Joe shared with his
constituents--with all of our State--that he has been diagnosed with an
incurable form of leukemia, and that he will retire after he serves his
current term in the House of Representatives.
Joe made this announcement together with friends and supporters at
the courthouse that he helped to build in Boston, and he made it with a
remarkable level of candor, of courage, and with a great, great sense
of humor.
When Joe told us of the severity of the illness--and people learned
of the severity of that illness--and the nature of the battle that
still lies ahead for Joe, I think it reminded all of us of all of the
battles that he has fought and, indeed, of the degree to which Joe
Moakley is a fighter, a special kind of fighter for the things he
believes, and which, most of all, is doing what is right for his fellow
citizens.
In all of the endeavors he has undertaken, all the years he has been
in Congress, all the important people he has met, and all the important
things he has done, this is a man who has never lost his sense of
direction, his compass, if you will, which in his case is a special one
with a unique sense of direction.
Joe has--I think everyone will agree--come out on the winning side of
almost every fight he has ever fought.
He was born and raised--and living a lifetime--in south Boston, MA.
Joe is not just from south Boston; he is of south Boston.
He wears those roots proudly as a badge of honor, never shy to admit
that, in the end, this is a man who still knows how to settle an
argument.
He is a member of a group of citizens we have proudly called our
Greatest Generation. He earned his stripes as a member of that
generation in a way that was not completely atypical but which I think
sort of demonstrates the special nature of his patriotism and his sense
of duty.
When he was 15 years old, Joe rose to the call of service to his
country by falsifying his birth certificate so he could enlist in the
U.S. Navy. He fought for his country, with honor, in World War II.
When he returned home from the South Pacific, he received his
education at the University of Miami in Florida, but believe me, south
Boston was never far from his heart or his consciousness. He returned
home and went to law school at night at Suffolk University. Then he
went to work for the people of Massachusetts.
He began his career in public life in the Massachusetts State
Legislature at the age of 25, and then, before his election to the
House of Representatives in 1972, he served in the State senate and on
the Boston City Council. In both his approach and his effectiveness,
Joe followed the path that was laid down by his great mentor in the
Congress, former Speaker Tip O'Neill, a man who knew himself, who knew
what he believed, and who knew there were things worth fighting for
every single day.
That is what Joe has done the entire time he has served in Congress.
As chairman of the Rules Committee, he did more than steward the course
of important legislation and the operation of the House. He fought for
an agenda, and he secured its passage into law. He built a reputation
as a tough and effective legislator with a real ability to work across
party lines and achieve consensus on so many issues. He put many of his
opponents in the unenviable position of having to explain themselves to
the gentleman from south Boston, a fight that people soon learned they
were smarter to avoid.
Joe made it clear there were no borders, no limits that would apply
to the fights he would embrace, and he insisted--and I think this is
one of the most interesting things about Joe Moakley--that foreign
policy was not something foreign, even to the work of a bread-and-
butter Democrat from south Boston, but an extension of the ideals he
brought to work for his own constituents.
In 1983, Joe was among the first in the Congress to understand the
simmering injustice in El Salvador. When he gathered with a small group
of refugees from the brutal fighting in that country and listened to
their stories, he was moved again to service. Those refugees told Joe
they were in danger of being deported to El Salvador. That lit a fire
under Joe Moakley. He understood that being deported back to that
country for those people, given their history, would mean death.
A Congressman from south Boston wasted no time in helping people from
the southern part of our hemisphere. He sent his top aide, Jim
McGovern, to find answers. And, as always, Joe, himself, personally
followed through, traveling again and again to El Salvador, heading up
the Moakley commission and working to make it possible not just for
those refugees to stay in the United States but also to address the
broader questions of human rights abuses in Central America.
For more than a decade, Joe kept at it. For 10 long years plus, when
a lot of people turned their attention elsewhere, Joe Moakley continued
to understand the difference between right and wrong. He fought against
hundreds upon hundreds of deportations and, finally, he won an
amendment barring them altogether in 1989.
Later that year, when six Jesuit priests were murdered in El
Salvador, he led an investigation that pointed to elements of the U.S.-
backed military as the murderers. It was quite fascinating, when we
listened to Joe at the courthouse in Boston announcing the end of his
career within the U.S. Congress--it was fascinating that even as he
described himself as a bread-and- butter Democrat and a person who
cared always about the issues of all of his constituents in his home
city as well as in the rest of his constituency, measured against all
the things he had done, he thought he was proudest of what he had done
in El Salvador. He thought it so because it was a reflection of the
kinds of things he learned from his constituents and from his home, and
it reflected the depth of who he was as a citizen of south Boston.
Joe has been delivering for south Boston and the Nation for almost
half a century, and he has done it the only way he knows--with hard
work, with a smile, and with a special brand of humor. Whether it has
been finding money for the ``Big Dig,'' project after project, or for a
whole host of other projects in Boston, he has been a national leader
on issues from Central America to our relationship with Cuba.
Joe will tell you his secret, whether it is in a senior center in
south Boston or when meeting with the heads of state around the world.
It is his ability to listen and to remember who he is and from where he
comes. And when he completes his 15th term in the House and retires, we
will miss his service, his friendship, and his passion, but we will
also know that until his last day in office, Joe Moakley will continue
to be a giant, caring first and foremost for the people he represents,
living by Tip O'Neill's old adage--all politics is local--and with a
special Moakley corollary that certain values and commitments are
global as well.
[[Page S1455]]
He has used his remarkable clout to do what is right for
Massachusetts and the Nation. And knowing Joe, having watched him and
learned from him, as so many of us have, I know that in these next 2
years this courthouse will not be the only way he will be honored. The
fights he will continue to wage for all that he believes, for working
people, for jobs, for social and economic justice, will be the ultimate
testimony to the full measure of the man whom we pause to honor today,
and it will be the real measurement of those values by which Joe
Moakley has served.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
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