[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 140 (Monday, October 28, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10791-S10796]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEATH OF PAUL WELLSTONE, A SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA
Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, on behalf of the majority leader, the
Republican leader, all the Members of the Senate, and myself, I ask
unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S.
Res. 354, submitted earlier today.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 354) relative to the death of Paul
Wellstone, a Senator from the State of Minnesota:
S. Res. 354
Whereas the Honorable Paul Wellstone taught at Carleton
College in Northfield, Minnesota, for more than 20 years in
the service of the youth of our Nation;
Whereas the Honorable Paul Wellstone served Minnesota in
the United States Senate with devotion and distinction for
more than a decade;
Whereas the Honorable Paul Wellstone worked tirelessly on
behalf of America's Veterans and the less fortunate,
particularly children and families living in poverty and
those with mental illness;
Whereas the Honorable Paul Wellstone never wavered from the
principles that guided his life and career;
Whereas his efforts on behalf of the people of Minnesota
and all Americans earned him the esteem and high regard of
his colleagues; and
Whereas his tragic and untimely death has deprived his
State and Nation of an outstanding lawmaker: Now, therefore,
be it
Resolved, That the Senate expresses profound sorrow and
deep regret on the deaths
N O T I C E
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[[Page S10792]]
of the Honorable Paul Wellstone, late a Senator from the
State of Minnesota, his wife Sheila, their daughter Marcia,
aides Mary McEvoy, Tom Lapic, and Will McLaughlin, and pilots
Richard Conry and Michael Guess.
Resolved, That the Secretary communicate these resolutions
to the House of Representatives and transmit an enrolled copy
thereof to the family of the deceased Senator, and the
families of all the deceased.
Resolved, That when the Senate adjourns today, it adjourn
as a further mark of respect to the memory of the deceased
Senator.
Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I ask that the Senate observe a moment of
silence in tribute to Senator Wellstone and his family.
(Moment of silence.)
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, it is with a profoundly heavy heart that I
rise today to present this resolution honoring my colleague, Paul
Wellstone. This is not the occasion in this brief session for eulogies.
There will be other opportunities on the Senate floor for all of us to
share our memories and our perspectives.
For myself, I cannot begin to do Paul justice in a few minutes or
even a few hours. He was such an extraordinary, such a remarkable man,
and he brought so much life and enthusiasm and passion and commitment
to the public life he lived, and he touched so many thousands of
Minnesotans and others across this country who mourn his loss as we do
here today.
He died fearlessly, as he lived his life. In the resolution that was
just read, the words ``never wavered from the principles'' will be
words that I will always associate with Paul Wellstone. He never ever
blinked in the face of adversity. Courageous, difficult, perhaps at
times unpopular positions were articles of faith for Paul because he
believed in them.
It was not about polls. It was not about pundits. It was about the
conviction he had about what was right for people, for his fellow
citizens.
He was unpretentious, unassuming, just himself. He was no different
as a Senator than as a man, than as a political activist all in one, he
was extraordinary and he will never be replaced. In the hearts and
minds of Minnesotans, he will never be forgotten.
Yet, Mr. President, he loved this institution. He respected
enormously the traditions, the men and women who served here. They came
to respect him for the courage of his convictions. I could see in the
course of the 2 years I have shared with him in the Senate that he was
respected by people who did not agree with him because they knew he was
speaking from his heart, that he was speaking from his soul, that he
was speaking what he truly believed.
One could ask for no more, no less from any of us than the strength
of our convictions and our willingness to speak out about them
regardless of political cost.
Paul and his wife, Sheila, at his side for 39 years, died last Friday
together, as they would have wanted it to be, not with their daughter
Marcia who also was on that flight and three of their devoted aides and
two pilots. It is an unspeakable tragedy and horror for all of us in
Minnesota, but it will be for all of us, on behalf of Paul, to take a
deep breath and carry on in behalf of our convictions and our causes--
as he would want us to do.
I thank the Senate for this resolution on behalf of Paul. And for his
two surviving sons, David and Mark, and their families I know it will
be of solace to them in their hours of terrible grief.
Mr. President, I yield to my colleague, the Senator from California.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from California.
Mrs. BOXER. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
Senator Dayton, your remarks were beautiful and Paul would have been
so pleased to hear your tone and your spirit. And I can tell you,
Senator Dayton, how much he loved you, how proud he was to have you
here by his side.
Mr. President, I have flown in from California to be here on the
Senate floor today to make just a few remarks about our dear friend and
colleague, Senator Paul Wellstone. I want to start by reading two
paragraphs written by his loyal and hardworking staff. After his plane
went down, and they learned the worst, they wrote the following:
Paul Wellstone was one of a kind. He was a man of principle
and conviction, in a world that has too little of either. He
was dedicated to helping the little guy, in a business
dominated by the big guys. We who had the privilege of
working with him hope that he will be remembered as he lived
every day: as a champion for people.
His family was the center of his life and it breaks our
hearts that his wife of 39 years and his daughter Marcia were
with him. Our prayers are with Mark and David and the
grandchildren he and Sheila cherished so much.
That was posted on the Wellstone Web site by Senator Wellstone's
staff.
Mr. President, Senator Dayton, for me, the loss of Paul Wellstone
cuts very deep. Kind, compassionate, self-deprecating, a passionate
voice for those without a voice, enthusiastic, a bundle of energy--this
was a unique man of the people.
When we learned that the tragedy of Paul's death was magnified by the
death of the two women he cherished so much--his wife Sheila and his
daughter Marcia--the wounds in our hearts cut deeper still, plus the
loss of three staffers--Tom Lapic, Will McLaughlin, and Mary McEvoy--
and the two pilots--Captains Richard Conroy and Michael Guess.
Mr. President, no words--no words--can possibly ease the pain of all
the family members who were touched by this tragedy. No words can ease
the pain of David and Mark, Paul's two sons, and their families. All we
can do is let them know that we pray that they have the strength to
endure this time for the sake of the Wellstone grandchildren: Cari,
Keith, Joshua, Acacia, Sydney, and Matt. Let the record show that your
grandchildren brought endless joy to you. And we say to the
grandchildren, thank you for the joy that you gave to grandma and
grandpa.
I want to say to the people of Minnesota, thank you, thank you for
sending Paul to us, for sharing Paul with us these past 12 years. He
loved the people of his State: the farmers, the workers, the children,
the elderly, the sick, the disabled, the families. He fought for you
all, so long and so hard, without stopping, in committees and
subcommittees, in the Democratic caucus meetings, when he would get up
and say: Just give me 30 seconds--just 30 seconds--to make my point
about the people of Minnesota. He stood up at press conferences. He
would grab Senators, one by one, and fight for you, the people of
Minnesota, who were always in his thoughts and on his mind. And I know
he is now in your thoughts and on your minds.
In my own State of California--so many thousands of miles away from
Minnesota--there are memorial services being set up for Paul. You see,
his compassionate voice reached thousands of miles, and many people in
my State are sending me condolence notes and flowers because they know
how much I will miss working with Paul Wellstone, and so will all
Senators on both sides of the aisle.
As Mark said, Paul was never afraid to speak out when it might be
unpopular, nor was he afraid to be on the losing side of a Senate vote.
He had courage. And when you told him that, when you said: ``Paul, you
have courage,'' he shrugged it off. He would say something like: ``What
else could I do? It's just not right!'' He would say that--determined,
brave.
You see, Paul Wellstone could not vote against his conscience or for
something he did not believe was in the best interest of the people he
represented. He couldn't; he wouldn't--no matter what the consequences.
He cared about the underdog always. He cared about the victim always.
He cared about peace always. And Paul, blessed are the peacemakers.
Paul, blessed are the peacemakers.
Paul was a humble man. When his longtime staffer, Mike Epstein,
died--and many of us knew Mike--Paul took to the Senate floor, and this
is what he said, in part:
Mike, I know you will not like me saying this, but I'm
going to say it anyway because it's true. I believe from the
bottom of my heart that everything I've been able to do as a
Senator that has been good for Minnesota and the country is
because, Mike, you have been right by my side, 1 inch away
from me.
And he said:
Mike was my tutor. He was my teacher. He was teaching me.
That was Paul Wellstone. He never bragged about himself. He loved his
[[Page S10793]]
family so much. He loved his staff. He took time for all the Senate
employees: the young people who work with us, the officers who protect
us, the food service people, the elevator operators--all the Senate
family, no matter what their status.
Mr. President, he wanted to give everyone--everyone he touched--his
sense of optimism, his energy, his strength.
When Paul learned he had multiple sclerosis, I worried and I said to
him: Are you OK? He said: I probably had it for a long time. I'm just
not going to think about it. And off he went in his usual rush. There
was so much to do. Off he went to his desk in the Senate, his desk now
incredibly shrouded in black.
Paul loved that aisle desk. It gave him a bird's eye view of the
Senate that he loved. And when he spoke from his desk, he could come
out from behind it. He could leave his notes behind--arms gesturing,
voice determined--and talk from his heart. He would say something like:
I don't represent big business or big anything. He would say: I
represent the people of Minnesota. And that he did every minute of his
all-too-short life.
As our session wound down, Paul wanted to finish our business and go
home. He told us all: I want to be with my people. I need to touch
them. I need to look them in the eye. I can't wait to get home.
Paul was a powerful man. His power did not come from his physical
stature. He was strong but he was slight of build. His power did not
come from generations of family wealth. He was not a man of moneyed
wealth. His parents were immigrants: Leon and Minnie Wellstone. His
power did not come from political connections. His connections were
with regular people.
Let me tell you from where his power came. It came from a fierce
dedication to justice and truth and honesty and righteousness. He gave
comfort and he gave hope to those he touched. And he gave them some of
his power--the power to see the possibilities of their own lives. Paul
died on his way to give comfort and hope to those facing death. He was
flying to a funeral service.
Today we say to Paul: We will give comfort and hope to those you have
left behind by doing all that we can to continue your legacy and your
dream. Together, we can build an America of fairness, of justice, of
prosperity, a world of tolerance and a world of peace. And, Paul, may
you and yours rest in peace forever.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Minnesota and the
Senator from California for their words. I know and respect both the
Senator from Minnesota, Senator Dayton, and the Senator from
California, Senator Boxer. I know them well enough to know this was a
very painful moment for both of them--just as it is for the
distinguished Presiding Officer and as it is for the Senator from
Vermont.
Mr. President, you and I have been here a long time in the Senate.
With the Senator from Minnesota, who is now--not at his choice--the
senior Senator from Minnesota, and the Senator from California, I think
we can all say that there is no sadder sight than coming on the floor
and seeing a black drape on a Senator's desk. The distinguished
Presiding Officer and I have unfortunately seen that many times in our
careers, for Senators on both sides of the aisle. In every instance
when we have entered the chamber and seen the black drape we know that
there has been a death in the family.
We are privileged in this body, 100 men and women--now 99 men and
women--to represent the greatest nation on Earth, a nation of a quarter
of a billion people. But because there are only 100 of us, no matter
our political differences, when one is lost we all feel it. When I
heard the news in Vermont, I was at a restaurant in Burlington with my
son, Kevin. It was a small restaurant. There was a TV going but with no
sound. My back was to it. I saw the look of shock on Kevin's face. He
spun me around and I saw the news. We both left that restaurant in
tears. The news spread quickly and as I walked down the street people--
many of them I never met before--just came up and hugged me, because
they, too, lost somebody.
Paul Wellstone had come to Vermont and was greeted with great warmth.
I vividly remember the evening he came to speak. Everybody came up to
him. They didn't want him to leave. Paul Wellstone, like one of his
predecessors, my dear friend, Hubert Humphrey, was a happy warrior. If
people wanted to talk with him he did not mind and would stay, the same
way Hubert would have.
There is an affinity, I believe, between our State of Vermont and
Minnesota. That is why there was a bond Vermonters felt with Paul
Wellstone. Paul could sense it. And, we worked on many important issues
as a team. During the recent farm bill debate he met with Vermont
farmers and together we drafted a dairy provision that was beneficial
to both of our States. I remember when he and Jim Jeffords and Bernie
Sanders and I joined together to have a milk toast. We were joking
around. Paul was not a tall man. I playfully stood blocking him from
the cameras. And he said: ``Hey, remember, I'm a wrestler,'' at which
point I quickly moved aside. Of course Paul was far more than a
wrestler--but it is easy to make the correlation to the way he wrestled
with issues here on the floor. He wrestled them down. I thought to
myself: What a man to have on your side. What a man to be a friend.
Paul Wellstone served with powerful people but he was not intimidated
by that. And, he never took on the airs of one who was powerful. He
would introduce himself to people: Hi, I'm Paul Wellstone. And someone
else would have to say: That's a U.S. Senator.
I never went on an elevator with Paul without him calling the
elevator operator by name. He would talk with the pages and give them
tutorials. He knew everybody in the Senate and they knew and loved him.
It is impossible to talk about our colleague Paul Wellstone without
mentioning Sheila Wellstone. They were inseparable. Whenever the Senate
would have a late night session Sheila would be in the galleries,
waiting for Paul to leave.
Of all my memories of Paul Wellstone, the one I may remember the most
is the last time I saw the two of them. It was a late night session.
You know these gorgeous halls we have, with the chandeliers and
everything else, and here is this couple walking hand in hand down one
of the halls about midnight--Paul and Sheila Wellstone. I came around
the corner and I said: ``Hey, you teenagers,'' and they laughed and
hugged each other. I saw them go out, down the steps into the night,
hand in hand.
Let us hope that they have gone hand and hand into the light and that
they are now together.
Marcella and I also extend our thoughts and prayers to Marcia, Paul
and Sheila's daughter, and her family. And, as the Senate noted in the
resolution that was just passed a few moments ago, we all grieve for
the Wellstone staff who were on board the plane: Tom Lapic, Mary McEvoy
and Will McLaughlin. Our thoughts and prayer are with their families in
these trying times. Our condolences also go out to the families of the
pilots on the plane, Richard Conry and Michael Guess.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Boxer). The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. DODD. Madam President, first let me express my thanks to our
colleague from Minnesota, Senator Dayton, and express our sympathies to
him and through him to the people of Minnesota and to the Wellstone
family, the extended family, for all that they are suffering in this
particular time, and to express my gratitude as well to my colleague
from California, Senator Boxer, and my colleague from Vermont, Senator
Leahy, for their very moving and emotional remarks. I think they
captured to a large extent the sentiments of all of us.
This is a difficult time. I suppose the American people see we are in
session and wonder why only a few of us are here. Obviously, with a
week to go before the congressional elections, not many are here in
Washington. But suffice it to say, were 96 or 97 other Senators here
today, you would here much the same sentiments that have been expressed
already by the now-senior Senator from Minnesota, the Senator from
California, and the Senator from Vermont.
[[Page S10794]]
So I join my colleagues, and all Americans, in mourning the very
tragic and sudden loss of our dear friend and colleague, Senator Paul
Wellstone, who will be forever remembered as a friend and patriot and
true public servant, who fought each and every day of his public life--
in fact, of his life--to the improve the lives of average Americans. We
got to know him here over the last 10 or 11 years as a Member of the
U.S. Senate, but the people of Minnesota and the people of Carleton
College, students who had him as a professor, people who knew him
beforehand, they knew that Paul Wellstone didn't just become a fighter
when he arrived in the Senate of the United States. He dedicated his
life to it. It is what his parents taught him. It is what he believed
in passionately as an American. We became witnesses to that sense of
passion and outrage about wrongs in this country and around the world
as we served with our colleague, Paul Wellstone, for the last decade.
So, like my colleagues, I was stunned and deeply saddened by the
enormous scope and tragedy of this loss. Obviously, the entire
Wellstone family has suffered an unfathomable loss, as have the
families of other victims of this horrendous accident. His wife
Sheila--I join my colleagues in expressing our deep sense of loss.
Sometimes, although we get to know Members, we don't get to know the
spouses of our colleagues very well, but Sheila Wellstone really became
a member of the Senate family aside from being a spouse. She was an
unpaid volunteer in her husband's office.
If there are women today who are suffering less because of domestic
violence--and they are many who are not, but many who are--you can
thank some colleagues here. But I suspect one of the reasons they
became so motivated about the issue was because there was a person by
the name of Sheila Wellstone who arrived here a decade ago and wanted
to make this a matter of the business of the U.S. Senate.
So they became partners, not just over the almost 40 years of love
and affection for each other, but partners in their sense of idealism,
sense of values, and sense of purpose.
Marcia I did not know very well but certainly heard Paul and Sheila
talk abut her with great admiration and affection. In the loss suffered
by her family, with young children, it is just difficult to even come
up with the words to express the sense of grief that I feel for her and
her family. And obviously the staff: Will McLaughlin, Tom Lapic, and
Mary McEvoy, along with the pilots who have been mentioned already:
Richard Conry and Michael Guess, we didn't know, but I suspect on that
flight up there they had gotten to know the Wellstone family and the
staff. And so we want to express our deep sense of loss to their
families.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed at the end of my remarks a
wonderful editorial by David Rosenbaum in the New York Times on
Saturday which I thought captured perfectly the image of Paul
Wellstone, who he was and what he tried to do, better than any words I
could possibly express here today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. DODD, Madam President, William Shakespeare once wrote, ``No
legacy is so rich as honesty.'' I have never met, let alone worked
with, a more honest or noble man than Paul Wellstone.
His rich, rich legacy will be that of an honest, passionate and
tireless fighter on behalf of justice and fairness for all Americans,
especially those less fortunate than himself.
Paul suffered a lot. He had this bad back. He would hobble around. He
had this gait that if you didn't know he was hurting was almost an
affectionate gait. He sort of limped around at various times; he would
stand a lot at times in meetings because sitting would be so painful
for him as a result of injuries he suffered. He had MS which he sort of
shrugged off, as my colleague from California said. He grew up in a
situation where his family were immigrants who came from Russia. They
grew up actually in Arlington, VA, a short distance from here. A former
staff member of mine was a neighbor of theirs. He knew Paul as a child
growing up. They had their own burdens to bear aside from being
immigrants, problems of those newly arriving, with the language
barriers. Trying to get acclimated to a new society such as ours is not
easy. So Paul understood the issues of those who suffered more than in
just an intellectual effort. This was something he deeply felt and had
grown up with and appreciated immensely.
When he came to this body and we got to know him as someone who would
fight tirelessly on behalf of those who did not have lawyers,
lobbyists, and others to express their concerns, to bring their issues
to the debate of the Senate, we found in this individual just a
remarkable voice and a remarkable fight. Like many of my colleagues, I
might be home or completed the evening and turned on the television and
the Senate would still be in session, and there would be Paul
Wellstone, standing at that desk in the rear of this Chamber, speaking
to an empty place except for the millions of Americans tuned in to C-
SPAN who would hear someone talking about subjects that were affecting
their lives.
Single moms, working families, children without health care, the
homeless, international victims of torture--these were among Senator
Paul Wellstone's core constituencies, and they could not have had a
better spokesperson.
A lot of times we spend days here talking about issues that might
seem terribly arcane to the average citizen in this country, matters
that don't seem terribly relevant to their daily lives, and yet Paul
Wellstone never let a day go by that he didn't give voice to the
concerns of average Americans or those who are, as Hubert Humphrey
would talk about, in the shadows of life or the dawn of life or the
dusk of life--Paul Wellstone giving voice, that great Minnesota voice
to those who needed to have their concerns raised in chambers such as
this. And so for all of those people who are wondering today whether or
not their concerns, their hopes, their fears will find expression, it
is hard to find any silver lining with the passage of someone you care
about so much, but I suspect as we reconvene here on November 12 and
again with a new Congress coming in in January we will hear the words
of Paul Wellstone repeated quite frequently. We will hear the passion
that he brought to the issues raised maybe more frequently than they
otherwise might be. That's because we will remember an individual we
had the privilege and honor of serving with who reminded this
institution of what its role ought to be, not just to those who are
well heeled, those who can afford to acquire the access, but those who
need to have their issues raised--that their concerns and their
worries, their hopes, their dreams for this country and their own
families will be once again a part of the mainstream of debate in the
Senate.
Paul Wellstone fought some awfully tough battles. He fought a tough
battle to get here, a man who was told he could not possibly get
elected to the Senate, who was being outspent by overwhelming odds.
I rode with him in that bus--I am sure my colleague from Minnesota,
maybe my colleagues from California and Vermont remember--that rattly
old green bus, in the freezing cold, bitter cold, cold months of
Minnesota. I remember going with him to some big fair or festival that
he was holding on behalf of poor farmers and family farmers in
Minnesota. Just a few weeks ago, Madam President, I campaigned with him
in Minnesota, with some of the medical device companies around
Minneapolis and St. Paul. This was supposed to be about a 20-minute
meeting we were going to have at one of these firms to talk about the
medical devices that Paul played a major role in working to see to it
that they were going to become a reality for people who would use them.
We were supposed to leave in 15 or 20 minutes but the room was packed;
the people wanted to talk about other things. And Paul Wellstone stayed
for about 1\1/2\ hours just engaging with the people in this room. They
went far beyond the medical device issues. The people in that room
wanted to talk about health care; they wanted to talk about education;
they wanted to talk about the environment; they wanted to talk about
prescription drugs and the elderly; they wanted to talk about issues
affecting
[[Page S10795]]
Native Americans and minority groups; they wanted to talk about foreign
policy. And he engaged, engaged and engaged for an hour and a half. He
would have stayed longer. Staff had to almost drag him out of the room.
But it was so reflective, standing in the back of the room watching
Paul Wellstone with great passion and clarity expressing where he
stood.
He didn't sit there and try to figure out where the question was
coming from based on the tilt of their rhetoric. He answered them how
he felt as their Senator, their representative, so they would know
where he stood.
Madam President, I apologize for sort of meandering here, but it is
how I feel. I have a great sense of loss and also a sense of joy. Paul
Wellstone had a great sense of humor. He cared deeply about issues but
he also had the wonderful ability to laugh at himself, to appreciate
the humor that only this institution can provide in some of the more
bizarre moments, a wonderful relationship with virtually everyone here.
It didn't happen automatically or initially. Paul came here determined
to change the world; if not the world, change the United States; if not
that, maybe his Minnesota. Along the way and in the process he probably
rubbed some people the wrong way, but those very people became the
people who cared most about him in many ways in the final analysis
because they realized that everything he said and everything he did was
not about himself but about the people he wanted to represent. And so I
know there are Members who are not here today because of other
obligations, but who, when the opportunity comes, will express their
own thoughts and feelings, but don't be surprised--Madam President, I
know you will not be, nor my colleagues from Minnesota or Vermont--that
some of the heartfelt remarks about Paul will come from people who
disagreed with him vehemently on substantive matters, but appreciated
immensely his sense of conviction, something we can do a lot more of in
politics in America today.
Frederick Douglass once said, ``The life of a nation is secure only
while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.'' For 58 years,
Paul Wellstone lived a life that was honest, truthful, and virtuous.
For 12 years, he personally lent those characteristics to the heart of
the United States government.
America, Minnesota, and this institution have suffered a terrible
loss at the death of Paul Wellstone but there is a silver lining in all
of this; that as a result of his service this country is a better
place, there are people who are living better lives; this world with
all of its difficulties has been a better world because Paul Wellstone
was a part of it.
I am confident as I stand before you today, Madam President, that in
the weeks, months, and years ahead, his memory and legacy will live on
in the debates, the discussions, and actions we take in this body.
For that, Paul Wellstone, you ought to know that your service
continues and your words and your actions will have a legacy borne out
by those who come after you in the service of your State and the
thousands of young people you motivated.
Madam President, if you could only see, as many have, the hundreds of
young people throughout Minnesota who Paul Wellstone energized and
brought to the public life of this country, people who otherwise would
not have paid any attention. Paul Wellstone said: You ought to be
involved; there is a reason to be involved.
His ability to attract people to come to a cause and to fight for the
good cause will live on. I suspect one day this Chamber will have
people who will serve in it who cut their teeth in politics working on
a Wellstone campaign.
Paul, the campaign goes on. Your battles will go on, and we are going
to miss you. I yield the floor.
Exhibit 1
[From the New York Times, Oct. 26, 2002]
A Death in the Senate: Paul Wellstone, 58, Icon of Liberalism in Senate
(By David E. Rosenbaum)
Washington, Oct. 25.--Paul Wellstone often seemed out of
step. He called himself a liberal when many used that word as
a slur. He voted against the Persian Gulf war in his first
year in the Senate, and this month opposed using force
against Iraq.
Senator Wellstone, 58, who died in a plane crash today
while campaigning for re-election, fought for bills favored
by unions and advocates of family farmers and the poor, and
against those favored by banks, agribusiness and large
corporations. This year he was the principal opponent of
legislation supported by large majorities of Democrats and
Republicans that would make it more difficult for people to
declare bankruptcy. He argued that the measure would enrich
creditors at the expense of people ``in brutal economic
circumstances.'' He advocated causes like national health
insurance that even many of his fellow liberals abandoned as
futile.
Mr. Wellstone was a rumpled, unfailingly modest man who,
unlike many of his colleagues, lived on his Senate salary. He
was married to the former Sheila Ison for 39 years, having
married at 19 when he was in college. His wife and their 33-
year-old daughter, Marcia, also died today in the crash.
When Mr. Wellstone arrived in the Senate in 1991, he was a
firebrand who thought little of breaking the Senate tradition
of comity and personally attacking his colleagues. He told an
interviewer soon after he was elected that Senator Jesse
Helms, the conservative North Carolina Republican,
``represents everything to me that is ugly and wrong and
awful about politics.''
But as the years passed, Mr. Wellstone moderated his
personality if not his politics and became well liked by
Republicans as well as Democrats. Bob Dole, the former Senate
Republican leader who often tangled with Mr. Wellstone on
legislation, choked up today when he told a television
interviewer that Mr. Wellstone was ``a decent, genuine guy
who had a different philosophy from almost everyone else in
the Senate.''
Mr. Wellstone was also an accomplished campaigner. Though
he had never held elected office, he pulled off a major upset
in 1990 when, running on a shoestring budget, he defeated the
incumbent Republican senator, Rudy Boschwitz. He beat Mr.
Boschwitz in a rematch in 1996. This year, he reneged on a
promise to limit himself to two terms, ran for re-election
and seemed in the most recent public polls to have pulled
slightly ahead of his Republican challenger, former Mayor
Norm Coleman of St. Paul.
His opponents always portrayed him as a left-wing
extremist. Mr. Boschwitz's television commercials in 1996
called Mr. Wellstone ``embarrassingly liberal and out of
touch.'' This year, Mr. Coleman said the senator was ``so far
out of the mainstream, so extreme, that he can't deliver for
Minnesotans.''
But on the campaign trail, Mr. Wellstone appeared to be so
happy, so comfortable, so unthreatening that he was able to
ward off the attacks.
For years, he had walked with a pronounced limp that he
attributed to an old wrestling injury. In February, he
announced at a news conference that he had learned he had
multiple sclerosis, but he said the illness would not affect
his campaigning or his ability to sit in the Senate. ``I have
a strong mind--although there are some that might disagree
about that--I have a strong body, I have a strong heart, I
have a strong soul,'' he told reporters.
Paul David Wellstone was born in Washington on July 21,
1944, and grew up in Arlington, Va. His father, Leon, left
Russia as a child to escape the persecution of Jews, and
worked as a writer for the United States Information Agency.
His mother, Minnie, the daughter of immigrants from Russia,
worked in a junior high school cafeteria.
Growing up, he was more interested in wrestling than
politics, and he had some difficulty in school because of
what he later found out was a learning disability. He scored
lower than 800, out of a total of 1,600, on his College
Boards, and this led him as a senator to oppose measures that
emphasized standardized test scores. In an interview, he once
said that even as an adult he had difficulty interpreting
charts and graphs quickly but that he had learned to overcome
his disability by studying harder and taking more time to
absorb information.
Partly because of his wrestling ability--he was a
conference champion at 126 pounds--he was admitted to the
University of North Carolina and, galvanized by the civil
rights movement, he turned from wrestling to politics. He
graduated in 1965 and stayed in Chapel Hill for a doctorate
in political science. He wrote his thesis on the roots of
black militancy.
Married with children, he once said he did not have time to
participate in the student uprisings in the 1960's. He is
survived by two grown sons, David and Mark, of St. Paul, and
six grandchildren.
But while he was not a student rebel, Mr. Wellstone did not
fit in from the day in 1969 when he began teaching political
science at Carleton College, a small liberal arts campus in
rural Northfield, Minn.
He was more interested in leading his students in protests
than he was in publishing in academic journals, and he was
often at odds with his colleagues and Carleton
administrators. He fought the college's investments in
companies doing business in South Africa, battled local banks
that foreclosed on farms, picketed with strikers at a meat-
packing plant and taught classes off campus rather than cross
a picket line when Carleton's custodians were on strike.
In 1974, the college told him his contract would not be
renewed. But with strong support from students, the student
newspaper and local activists, he appealed the dismissal, and
it was reversed.
In 1982, Mr. Wellstone dipped his toe into the political
waters for the first time and
[[Page S10796]]
ran for state auditor. He lost. But he had made contacts in
the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, and he stayed
active in politics. In 1988, he was the state co-chairman of
the Rev. Jesse Jackson's campaign in the president primary,
and in the general election, he was co-chairman of the
campaign of Michael S. Dukakis, the Democratic
presidential nominee.
Few thought he had a chance when he announced that he would
run for the Senate against Mr. Boschwitz, Russell D.
Feingold, now a like-minded liberal Democratic senator from
Wisconsin, today had this recollection of dropping by to meet
Mr. Wellstone in 1989:
``He opened the door, and there he was with his socks off,
15 books open that he was reading, and he was on the phone
arguing with somebody about Cuba. He gave me coffee, and we
laughed uproariously at the idea that either of us would ever
be elected. But he pulled it off in 1990 and gave me the
heart to do it in Wisconsin.''
Mr. Feingold was elected in 1992, also with a tiny
treasury.
Mr. Boschwitz spent $7 million on his campaign, seven times
Mr. Wellstone's budget. To counteract the Boschwitz attacks,
Mr. Wellstone ran witty, even endearing television
commercials produced without charge by a group led by a
former student. In one ad, the video and audio were speeded
up, and Mr. Wellstone said he had to talk fast because ``I
don't have $6 million to spend.''
Mr. Wellstone toured the state in a battered green school
bus, and in the end, he won 50.4 percent of the vote and was
the only challenger in 1990 to defeat an incumbent senator.
He arrived in Washington as something of a rube. On one of
his first days in town before he was sworn in, he called a
reporter for the name of a restaurant where he could get a
cheap dinner. When the reporter replied that he knew a place
where a good meal was only $15, Mr. Wellstone said $15 was
many times what he was prepared to spend.
He also made what he later conceded were ``rookie
mistakes.'' At one point, for instance, he used the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial as a backdrop for a news conference to
oppose the war against Iraq. Veterans' groups denounced him,
and he later apologized.
But he soon warmed to the ways of the Senate and became
especially adept at the unusual custom of giving long
speeches to an empty chamber. Probably no one in the Senate
over the last dozen years gave more speeches at night after
nearly all the other senators had gone home.
His strength was not in getting legislation enacted. One
successful measure he sponsored in 1996 with Senator Pete V.
Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, requires insurance
companies in some circumstances to give coverage to people
with mental illness, but he failed this year in an effort to
strengthen the law.
In a book he published last year, ``The Conscience of a
Liberal'' (Random House), Mr. Wellstone wrote, ``I feel as if
80 percent of my work as a senator has been playing defense,
cutting the extremist enthusiasms of the conservative agenda
(much of which originates in the House) rather than moving
forward on a progressive agenda.''
In a speech in the Senate this month explaining his
opposition to the resolution authorizing the use of force in
Iraq, Mr. Wellstone stressed that Saddam Hussein was ``a
brutal, ruthless dictator who has repressed his own people.''
But Mr. Wellstone went on to say: ``Despite a desire to
support our president, I believe many Americans still have
profound questions about the wisdom of relying too heavily on
a preemptive go-it-alone military approach. Acting now on our
own might be a sign of our power. Acting sensibly and in a
measured way, in concert with our allies, with bipartisan
Congressional support, would be a sign of our strength.''
Later, Mr. Wellstone told a reporter that he did not
believe his stance would hurt him politically. ``What would
really hurt,'' he said, ``is if I was giving speeches and I
didn't even believe what I was saying. Probably what would
hurt is if people thought I was doing something just for
political reasons.''
Mr. Wellstone briefly considered running for president in
2000, but he called off the campaign because, he said, the
doctors who had been treating him for a ruptured disk told
him that his back could not stand the travel that would be
required.
Often, Mr. Wellstone was the only senator voting against a
measure, or one of only a few. He was, for instance, one of
three senators in 1999 to support compromise missile defense
legislation. He was the only one that year to vote against an
education bill involving standardized tests, and the only
Democrat who opposed his party's version of lowering the
estate tax.
Mr. Wellstone was one of the few senators who made the
effort to meet and remember the names of elevator operators,
waiters, police officers and other workers in the Capitol.
James W. Ziglar, a Republican who was sergeant at arms of
the Senate from 1998 to 2001 and who is now commissioner of
the Immigration and Naturalization Service, remembered today
``the evening when he came back to the Capitol well past
midnight to visit with the cleaning staff and tell them how
much he appreciated their efforts.''
``Most of the staff had never seen a senator and certainly
had never had one make such a meaningful effort to express
his or her appreciation,'' Mr. Ziglar said. ``That was the
measure of the man.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the resolution and preamble
are agreed to.
The resolution (S. Res. 354) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
____________________