[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 3 (Thursday, January 9, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Page S124]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        IN MEMORIAM: JOE REMCHO

 Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I rise in tribute to the late Joe 
Remcho, who died in a helicopter crash in California last Saturday. Joe 
was a great American an accomplished attorney, a strong advocate for 
civil liberties, a leading legal scholar, and a trusted advisor to many 
public officials.
  Joe's curriculum vitae is varied and impressive. After graduating 
from Yale University and Harvard Law School, he taught second grade for 
a year at an inner-city public school. In the early 1970s, with the 
Vietnam war at its height, the young attorney went to Saigon to serve 
on the Lawyers Military Defense Committee. After returning to the 
United States, he moved to California to become the staff attorney for 
the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. Four years 
later, he established a successful private practice specializing in 
first amendment, education, and election law. His clients included 
California's Governor and the State assembly. In 1988, he was honored 
by his colleagues as California's Trial Lawyer of the Year.
  Despite his very full docket, Joe found time to serve as an adjunct 
professor of law at the University of San Francisco, a commissioner on 
the California Fair Political Practices Commission, and a member of 
California's bipartisan State committees on internet political 
practices and the Political Reform Act.
  Above all, Joe Remcho was a warm and wonderful human being a devoted 
family man, a loving husband and father, and a friend to those who were 
fortunate enough to know him.
  I last saw Joe just 2 days before he died. Our families were 
together, and his strength and warmth were ever present.
  Whether he was spending a quiet vacation with family and friends or 
fighting in court to defend the Constitution, Joe Remcho lived his life 
to the fullest. His death leaves a tremendous void in the lives of all 
those who knew him, but his memory fills that space with love and 
admiration.

                          ____________________