[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 85 (Wednesday, June 11, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7714-S7715]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                IN REMEMBRANCE OF JANINE LOUISE JOHNSON

 Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am here to remember the life of 
Janine Johnson--formerly with the Senate's Office of Legislative 
Counsel--who sadly passed away last month while still in the prime of 
her young life of 37 years.
  Janine served in the Senate for 13 years. Some of her major 
responsibilities included drafting child nutrition and agriculture 
legislation for me, and for many other Senators.
  After beginning her work for the Senate, she had a hand in crafting 
every major child nutrition law while I was chairman of the 
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee, when Senator Lugar took 
over as chairman after me, and for Chairman Tom Harkin.
  She will be sorely missed as the Senate prepares to complete the 
child nutrition reauthorization this year.
  She was a careful, creative, and precise drafter of some of America's 
most important nutrition laws, which stand now in silent testament to 
her life.
  She was as cheerful and careful at 2:00 p.m. working out complicated 
drafts, as she was at 2:00 a.m. working on even more complicated 
drafts. My senior nutrition counsel for many years, Ed Barron, drove 
her home more than once after the metro closed at midnight.

[[Page S7715]]

  I know how hard this tragic loss weighs on her friends and colleagues 
at the Senate Legislative Counsel's Office.
  She was admired by her peers, her friends, and her Senate clients.
  It was clear from an early age that Janine would be a star. She 
graduated first in her class from Winchester High School in 
Massachusetts.
  In 1986, she graduated with high honors from Harvard Law School. She 
clerked for the Honorable Cecil Poole on the U.S. Court of Appeals for 
the Ninth Circuit.
  Following her clerkship, she came to the Senate Office of Legislative 
Counsel.
  According to Janine's friends here in the Senate, she loved life 
outside the Senate as much as her work within it. Janine loved theater, 
music, and swing dancing.
  Of Janine it can truly be said, that there has ``passed away a glory 
from the Earth.''
  The poet Wordsworth continues--

     ``Though nothing can bring back the hour
     Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
     We will grieve not, rather find
     Strength in what remains behind.''

  Janine has touched many of our lives and honored the Senate with her 
dedicated and outstanding service.

                          ____________________