[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 176 (Tuesday, December 9, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S16093-S16094]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     TRIBUTE TO SENATOR PAUL SIMON

  Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, it is with great sadness that I rise 
to report to my colleagues in the Senate the death of a former Member 
of this body, U.S. Senator Paul Simon from Illinois. Senator Simon died 
earlier today. He was 75 years old. This comes as a great shock to all 
of us who knew and loved Paul Simon.
  Earlier today, I had written him a get well note and sent him some 
flowers. It was announced a couple of days ago that he was going into 
the hospital for heart bypass surgery and also to have a leaky heart 
valve replaced. Apparently something happened during the surgery--I 
don't know what--but Senator Simon, unfortunately, passed away, and we 
all send our love and our prayers to his wife Patty, his children, his 
grandchildren, and to all his colleagues at Southern Illinois 
University where he will be missed greatly.
  Senator Simon's first wife, Jeanne, died a few years ago. I also had 
the privilege of knowing her. May God rest her soul as well.
  Senator Simon was a nationally known figure, primarily from his 
having been a candidate for the Presidency in 1988. In Illinois, he was 
truly a giant for many decades--three or four decades or more. He 
served both in the State house of representatives and the Illinois 
State Senate, as well as in the U.S. Congress and then later in the 
U.S. Senate. He is thought to be the only person from Illinois to have 
served in both houses of the Illinois Legislature and then in both 
Houses of Congress.
  He was also in the late sixties and early seventies the Lieutenant 
Governor from Illinois. On his last reelection race for the U.S. 
Senate, he won by over a million votes, with 65 percent. I believe he 
had the highest plurality of anybody running that year.
  He was an extraordinary figure, extremely popular, and extremely well 
respected, especially for his character and integrity. Many people may 
have disagreed with Senator Simon's policy positions on a variety of 
issues, but no one ever questioned his ethics and integrity. In fact, 
those who served with him in the Senate, I am sure, remember his famous 
bow ties. Those bow ties almost became a symbol of ethics and integrity 
in the State of Illinois because of Senator Simon. He was a remarkable 
man.
  He started in the early 1950s--maybe before that; maybe in the late 
forties--as a newspaper editor in southern Illinois. He was about 19 
years of age when he was asked to take over a troubled newspaper in 
Troy, IL, in Madison County. He actually revived the newspaper by going 
after a corrupt gambling cabal in Madison County. He ultimately put 
together a string of some 13 newspapers that he sold in the 1960s, and 
then went from journalism into politics and government service; he 
never looked back.
  He had numerous legislative accomplishments in the U.S. Senate, 
including the Direct Student Loan Program, the job training partnership 
amendments, and many other initiatives across a wide spectrum of 
issues. Of course, he was very accomplished in the Illinois Legislature 
as well.
  Some people think they have done a lot when they have read a book. 
Senator Simon probably wrote as many books as most people have read. He 
is the author of at least 21 books, and maybe more than that. He had 55 
honorary degrees. As I mentioned, he was a candidate for President in 
1988.
  One of the most astonishing things about Paul Simon was that his 
ethics and integrity were not just an act. I think a lot of the 
professional politicians maybe didn't always appreciate him in Chicago, 
for example. They maybe thought his bow tie and his constant efforts to 
maintain the highest standards in Illinois and the Federal Government 
were an act. But you could see after he retired from the Senate when he 
was offered, reportedly by foreign governments, to become a high paying 
lobbyist--I think one foreign government offered him over $600,000 a 
year to become their lobbyist, and he was offered a variety of 
lucrative positions. He turned all that down so he could return to 
Makanda, IL, down in the southern part of the State where he came from 
so he could teach at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and be 
a professor. He turned down higher paying professorships elsewhere in 
the country. He wanted to come back home and be at Southern Illinois 
University.
  He put together a wonderful public policy institute with some others 
there, including Mike Lawrence, who was the press secretary to our 
former Gov. Jim Edgar in Illinois.
  I was in the area down by SIU this past summer. I had dinner with 
Mike Lawrence and he was telling me how hard it was to keep up with 
Paul Simon. Even at his age, he was keeping a remarkable schedule. So 
it came as a great surprise to hear of his passing today. It is a great 
loss. We will all miss him.
  He was nothing but kind to me. Even though I was a member of the 
opposite party, Senator Simon last called me when I announced I would 
be retiring from the Senate. He was always courteous and kind in 
offering to help everyone he could.
  I remembered from long ago reading a column that was written about 
Paul Simon, which I thought was a fabulous testament to this wonderful 
man. The column was written in the Chicago Tribune on February 28, 
1997. It was by R. Bruce Dold, entitled ``In Praise of a Decent Former 
Politician.'' This column is written by a journalist who had covered 
Senator Simon for many years, including following him around on his 
election campaigns and seeing his interaction with people all over the 
State of Illinois. This reporter wrote about how he was amazed that 
Senator Simon would come into a small town and say hi to everybody, and 
he would actually know the names of their children and how their 
grandfather was doing.
  Senator Simon had a genuine affection for people. He was a tireless 
worker. He held over 600 town meetings in his two terms in the Senate, 
which is a very tough pace to keep up with for any of us in the Senate. 
He was a remarkable man.
  I ask unanimous consent that this commentary written by R. Bruce Dold 
be printed in the Record immediately following my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. FITZGERALD. I conclude by saying that Senator Paul Simon was a 
credit to the State of Illinois and a credit to the Senate, and we will 
miss him. God rest his soul and may God bless his widow and family.

                               Exhibit 1

               [From the Chicago Tribune, Feb. 28, 1997]

                 In Praise of a Decent Former Politician

                           (By R. Bruce Dold)

       One of my best lessons in southern Illinois politics came 
     with Paul Simon's 1984 campaign for the U.S. Senate, the one 
     where he dusted Sen. Charles Percy and made amends for his 
     one big political loss, the 1972 bid for governor.
       Simon planned to hit about 13 towns in one day, moving from 
     Vandalia to Cairo and over to Carbondale, with a brief stop 
     at his Makanda home to show off his Lincoln book collection 
     to the handful of reporters with him. He'd be meandering over 
     a few hundred miles, which normally would require a 
     helicopter. For Simon, all it required was Joe Bob Pierce.
       Joe Bob is something of a Renaissance man--an electric 
     power lineman with a Baptist divinity school degree who can 
     drive like a bat out of hell, that last talent being the one 
     Simon required that day.
       So the trip went like this. We would drive to the Franklin 
     county Courthouse public square, and Simon would give a 
     little speech, and then he would do the real campaigning. 
     This amounted to greeting each person in the crowd by her 
     first name and inquiring about her children and her frail 
     grandfather, and then moving on to the next soul with a 
     hearty ``nice to see you.''
       Then we would pile into Joe Bob's car and he would hit 
     triple digit m.p.h. on Rt. 142 until we barreled into the 
     parking lot of the Saline Valley Conservancy District, where 
     Simon would do it all over again.
       And I realized by the second stop that he actually knew all 
     of these people, and the ages of their kids, and the health 
     status of their grandfathers.
       Simon wasn't supposed to win that election but he did, in 
     part because he swept most of Southern Illinois.
       He's back home now after ending an impressive career in 
     politics. He's believed to be the only person who ever served 
     in the Illinois and U.S. House and Senate.
       On paper, his career makes no sense. Before politics, he 
     was a newspaper editor who shook things up in a part of 
     Illinois that liked things calm. He was too liberal for his 
     congressional district, too liberal for this state, too 
     liberal for Congress. He was a bigger-government advocate in 
     a little-government era. Didn't matter. People thought he

[[Page S16094]]

     cared about them. He won his last Senate race by almost 1 
     million votes.
       A few Washington types, and a few well-known Chicago 
     politicians, still believe it was an act, that Simon was just 
     another pol who had perfected a gee-whiz persona and the 
     public got snookered into buying it. And while I always liked 
     Paul Simon, I was also suspicious enough of politics in 
     general to keep alive the prospect that they might be right.
       OK, now that he's retired, it's safe to say that they are 
     wrong.
       When Simon left the Senate and there was no electoral 
     advantage to being pure, he still did the right thing.
       He turned down offers to lobby in Washington--one offer was 
     for $600,000 a year to work for foreign governments. I'm 
     taking his word on this--there's that suspicion rising again. 
     But in the years I've known him he hasn't given me reason not 
     to take his word.
       He also turned down several teaching offers at better-known 
     schools around the country to take a job running the new 
     Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University in 
     Carbondale, near his home.
       Nobody needs to hold a tag day for him, since he's drawing 
     $120,000 a year from SIU. But they offered him $140,000 and 
     he requested a $20,000 cut so he wouldn't be paid more than 
     the chancellor. That's the kind of gesture that makes the 
     political cynics snicker, and makes the rest of the world 
     think Paul Simon is a very decent guy.
       Now that Simon's back home and doesn't have to be concerned 
     about his own elections, he could be more of a political 
     broker in this state.
       He proved he could transfer his credibility and popularity 
     last year when Richard Durbin was a relatively unknown 
     central Illinois congressman making his introductions to 
     Chicagoans at the same time he was asking them to send him to 
     the Senate. Nobody up here knew Richard Durbin from Richard 
     Burton. But Simon's endorsement, repeated on television 
     commercials, was gold. It gave Durbin instant credibility and 
     carried him to the election.
       So Simon could throw his weight around. He intends not to. 
     Other than supporting Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun's re-election 
     bid, he's planning to lay low in politics.
       He could be a big factor in the Democratic primary for 
     governor next year. Lots of people want to run. But it looks 
     like Simon won't play the game. He told me this week he's 
     been approached by several potential candidates, but doesn't 
     plan to endorse anybody. He's happy teaching his government 
     and non-fiction writing courses and doesn't want to taint his 
     new institute with the smell of partisan politics.
       ``I anticipate I will be less involved in party activities 
     than I was before,'' he said. ``I have to be reaching out to 
     both political parties.''
       For a political writer in Chicago, saying something kind 
     about a politician is akin to volunteering to put a kick-me 
     sign on your back. But here goes: the people were right all 
     along, Paul Simon really is a very decent guy.

  Mr. FITZGERALD. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, we have all just heard the sad news about 
our former colleague, Senator Simon, from the Senator from Illinois. 
There will be opportunities in the future for more formal comments from 
many Members of the Senate, but I thought this afternoon I would make a 
few brief comments about our colleague Paul Simon.
  I had the opportunity to serve in the Senate with Paul, but I also 
had the opportunity for a few years to serve in the House of 
Representatives with Paul. What a treat it was to serve in both bodies 
with Paul. Shortly after I came to the House, I discovered that when 
Paul Simon came to the well of the House of Representatives, he was 
someone to come into the House Chamber and listen to because no matter 
what the topic, we could count on the fact that he was going to give a 
thoughtful speech. You might agree with him, you might not agree with 
him, but you could bet that this man of great integrity had thought 
through what he was going to say. You can bet that he truly believed 
what he was saying.
  Members would listen to Paul Simon, whether it was in the House or 
Senate. Paul Simon was a man of great integrity. When he spoke, it was 
clear he was a man of great moral clarity in his comments and thoughts. 
There was great precision to those thoughts.
  We all know that Paul Simon was first, in his career, maybe first and 
foremost, a writer. He started, as my colleague from Illinois has just 
said, at a newspaper. Some have labeled him as a crusading newspaper 
editor. That is how he got his start. He continued to write throughout 
his career, writing his columns back to his home State and writing 
books.
  I was back home in Ohio at the house of my daughter and son-in-law 
this past weekend and I happened to look down and there was what I took 
to be one of Paul's newest books. I picked it up and read a few pages. 
There was Paul again, being very provocative, being very thoughtful. He 
made me think. That was Paul.
  One of the books Paul wrote many, many years ago continues to be 
cited today. Anybody who reads a biography of Abraham Lincoln will find 
the work of Paul Simon in that book because, you see, Paul Simon wrote 
the definitive book about Abraham Lincoln's time in the Illinois 
Legislature. So whatever definitive biography you read of Abraham 
Lincoln, it will cite Paul Simon's book for that period of Abraham 
Lincoln's life.
  Paul Simon was asked once why he wrote the book. He said he had 
discovered there just hadn't been a good book written on that period of 
Abraham Lincoln's life, so Paul Simon wrote it. He did the research, 
dug the information out, and wrote the book. It is still the definitive 
book.
  Paul Simon was, more than anything else, a teacher. You could see 
that in his speeches on the Senate floor and the House floor before 
that. You could see that, really, in his columns, his writings. So I 
think it is fitting that at the end of his career, as Senator 
Fitzgerald said, he went home. He went home to southern Illinois. He 
created this great institute at southern Illinois, his home community. 
He brought in great speakers, talked about big topics, great topics 
that we have to deal with in our country. He headed that up, put it 
together, and dealt with those issues.
  He ended his life as a teacher, what he really was throughout his 
entire career, beginning as a newspaper man: Paul Simon the teacher. So 
as he taught us in the Senate, as he taught us in the House of 
Representatives, he ended his life as a teacher to young people in his 
home of Carbondale, in southern Illinois. I think that is clearly the 
way Paul Simon wanted it. I think it is fitting that is how he ended 
his life.
  This is a sad day for the Senate. It is a sad day, certainly, for 
Illinois, and for his country. But we can take joy in this very good 
man's life and what he has done for our country and what he ended his 
life doing for our young people.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________