[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 140 (Monday, December 20, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S12094]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO SENATOR BOB GRAHAM

  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, with the adjournment of the 108th 
Congress, Bob Graham completes about 40 uninterrupted years of 
dedicated service to the people of Florida as an elected public 
official. Floridian's first elected him to their State house of 
representatives in 1966, where he served two 2-year terms. In 1970 they 
elected him to the State senate, where he served two 4-year terms. In 
1978 Floridians across the State chose him for their Governor; no one 
from south Florida had ever before been elected. He served in that 
office with great distinction for two terms, until in 1986 Floridians 
sent Bob Graham to the first of three terms in the U.S. Senate.
  Bob Graham has not only worked for the people of Florida; he has 
worked with them. While a State senator, he established a workday 
program for himself that regularly took him out of the halls of 
government and into literally dozens of different jobs. Since coming to 
the Senate, Bob has made time for 214 workdays, which means that 
roughly once a month, for 18 years, he has worked alongside his 
constituents, all the time learning from them.
  Bob began his workdays while a State senator, teaching a semester of 
civics at a Miami high school. Over the years, though, he has not 
limited himself to a single form of employment: on the contrary, he has 
been an agricultural worker, a factory worker, a construction worker; 
he has worked in the public sector as a policeman and as a trash 
collector. Writing in the Washington Post on May 4, 2003, Michael 
Grunwald observed that the regular, wide-ranging workdays became ``a 
remarkable window'' for Bob Graham's political education. Working as an 
auto mechanic, Bob Graham learned first-hand that ``Florida auto 
inspections were a joke. He learned at a nursing home that orderlies 
earned only $17 a day. He learned as a parking attendant that tiny curb 
cuts changed the lives of disabled workers.'' Bob used the workday 
program to learn directly from his own observation and experience, and 
not simply from the reports of others.
  Florida is an extraordinarily diverse State in its demography, its 
environment, and its economy. In many ways it encapsulates the broad 
range of challenges that we confront not just in our States, but in the 
Nation at large. Senator Bob Graham brought to the great debates in the 
Congress over education, health care, the economy, environmental 
standards, and many other issues, domestic and foreign, his substantial 
experience as a State legislator and Governor. The legislation enacted 
in 2000 to restore the Florida Everglades was built around a program 
that Governor Bob Graham had established in 1983. It was not only his 
State that benefited, it was our Nation; for the Everglades are a 
precious national resource. As chairman of the Intelligence Committee 
in the 107th Congress, Bob Graham provided vigorous and clear-headed 
leadership in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11.
  Broadly experienced in public governance as Bob is, he has had the 
wisdom to remain a student of government. The U.S. Senate is both a 
place to protect and advance the needs and concerns of constituents, 
and also a place to learn; as he put it in his remarks in this Chamber 
on December 7: ``The Senate is our country's best graduate school.'' He 
leaves the Senate with an abiding and profound concern for programs to 
keep our country safe, improve our children's schools, improve our 
health care, and strengthen employment opportunities, among many 
others. Above and beyond these programs, however, as he observed on 
December 7, is the very institution of the Senate itself, with a 
``unique role'' to play ``in balancing our Government in order to avoid 
excessive power falling into the hands of any one person or 
governmental institution.''
  For over 18 years Bob has worked to ensure that this body does indeed 
honor its unique role among our institutions of government. The Senate 
is stronger for having Bob Graham as a Member. He will be greatly 
missed.

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