[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 52 (Tuesday, April 26, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S4254]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO SENATOR JEFFORDS
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I spoke on the floor last week to briefly
recount some of the many reasons that Vermont and the Nation will miss
the leadership, the independence and the decency of Senator Jim
Jeffords when he chooses to retire from the Senate at the end of his
current term.
Since then there have been many news articles and editorials that
have also catalogued and described various aspects of Jim Jeffords'
distinguished legacy. As is often the case when he writes about the
events and issues of the day, Emerson Lynn, the publisher of the St.
Albans Messenger in my home State of Vermont, did this particularly
well. I would like to share his editorial with the members of the
Senate.
I ask unanimous consent that Emerson Lynn's recent editorial about
Senator Jeffords be printed in the Record
There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the St. Albans Messenger, Apr. 21, 2005]
Jeffords Leaves Before His Time, Accomplishes Much
Senator Jim Jeffords, who turned Washington's political
world upside down 4 years ago with his defection from the
Republican Party, Wednesday turned Vermont's political world
upside down with his announcement not to seek reelection.
He said it was time to begin a new chapter in a life that
for 38 years has been dominated by an election cycle that
began as a state senator from Rutland in 1967, to Attorney
General in 1969, to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1974
to the United States Senate in 1988. He has represented
Vermont in one office or another for almost four decades. If
that is a chapter, most our lives can be explained in a
paragraph.
Wednesday's announcement was the sad affirmation of what
many of those close to the Senator had feared: his health is
less than optimum and his wife, Liz, is battling cancer and
about to undergo a third round of chemotherapy. At some point
the question is more akin to the clap of thunder to our
better senses: is being senator worth one's health; is it
worth not being able to pay the proper attention to one's
wife who is battling cancer, and, is the twilight of one's
life best spent with one's children, and an expected
grandchild, or with the churlish likes of Tom DeLay and the
hard right that have stolen a sense of civility and class
from the Senate? For anyone not suffering from the hubris
that often comes attached to the position, the choice is
clear and Jim Jeffords made that choice with grace and
perspective.
He also did the honorable thing politically. He announced
his retirement with sufficient time for both parties to give
thoughtful consideration as to how to approach the November
2006 race. He could have waited. He didn't, and in so doing
reinforced the integrity that has characterized his career.
And his has been a remarkable career. The history books
will undoubtedly begin their biographies noting the impact of
his May, 2001 decision to bolt from a Republican party he
said had left its moorings. But the senator's accomplishments
extend far beyond one's party allegiance. As Vermont's
attorney general he played a pivotal role in the
implementation of Act 250, and the law to outlaw billboards.
No Vermont politician has had a greater impact on dairy
farming, nor does any politician have a better understanding
of the industry and its needs. There isn't a single bit of
legislation dealing with special education [or education in
general] that doesn't have his fingerprints on it in one
fashion or another. The same can be said of his years in the
Senate when dealing with the environment. He was also a
passionate defender of the arts. What he has accomplished
will endure beyond fame's notoriously short life.
It's axiomatic that this was not the choreographed
conclusion of his choosing. His desire was to win reelection
as an independent, thereby vindicating a personally wrenching
decision to leave the Republican Party. Life's bows cannot be
so neatly tied and those who try find them but ropes of sand
that disintegrate in the twisting.
Sadly, we are in an age that exploits one's natural
fissures as though they were fatal flaws of one's character.
One's vulnerabilities are extrapolated into insurmountable
deficiencies, as if there were only sun and no shadows, all
light, no darkness. The senator knows only too well how that
game is played. The Yale/Harvard educated man will be known
more for a twisted tongue than a clear mind, as if being
articulate were a higher calling than being thoughtful.
In the end, it's not what others think of you but the joy
you carry in your toil. And, in the end, it is Mr. Jeffords
that wears the smile, not his accusers. He is like Sisyphus
in Albert Camus' ``Myth of Sisyphus'', the character in Greek
mythology who was condemned for eternity to roll a boulder up
a hill, only to have it roll back down again. Camus made the
convincing argument that Sisyphus' lot was not tragic, but
uplifting. He could smile at the absurd because he understood
it as such.
Camus concluded by writing: ``I leave Sisyphus at the foot
of the mountain! One I always finds one's burden again. But
Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods
and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This
universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither
sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral
flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world.
The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a
man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.''
We imagine Mr. Jeffords' heart is full and that he is
happy. He should be remembered as such.
The clamor to claim his political perch has begun and din,
at times, will overwhelm. What Vermonters can hope for is
that all followers choose Mr. Jeffords' path of integrity and
independence.
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