[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 16, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S571]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      REMEMBERING THOMAS G. LYONS

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it is fortuitous for the Presiding Officer 
to be presiding because I know of his background, and I am speaking 
today of a man who just passed away in Illinois who is a great friend 
of mine. His name is Tom Lyons, a former State senator and chairman of 
the Democratic Party of Cook County. If you have ever attended an Irish 
wake--and I bet you have--there is a passionate combination of sadness 
and celebration.
  In Chicago, such a wake is being held for a good and courageous man.
  Thomas G. Lyons died last Friday at the age of 75 after a months-long 
struggle against serious illness.
  Mr. Lyons served for the last 17 years as chairman of the Cook County 
Democratic Party. That was only one small chapter in an otherwise long, 
interesting and amazing life story.
  As a young man, he served as an Army Ranger and a Chicago police 
officer.
  In 1957, he earned a law degree and spent the next several years 
working first in the Cook County assessor's office, and then in the 
Illinois Attorneys General office.
  In 1964, a time of great change, Tom Lyons was elected to represent 
northwest Chicago in the Illinois General Assembly.
  The following year, he was tapped to serve in the leadership of a 
State commission studying the need for a new Illinois State 
constitution. He later served as vice president of the convention that 
drafted Illinois's current State constitution.
  The preamble to that document lays out a series of high and noble 
aims of government. It reads, and I quote:

       We, the people of the state of Illinois--grateful to 
     Almighty God for the civil, political and religious liberty 
     which He has permitted us to enjoy and seeking his blessings 
     upon our endeavors--in order to provide for the health, 
     safety and welfare of the people; maintain a representative 
     and orderly government; eliminate poverty and inequality; 
     assure legal, social and economic justice; provide 
     opportunity for the fullest development of the individual; 
     insure domestic tranquility; provide for the common defense; 
     and secure the blessings of freedom and liberty for ourselves 
     and our posterity--do ordain and establish this constitution 
     for the state of Illinois.

  Those same high and noble goals--``to provide for the health, safety 
and welfare of the people; . . . eliminate poverty and inequality; . . 
. assure legal, social and economic justice; . . . and secure the 
blessings of freedom and liberty for ourselves and our posterity''--
were the standards to which Tom Lyons held himself in his public 
service.
  A story in Sunday's Chicago Sun Times last Sunday says a lot about 
the kind of man he was.
  In the 1950s, Tom Lyons was a young soldier on his way to Fort 
Benning, GA. It was his first trip to the South.
  As he walked through a bus station, he was shocked to see one 
restroom for Whites and another for Blacks. His family said he decided 
to take a stand--and used the ``colored'' bathroom.
  His son Frank said:

       He got into it with the local law enforcement. But he 
     wanted to make a statement. It's who he was as a person.

  His family and friends say it was that willingness to stand up for 
everyone--no matter their race, class or status--that best embodies Mr. 
Lyons' legacy.
  It was also that willingness to treat everyone equally, with dignity, 
which nearly cost Tom Lyons his political career four decades ago.
  In 1963, the year before Tom Lyons was elected to the Illinois State 
Senate, the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance banning 
restrictive covenants and other discriminatory real estate practices 
that were used to maintain racial segregation in Chicago. But the 
ordinance was routinely ignored.
  In January 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. moved to what he called 
a ``slum apartment'' on the West Side of Chicago. That summer, he held 
a series of ``open housing'' marches in all-White neighborhoods in the 
city and suburbs. The demonstrations produced a furor and focused 
national and international attention on the problem of housing 
discrimination, not just in Chicago, but in America.
  By fall, the issue of housing discrimination became the most volatile 
issue of the campaign. It helped defeat one of the most courageous men 
who ever served in this Senate, a man Dr. King called ``the greatest of 
all senators,'' my mentor, Paul Douglas.
  Family and friends warned Tom Lyons that his support for a State fair 
housing law that year could cost him his seat in the General Assembly. 
But he voted for the bill anyway--and lost his re-election bid.
  Having lost, he didn't give up. He won his seat back 4 years later.
  Chicago politics is famously rough and tumble, but Tom Lyons was 
famous for trying to calm tempers and soothe old wounds by gathering 
people around the piano to sing great old songs and World War II 
ballads. He loved politics, not because of what it could do for him but 
what it allowed him to do for others. That is why his wake this evening 
will be filled with sadness and with celebration and why Tom Lyons will 
also be missed in Chicago and throughout our State.
  As a young attorney serving in the Illinois State Legislature as 
parliamentarian for 14 years, I came to know a lot of State senators. 
There remain many fine men and women who serve in that body. I was 
learning my earliest chapters of Illinois politics as I watched them in 
action.
  I remember Tom Lyons, a good legislator, conscientious man, a man of 
principle, with a great sense of humor, who would put an arm around 
your shoulder and say: Let's go have a beer and sing a song. He was 
just that kind of guy. His life was a good life, a life of public 
service and a life of giving to many others. I was lucky to be one of 
his friends and lucky to be one of the beneficiaries of his good will.
  I ask the Members of the Senate to join me in extending our 
condolences to Tom's wife Ruth; their sons, Thomas and Frank; their 
daughters, Alexandra and Rachel; and Tom's eight grandchildren.

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