[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 82 (Thursday, May 17, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1085]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                   TRIBUTE TO JUSTICE JOSEPH RATTIGAN

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                          HON. LYNN C. WOOLSEY

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 17, 2007

  Ms. WOOLSEY. Madam Speaker, I rise with sadness today to honor my 
good friend and respected mentor, Justice Joseph Rattigan, who passed 
away after a long illness on May 12, 2007, in Santa Rosa, California. 
He was 87 years old.
  Joe Rattigan is a legend in Sonoma County and in California. During a 
long career as an activist, a civic leader, a State legislator, and a 
jurist, he earned respect from all whose lives he touched, whether 
political ally or rival. Known for his eloquence, wit, intelligence, 
and passion, this remarkable man always had time for people and their 
concerns. He mentored other lawyers and judges as well as generations 
of Democratic politicians. In fact, his counsel meant a great deal to 
me when he unexpectedly volunteered his support in my first 
congressional primary with a field of nine candidates. His 
endorsement--unsolicited, unequivocal and from the man widely respected 
as the dean of Sonoma County politics--instilled in me the confidence I 
needed to succeed.
  Born in 1920, Joe grew up in politics in Washington, DC, where his 
father was a law partner with Senator O'Mahoney from Wyoming. He 
attended Catholic University and, after graduating in 1940, worked 
briefly for the Department of Agriculture before joining the Navy to 
fight in World War II. He served as an intelligence officer and then 
commanded a PT boat in the Pacific, earning a decoration for heroism in 
combat.
  After the war, Joe enrolled in Stanford Law School, graduating in 
1948. He was part of a post-war generation of young lawyers who settled 
in California at that time and made their mark on a booming State. He 
soon joined a Santa Rosa law firm and plunged into local affairs and 
Democratic politics. He served as president of the Sonoma County Bar 
Association, county chairman for Adlai Stevenson's 1956 Presidential 
bid, and a member of the Santa Rosa Board of Public Utilities.
  Joe jumped into electoral politics on his own behalf in 1958. He 
became the youngest State senator in the county's history at age 38, as 
the Democrats took back the legislature and Edmund G. ``Pat'' Brown 
became governor, ushering in a new golden era for the California. He 
served two terms, authoring or co-authoring several key bills, 
including measures establishing medical care services for the elderly, 
a model for the Federal Medicare program, the Department of 
Rehabilitation, and the State university system. In 1960, his last 
minute maneuvering created Sonoma State College, later University, 
which is now an integral part of the county as well as of the State's 
education system.
  During his time in the legislature and his subsequent 18 years as a 
justice on the Court of Appeal for Northern California, Joe fought for 
the oppressed. Having grown up in a segregated city, he was fiercely 
opposed to discrimination. He supported the controversial Rumsford Fair 
Housing Act which ended the use of restrictive covenants in housing. He 
also carried the one-man, one-vote reapportionment measure that altered 
the way state senators were elected even at a personal cost. This 
measure split Sonoma County into two districts, causing Joe to lose his 
seat.
  Principle always came before politics with Joe Rattigan. He fought 
against the death penalty, attempting to save convicted felon Caryl 
Chessman when he was a freshman senator. It is widely believed that his 
principled opposition cost him a seat on the State Supreme Court. 
During his time as an appellate justice, however, he continued to make 
a mark on California; for example, he supported separation of church 
and state (despite his Catholic upbringing), championed a first in the 
Nation requirement for cities and counties to adopt general plans, and 
wrote a decision overturning Black Panther Party leader Huey Newton's 
murder conviction, which was later upheld.
  Joe is survived by Elizabeth (Betty), his wife of 65 years, whom he 
met in the second grade, by his six children--daughters Catharine Kalin 
and Anne Paine and sons Michael, Thomas, Patrick, and Timothy 
Rattigan--as well as 12 grandchildren.
  Madam Speaker, this week Sonoma County residents mourn the passing of 
Joseph Rattigan. Whether people agreed with him or not--and many in the 
far more conservative Sonoma County of the 50s and 60s did not--he was 
respected for his integrity, his political acumen, his sharp legal 
mind, and a heart as big as the Golden State. In 1997, the State 
building in downtown Santa Rosa was named the Joseph Rattigan State 
Building. I would hope that those who pass who pass through its doors 
into the bright sunlit foyer will stop for a moment and consider the 
greatest legacy of Joseph Rattigan: a life that demonstrated that good 
government isn't only desirable, it is possible.

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