[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 163 (Thursday, October 25, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13392-S13393]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   REMEMBERING SENATOR PAUL WELLSTONE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, 5 years ago today, the Senate lost one of 
its hardest working, most respected Members: Senator Paul Wellstone. I 
can still remember very clearly the phone call I received from Pete 
Rouse, who was the chief of staff for Senator Daschle, and he said: I 
have some terrible news. There was an airplane crash, and we think Paul 
Wellstone was on that plane.
  Well, hope springs eternal, and I was hoping that was wrong, but it 
wasn't. He was in a plane crash. Sheila, who was his partner--she was 
with him everyplace--was killed in that plane crash. One of his three 
children, Marcia, was also killed, and three campaign aides.
  Typical for Paul Wellstone, he had made a commitment to be someplace, 
and he wanted to go. The weather was bad. The pilot said everything 
would be OK. The pilot wasn't telling him the way it really was. I am 
not going to get into how the accident happened or why it happened, but 
certainly it was nothing that Paul Wellstone did wrong. Paul Wellstone 
wanted to fulfill a commitment. He shouldn't have been up in that 
airplane. The pilot shouldn't have taken that airplane into the areas 
that he did, but he did.
  In his life, Paul Wellstone earned the titles of doctor, professor, 
Senator, but he liked to be called Paul. That is what I am going to 
call him today.
  Paul loved to talk. He stood back there, and he was a good speaker. I 
can remember the first time I heard him speak. There were some new 
Senators who had been elected, and we had an event in the Rotunda for 
the new Senators. I had never heard him speak before. He was dynamic, 
what he said. He was talking about why he had gotten involved in 
politics.
  Paul came here in 1991. He was a crusader. That is what he was. He 
was a crusader. He was always out charging ahead on some issue he 
believed in. Mostly, the issues were those where people needed help. 
The poor, the left behind, veterans, the environment, and those with 
mental illness were always a special concern to him. He took pride in 
championing the fight for people needing a helping hand.
  He knew a lot about growing up with adversity. He had a brother he 
loved who suffered from mental illness, and that is why he joined with 
Senator Domenici to work on mental health parity. His parents worked 
hard. They didn't have much. But Paul told me how his father would sit 
at the table in the evening and talk to him about what was important in 
life.
  He was a remarkable man. He was very small in stature physically, but 
in that big facility across Constitution Avenue, the police 
headquarters, where hundreds and hundreds of police officers come and 
go out of that facility every day over the years, Paul Wellstone still 
holds the record of being able to do the most chin-ups and the most 
pushups in a given period of time. He was a powerful little man 
physically.
  Most of what he accomplished, as indicated with the chin-ups and 
pushups, was with sheer grit and determination. He earned a wrestling 
scholarship from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He 
married his high school sweetheart. He earned an Atlantic Coast 
Wrestling Championship and managed to graduate in just 3 years. After 
college, he earned a Ph.D. in political science and became a college 
professor at the age of 24 at a very academically known school, 
Carleton College in Minnesota.
  But even then, in his years before the Senate, he was a true believer 
and an impassioned fighter for justice, and that is an understatement. 
One may not have agreed with what his definition of justice was, but 
his definition was worth fighting for, and he fought hard.
  While teaching at Carleton College, he led the charge to divest the 
university from apartheid in South Africa. He helped local farmers when 
banks came to foreclose on their farms. That is Paul Wellstone. He 
fostered a new generation of active, civic-minded students by teaching 
specialized courses with names like ``Social Movements'' and 
``Grassroots Organizing.'' These were courses he invented. There were 
no textbooks for them.
  There were some who said that for an untenured professor, teaching 
activism and leading campus protests wasn't the smartest career move a 
person could make. In fact, when Paul came up for tenure, he was 
initially denied. In effect, he was in the process of being fired. It 
took a groundswell of student support. Thousands and thousands of 
students, most of whom didn't even go to that university, rallied on 
his behalf. He kept his job. He got tenure. At 28, he was the youngest 
tenured professor in the history of Carleton College. It was done 
because the students wanted him more than did the administration, 
because he was a great teacher.
  So when he came to the Senate, it was no surprise he brought a 
fearless progressive spirit with him. I recall observers comparing him 
to Jimmy Smith's character in ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.'' He was 
idealistic, he was determined, and he was very effective.
  He came here refusing to be phased by the politics of division, 
refusing to be phased by business as usual. I don't think the phrase 
``status quo'' was in his vocabulary. Wherever he saw injustice, 
intolerance, or simply ineffectiveness, one would understand that Paul 
Wellstone would be around. When he found injustice in the treatment of 
the mentally ill, he stepped forward to ensure parity for sufferers of 
what were known as unspoken illnesses when it comes to insurance caps. 
When he found injustice in the treatment of our veterans, he stepped 
forward to help them, especially those who were homeless. When he found 
injustice in the way our Earth was treated, he stepped forward to 
protect the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge from drilling, among other 
things. He never hesitated, paused, or pondered. He stepped forward. He 
was really a leader.
  Now, in his leading, that didn't mean everybody agreed with him 
because much of the time--in fact, most of the time--he was in the 
minority. He didn't care if he had two people supporting him or one or 
if he was alone. He never hesitated--I repeat, he never paused or 
pondered.
  Many wondered how this fire-breathing progressive was able to 
accomplish so much in his time. The answer is that he believed in 
bipartisanship and he actively embraced it. It was never a surprise to 
see Paul team up with one or more of the Senate's most conservative 
Members to get something done for the people of the State of Minnesota 
or our country. During his time here in Washington, it never changed 
him. It really didn't. He left this Earth with the same idealisms and 
passion he always had.
  He once said:

       Never separate the life you live from the words you speak.

  He lived by that rule.
  I recall that when he first arrived in the Senate, he kept 
wondering--he would leave his office all messed up, and he would come 
back and it was clean. He asked: Who does that? He was told: People 
come in late at night and clean your office--the janitors. So Paul 
Wellstone, after learning that, stayed that night. They came after 
midnight. He waited for them so he could tell them how much he 
appreciated them cleaning his office. That is the kind of guy he was. 
True to form, he did that, as he did many unusual things, in the minds 
of many.
  There is a man who still works here; his name is Gary. I don't know 
Gary's last name. He is a big man. He helps us here. We have all seen 
him. Gary said people refer to him as ``Tiny.'' Paul told me: I would 
appreciate it if you wouldn't refer to him as ``Tiny.'' His name is 
Gary. I have never referred to him as anything other than Gary. He 
thought that was a pejorative statement. Tiny, as many people refer to 
him, is a huge man, and Paul somehow thought that was not the right 
thing to do.
  He was really my friend. I counseled with him. I went to the doctor 
with him. Right before he was killed, he had

[[Page S13393]]

a terribly bad back. Oh, it was bad. He refused to go to the doctor. He 
refused to go to the hospital, which is where he should have gone. We 
took him to the doctor down here. The sweat, because of the pain, was 
pouring off his face.
  He was a very tough man. I will always remember that phone call I got 
from Pete Rouse. I will always remember Paul Wellstone. The loss of his 
presence has been felt and missed every day. He added a new dimension 
to the Senate. You don't always have to win to be a winner. So I say to 
his sons, David and Mark, and the entire Wellstone family, Paul 
Wellstone will always be in my heart and in the hearts of anyone who 
knew him.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader is 
recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I, too, today wish to comment on the 
remarkable life of Paul Wellstone. Elaine and I got to knew Paul for 
two reasons. No. 1, they lived right near us on Capitol Hill and we 
would frequently see them coming and going. No. 2, Sheila was from 
eastern Kentucky, and we had an opportunity to share observations about 
those good people in eastern Kentucky from whom she sprang.
  Today is indeed a sad anniversary. I join the Senate family in 
honoring the memory of Senator Paul Wellstone and celebrating his 
distinguished Senate career.
  He was the most unlikely Senator. His election in 1990 was widely 
considered kind of a fluke, an accident. But he was neither. He was the 
genuine article, an extraordinary man who came to work every day with 
enthusiasm. He had a very upbeat outlook on life. Sometimes people who 
are either on the very left or the very right have a kind of grim view 
of things. Paul would, by his own admission, say he was on the very far 
left of things, but he didn't have a grim nature about him at all. He 
was upbeat and optimistic, and he came to work every day ready to fight 
for what he believed in.
  Paul was a champion of mental health and other causes. With Paul, you 
never had any uncertainty about where he stood. It was absolutely 
clear. I am having a hard time recalling a single matter upon which he 
and I agreed, but Paul was what I would call a conviction-based 
politician, a public servant who never wavered from his beliefs, even 
when the political winds shifted against him.
  He and Sheila--that eastern Kentuckian I talked about--were 
absolutely inseparable. High school sweethearts, they had been married 
for 39 years when, regretfully, the plane carrying them, their daughter 
Marcia, three staff members, and two pilots went down in Eveleth, MN, 
on the way to a debate in Duluth.
  The entire Nation grieved that day for this former wrestling champ, 
an unlikely and, as I indicated, unforgettable Senator. We grieve on 
this anniversary with Paul's two surviving sons, David and Mark, and 
the many former Wellstone staffers, the Wellstone people who worked so 
hard to carry on his legacy. As the majority leader indicated, he had a 
distinguished academic career, earned his bachelor's degree in 1965 and 
his doctorate 3 years later. He plowed right through college at the 
University of North Carolina, both his undergraduate degree and his 
doctorate. He was a Phi Beta Kappa. That is about as good as it gets 
for a student at college. He actually attended on a wrestling 
scholarship.
  Paul was not very tall. He was 5 feet 5 inches or 5 feet 6 inches but 
a strong guy. He was a champion Atlantic Coast Conference wrestler. He 
was named to the all-ACC wrestling team.
  As the majority leader outlined, Paul was a great professor, widely 
loved and admired by his students, and I think it is safe to say he was 
widely admired and loved by his colleagues in the Senate.
  We will always remember Paul Wellstone.

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