[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 116 (Tuesday, July 15, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1468]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     IN TRIBUTE TO STEWART R. MOTT

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. LYNN C. WOOLSEY

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 15, 2008

  Ms. WOOLSEY. Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to serve as Co-Chair 
of the 74-Member Congressional Progressive Caucus in this Congress. In 
that capacity, I am saddened by the recent death of one of the great 
progressive leaders and philanthropists of my generation--Stewart R. 
Mott. Many of us have attended functions and meals at the renowned Mott 
House across the street from the U.S. Supreme Court. Hosting so many of 
us so often for progressive causes was just one of the countless ways 
in which this remarkable man gave of himself and his personal wealth to 
defend the Bill of Rights and preserve our liberty.
  It is not very often that the editorial writers at the Wall Street 
Journal pay homage to liberals. But that is just what they did a few 
weeks ago in the following editorial about Stewart Mott under the 
heading: A Liberal Freedom Fighter.

                       A Liberal Freedom Fighter

  Some people walk to the beat of their own brass band, and so it was 
for Stewart Mott, the eccentric liberal philanthropist and General 
Motors heir who died last week at 70 years old. Beloved by Democrats 
for his decades of charity to progressive causes, he was also a notable 
champion of free political speech.
  In 1968, he was one of a handful of millionaires who bankrolled the 
primary campaign of Eugene McCarthy, at the time a little-known 
Minnesota Senator challenging a sitting President. With the help of 
Mott's $210,000, that effort became a groundswell that drove Lyndon 
Johnson out of the race and changed Democratic foreign policy. In our 
view that change wasn't for the better, but without Mott and other 
``fat cat'' donors, Clean Gene might never have had an impact.
  Mott went on to finance the candidacy of George McGovern in 1972. 
Four years later, he went to court to protect his right to make such 
contributions, joining Republican Senator James Buckley's challenge to 
a 1974 campaign finance law in Buckley v. Valeo. Mott and the First 
Amendment lost that fight, but he would live to see his views 
vindicated by the political shambles that Congress and the High Court 
have made trying to limit money in campaigns.
  Today, the campaign finance laws have strengthened the incumbents 
whom Mott loved to challenge, while making political donations less 
transparent than ever. And today, unlike Mott, George Soros and other 
wealthy liberal patrons support campaign-finance rules that enhance 
their own power by limiting others. Stewart Mott was admirably truer to 
his liberal principles.

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