[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 111 (Tuesday, July 27, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6264-S6265]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                          THANKING TOM FALETTI

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I come to the floor to say thank you to 
someone who has, for more than 20 years, been my right hand on Capitol 
Hill. Tom Faletti is one of the most decent, honest, and caring persons 
I have ever known. Tom came to work for me 24 years ago, when I was an 
unknown second-term Congressman from downstate Illinois and he was a 
20-something idealist with a master's degree in public policy and a 
determination to change the world. We have been a team for 24 years.
  Now Tom is preparing to leave Capitol Hill for a new career--not to 
cash in as a K Street lobbyist but to work at an inner-city high school 
as a teacher. I know he is going to be an excellent teacher because I 
know how much he has taught me about how to turn noble ideas into good 
laws. Among the legislative accomplishments of which I am most proud, 
almost all of them bear Tom's fingerprints.
  Tom Faletti is a quiet, effective person, who has achieved more than 
many of the most celebrated on Capitol Hill. He is a profoundly good 
person, too--deeply spiritual, with a deep devotion to his faith, and 
he is a remarkably patient man. How else could he have survived 24 
years with me? One of his greatest personal qualities is his 
persistence. He has great staying power, and when you consider that 
many of the historic bills he has worked on require that kind of 
patience, you understand that is the key to his success.
  Tom Faletti grew up in Antioch, CA, about an hour east of San 
Francisco. He was one of six kids, all boys. His father worked in the 
accounting department of a steel mill. His mom was mostly a stay-at-
home mom who sometimes did child care to help make ends meet. He grew 
up in a neighborhood surrounded by aunts, uncles, cousins, and 
grandparents, all living within blocks of each other. It was the 
Faletti equivalent to Hyannis Port. He met his wife Sonia in the 
freshman dorm at Stanford University and they have been inseparable 
ever since. In fact, July 26 was their 30th wedding anniversary.
  After earning his master's degree from Berkeley, Tom turned down some 
good job offers in California because the issues he cared most about, 
such as ending poverty and hunger, were national issues. He asked his 
Congressman and my good friend George Miller for advice on how to get a 
job in Washington. George Miller replied: You have to be there. So, in 
1986, Tom and Sonia packed their belongings and drove across America in 
their 1978 blue Ford Fairmont. On the way they stopped in Chicago to 
see the Cubs beat Tom's favorite San Francisco Giants at Wrigley 
Field--the only time, until then, Tom had ever set foot in my State of 
Illinois.
  Both Sonia and Tom arrived in DC without a job. Within a week, 
Sonia--who Tom will concede is the much more talented of the two--
landed a job as a teacher. Tom had two interviews with both the U.S. 
Catholic Conference and Bread for the World. Both of them liked his 
resume but told him: Tom, you need some Hill experience.
  Fortunately for me and the people of my State, Tom heard through a 
friend of a friend that this fledgling Congressman was looking for a 
part-time legislative correspondent. Well, my office offered him a job, 
trying to get rid of the growing backlog of mail in my congressional 
office. We told him we just had enough money to pay him for 3 months, 
and we weren't sure what would happen after that. But 3 months later, 
Tom Faletti turned a routine legislative correspondence assignment into 
proof positive of his potential. We promoted him to a legislative 
assistant position handling agricultural issues--not necessarily his 
forte, but I learned then and have learned ever since you can hand Tom 
Faletti any assignment and, in a short period of time, he will become a 
resident expert.
  Two years later, the position of health care adviser opened on my 
staff. Tom jumped at the chance and a real legislative partnership 
began. Tom's tireless and meticulous work on health care reform and 
tobacco control has literally saved lives in America. Tom helped to 
draft the bill which I am so proud of, in which we banned smoking on 
all domestic airline flights more than 25 years ago.
  Neither Tom nor I realized at that moment that that bill was a 
tipping point. The American people finally opened their eyes and said: 
If it is unsafe to smoke on an airplane, then why is it safe to smoke 
on a bus, on a train, in an office, in a hospital? Twenty-five years 
later, we live in a different nation because that bill came at the 
right moment. That bill would not have happened were it not for Tom 
Faletti's good work.
  He also drafted a bill that banned smoking in Head Start and other 
Federal children's programs--unthinkable, but it was considered pretty 
bold at the time. In 1998, he helped me organize the first 
International Conference on Tobacco Control that brought together 
cancer researchers and advocates from nearly 30 nations to help advance 
the cause of tobacco control around the world.
  He also worked to help preserve the historic settlement between 
tobacco companies and States when it appeared the Justice Department, 
under President George W. Bush, might gut the settlement.
  In the early 1990s, Tom Faletti helped draft what may have been the 
first meaningful regulation of tobacco.
  It was the simple statement that captured where we ended up so many 
years later, and it said:

       The Food and Drug Administration shall regulate tobacco but 
     shall not ban it.

  That was the political sweet spot, the middle ground where we 
eventually ended up many years later.
  At the time it seemed impossible, but FDA regulation passed last year 
and is now the law of the land.
  In 1992, Tom helped draft a bill called health status rating in the 
small business health insurance market. That bill said simply that 
insurers can't charge more because of a preexisting condition. Have you 
heard that phrase before? Do you remember that cause? It was the 
propelling force behind our health care reform that we just completed. 
People suggested then we could not prevail.
  Tom knew where we needed to be as a nation, and today that bill--with 
minor changes--is the law of the land. It was included in the historic 
health care reform that President Obama signed into law.
  Tom has helped achieve lifesaving change for America in so many other 
ways, including increasing organ donations and improving health care 
for veterans and their family caregivers.
  In the early 1990s, he drafted a bill to create a pilot program of 
long-term substance abuse treatment centers for women where they could 
bring their children with them, thus removing one of the main 
impediments to women receiving lifesaving treatment.
  The list of accomplishments bearing Tom Faletti's imprint goes on and 
on.
  When President Obama invited me to the White House a little over a 
year ago to see him sign the Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act, 
granting FDA the very power to regulate tobacco, which Tom Faletti 
called for so many years ago, I invited Tom to be by my side. I can 
recall a dinner a few months ago when I was given recognition for all 
the work I have done in the field of tobacco and looking out over the 
audience and all the people who have been helpful and spotting Tom. I 
told the people there--and I say it today--that none of this would have 
happened without Tom Faletti.
  When President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable 
Care Act last March, I again asked Tom Faletti to join me at the White 
House and witness that historic event and see the new law, including 
the preexisting conditions.
  No member of my staff--or any other Senate staff--worked harder, over 
more years, to make those two great achievements a reality.
  There is one downside to finally winning so many long-fought battles; 
that is, Tom has decided to retire--well, to retire from the Senate. He 
has decided it is time to try a profession that he told me he always 
wanted to try, to become a high school teacher. He is going to teach at 
Archbishop Carroll, an inner-city Catholic high school in Washington, 
DC. I was not surprised because Tom has been a teacher for as long as I 
have known him. He taught hundreds of my staff everything from spelling 
and grammar to the inside information on moving a bill and changing a 
nation.
  I know Tom and Sonia decided long ago that life on Earth is about 
more

[[Page S6265]]

than material wealth. The lure of K Street never touched Tom Faletti. 
Instead of cashing in on his time in the Senate and his amazing 
experience on Capitol Hill, Tom is actually leaving the Senate to take 
a pay cut and teach in an inner-city high school. Those of us who know 
and love him are not surprised.
  He will be teaching government and political science to 11th graders 
and a religion class on social justice--his great passion.
  Tom said above the chalkboard in his classroom he will hang a sign 
that reads: ``You can change your world.'' Tom has proven he can change 
the world because he has changed America. He wants to show his students 
how they, too, can reach that goal in their lives.
  Tom will not need a textbook for that lesson. He can teach from his 
own experience because that is what Tom has done for 24 years as a 
dedicated staff member in the House of Representatives and the Senate. 
I was always proud to be Tom's friend and to learn so much from this 
good man.
  I thank Tom for his service, and I thank his wife Sonia and their 
children, Timothy, Joanna, and Luke, for sharing him with us for all 
these years. I wish him the best of luck, and I say to the students at 
Archbishop Carroll: Listen carefully to Tom. I have for 24 years, and 
it has worked out pretty well.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island is 
recognized.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as 
in morning business for up to 15 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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