[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 77 (Wednesday, June 1, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1013-E1014]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           HONORING CLEM ROY

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JOHN B. LARSON

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 1, 2011

  Mr. LARSON. Mr. Speaker, the passing of Clem Roy--an old friend of 
mine--happened so abruptly, and struck at the core of the notion we all 
have of our brief time on this planet, and the importance of friends 
and family, and what we mean to one another.
  Faith teaches us that Clem is in a better place: at peace and without 
suffering, while we scramble to fill the void left by his passing with 
stories and memories of the friend we laughed with, argued and debated 
with, and with whom we shared in the ups and downs of the human comedy 
that is life.
  Two Connecticut writers--both contemporaries of Clem's--Kevin Rennie 
of The Hartford Courant, and Mark Pazniokas of the CT Mirror, wrote 
excellent pieces about Clem that I am proud to submit for the 
Congressional Record at the same time that a flag will fly over the 
United States Capitol in Clem Roy's memory. These writers captured his 
essence.
  The following are the articles as they appeared in The Hartford 
Courant and CT Mirror:

        Lobbyist Clem Roy: A Sharp Operator With a Lot of Heart

                (By Kevin Rennie--The Hartford Courant)

       ``You can read a bill and you can vote for a bill, but you 
     shouldn't do both.'' So goes the wisdom of an original in 
     Connecticut politics, Clem Roy.
       A lobbyist for more than 30 years, Clem has been struck by 
     an aggressive brain tumor diagnosed a few weeks ago. In those 
     decades bivouacking in the Capitol village, he has fashioned 
     a distinct, colorful legacy in the gray world of state 
     politics.
       You could tell the future by watching Clem. He was what 
     consumer analysts call an early adopter. The first cellphones 
     were bigger than bricks. Clem made his look like a natural 
     accoutrement to his careful look. Hard frame briefcases were 
     at the end of their run when Clem began carrying a Coach 
     leather backpack. He was right that keys and a thick wallet 
     wreck the drape of an elegant suit.
       You could live by his compendium of aphorisms, which his 
     legion of friends have been sharing as they buck up each 
     other's flagging spirits. That is usually Clem's job.
       Born in 1946 and raised in Bristol, Clem served in Vietnam 
     from 1966 into 1967. Really served, not just told people he 
     did on the way to a seat in the U.S. Senate. (Don't get him 
     started on that.) He returned to the United States and worked 
     for Robert Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign.
       He worked for a legislative committee in the late 1970s and 
     then, without a client, became a lobbyist. His foresight 
     expanded beyond technology and fashion. In 1981, he managed 
     Thurman Milner's successful campaign for mayor of Hartford, 
     helping Milner become the first black mayor of a New England 
     city.
       For more than 30 years, Clem has been a source of pungent 
     opinions, smart insights and surprises. He represented 
     tobacco companies at a time when the same people who gasped 
     at the lighting of a cigarette supported making taxpayers 
     give drug addicts free needles. He brought a sense of 
     proportion to human weakness in its struggle against tiresome 
     Utopians.
       He has had many clients and he can argue most briefs. He 
     knows how to create a diversion that unbalances an adversary 
     on one issue while working with them on a different one. In a 
     place where a governor's repetitive green ties pass for 
     fashion, Clem Roy does it all with high style, often 
     purchased from swank Louis, Boston.
       Lobbying has been good to Clem. He can employ a gruff 
     demeanor and a memory for slights (not the worst thing), but 
     he has a secret. Shouldn't everyone? He is a secret 
     Samaritan.
       When a friend was celebrating a milestone and her newly 
     married daughter could not afford to fly to Connecticut from 
     California, Clem bought her a ticket so she could surprise 
     her mother. The halls of government and Hartford Hospital, 
     where he now is, reverberate with such stories.
       Clem believes mixing in mannered company can help lift 
     one's lot. A few years ago, he sent the residents of a 
     women's shelter to a salon, told them to get dolled up and 
     had them to delivered to his favorite haunt, Max Downtown. 
     There, compliments of Clem, they learned about what was once 
     called deportment while the staff raised their spirits and 
     enriched their knowledge of another part of the world.
       A successful lobbyist needs a vigilant eye for detail and 
     relentless focus. Clem possesses those attributes and his 
     perceptions extend beyond the matter of the moment. He had an 
     urge to lift in ways that would escape others. An advancing 
     brain tumor did not keep him from doing one more good work.

[[Page E1014]]

       A friend visited him in the hospital last week and thought 
     Clem might be fading in and out of lucidity when he started 
     going on about the women not having stools to sit on. Stools 
     were his final mission in the service of good works in 
     unexpected places.
       It bothered him that the cashiers in the cafeteria at the 
     Legislative Office Building had to stand all day at their 
     registers. He wanted them to have stools. It's only fair. In 
     his personal distress, he would not let it go. On Friday, 
     stools were delivered to the LOB. He is, according to his 
     closest friend, at peace.

             Clem Roy, Lobbyist and Bon Vivant, Dies at 65

              (By Mark Pazniokas--The Connecticut Mirror)

       Clem Roy, one of most delightfully idiosyncratic characters 
     ever to grace the halls of the state Capitol, died today at 
     Hartford Hospital, just weeks after being diagnosed with a 
     brain tumor.
       Roy, 65, was a successful lobbyist with a largely business 
     clientele, but a much, much broader portfolio of interests 
     and causes.
       He managed the 1981 mayoral campaign of Thurman Milner, the 
     first black mayor of Hartford. He was deeply interested in 
     the arts. He gambled, golfed and enjoyed cigars. Women tended 
     to find him charming, and not only the three he married.
       The staff on the second floor of the Conklin Building at 
     Hartford Hospital had to wonder just whom they had as their 
     guest for the past few weeks. The stream of visitors included 
     legislators, a former governor and a prominent restaurant 
     owner.
       The latter brought Roy's favorite steak, along with a 
     favorite waitress to serve it. As was his habit at the 
     restaurant, Roy was gracious to the wait staff, then crabbed 
     at the owner about how the meal was prepared. The owner was 
     delighted.
       Roy grew up in Bristol. He served in Vietnam with the U.S. 
     Army, then got involved in politics, volunteering for Bobby 
     Kennedy's campaign in 1968. He was a committee clerk at the 
     Capitol more than 30 years ago, then became a lobbyist in an 
     era where the ethical and cultural norms were a tad more 
     relaxed.
       His first lobbying client was a bank sent his way by the 
     chairman of the banks committee.
       In later years, his business partner was Craig LeRoy, a 
     buttoned-down yin to Roy's yang. LeRoy is married with three 
     children, who saw their father's partner as an impossibly 
     colorful uncle. Roy and LeRoy each seemed to live a little 
     vicariously through the other.
       Conversations with Roy were wild rambles. Topics might 
     include his system at slots, his vote for Barack Obama in 
     2008, or his resolve not to vote for him in 2012 over Obama's 
     absence from Arlington National Cemetery one Memorial Day. 
     Unforgivable in Roy's view.
       He took no offense, however, when it once was noted in a 
     news story that Roy's clients included Big Tobacco and the 
     funeral industry. He repeated the line often.
       Roy insisted he didn't talk to reporters. He did lobbying, 
     not PR. He reminded me of that every time we talked.

                          ____________________