[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 94 (Tuesday, June 28, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Page S4154]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       REMEMBERING BETTY ROBERTS

 Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize someone 
whose name became synonymous with courage and equality, someone who in 
my State is every bit a pioneer as those who blazed the trails that 
opened the West.
  Betty Roberts passed away recently at age 88, and while Oregon has 
lost one of its true giants, we have not lost the memory of what she 
gave to our State. Every time you turned around, Betty Roberts was 
pioneering. In the 1970s, she was the only woman serving in the Oregon 
State Senate. By 1977, she was the first woman to serve on the Oregon 
Court of Appeals and 5 years later she was the first woman on the 
Oregon Supreme Court.
  I first met Betty in 1975 when she was one of the first elected 
officials in Oregon to give her full support to what was then a little 
known and burgeoning organization fighting for the rights of the 
elderly, the Gray Panthers. Over the nearly four decades of our 
friendship, I came to know and respect her as a tireless advocate for 
doing what was right based on facts and the truth.
  Her road to prominence in Oregon's legal, legislative and political 
circles was not an easy one. As the Oregonian pointed out in its 
editorial, ``Betty Roberts often heard the word `no' during the first 
half of her life. No to finishing college, teaching or running for 
public office, and no to following her ambitions.''
  Anyone who knew Betty recognized that she did not take no for an 
answer. She went from being a teacher to earning a master's degree and 
a doctorate, all while raising a family. She went from being elected to 
a local school board to being elected to the Oregon House of 
Representatives and from there to the Oregon State Senate.
  As a member of the legislature, she supported such pioneering Oregon 
laws as the bottle bill and land-use planning. What she will be most 
remembered for, however, is her unwavering commitment to equality for 
women and minorities. She knew firsthand the barriers women faced. She 
overcame them and dedicated her life to tearing down those barriers and 
giving other women the same opportunities she made for herself.
  In her memoir titled ``With Grit and by Grace,'' Betty wrote that she 
had ``a reasonable desire to live the life I wanted.''
  We know now that Betty lived the life that she desired and my State 
and this Nation is better for it.

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