[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 194 (Friday, December 16, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2304-E2305]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




STATEMENT BY CONGRESSMAN JOHN B. LARSON AND EULOGY DELIVERED BY SENATOR 
     SHELDON WHITEHOUSE HONORING THE LIFE OF GOVERNOR BRUCE SUNDLUN

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JOHN B. LARSON

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, December 16, 2011

  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, Bruce Sundlun was a 
remarkable man and an outstanding public servant. His daughter Kara and 
son-in-law Dennis and their children are constituents of mine. I was 
fortunate to be chatting with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who was 
recalling his life. Senator Whitehouse delivered the eulogy for 
Governor Sundlun, and on behalf of Congressman Jim Langevin and David 
Cicilline, it is my honor as Democratic Caucus Chair to submit these 
thoughtful and poignant remarks for the Congressional Record.

Eulogy for Governor Bruce Sundlun as Delivered by U.S. Senator Sheldon 
                               Whitehouse

       What a man. What a life.
       Bruce Sundlun's accomplishments--as a record-breaking 
     athlete, as a resourceful war hero, as a superb lawyer, as a 
     successful business entrepreneur, and as political leader of 
     our state--would each on their own be significant. You could 
     probably write a book about each. Together, packed all into 
     one energetic life, it makes Bruce Sundlun one of the most 
     accomplished and remarkable men in our state's history.
       And that's not even counting five marriages, four children, 
     three unsuccessful runs for governor, two dead raccoons, and 
     one long escape on the loose, behind enemy lines.
       There's really just no way to fit it all in.
       Let me step into my role as a Sundlun staffer, and ask you 
     to think just of his brief four years as governor. Hit (on 
     Day One of his administration) by an unprecedented bank 
     failure affecting 300,000 Rhode Islanders, AND by the worst 
     budget deficit in state history, AND by an implosion of the 
     state's entire worker's compensation system, AND with the 
     urgent need to restore ethics in government, Bruce was the 
     man for that moment, and swung into his customary decisive 
     action.
       The budget was promptly and fairly balanced and the whole 
     budget process improved.
       Inventive solutions to repay the depositors and clean up 
     the RISDIC mess were found and implemented, and those at 
     fault were made to pay--over a hundred million dollars.
       His worker's compensation reform moved the state from an 
     embarrassment to a model, moving what was then the business 
     community's worst problem completely off the problem list for 
     now going on 20 years.
       As a problem solver, he had no peer.
       And that alone would be pretty extraordinary. But there was 
     that ethics gap. So Bruce wrote Executive Order 91-One, the 
     ethics executive order that succeeding governors renewed 
     virtually unchanged. He reformed our Ethics Commission. He 
     changed the way we appoint judges, to reduce the politics. He 
     changed the way we fund elections, with a public finance plan 
     and donor limits. Through an intense storm of legal and 
     political opposition, he opened up the pension records; 
     putting an end forever to backroom special pension bills. He 
     got our State Police nationally accredited.
       He even cleaned up the Capitol literally!
       All that was extraordinary--but still not enough.
       In the worst economic times the state had seen since the 
     Depression, with a shrinking budget, he decided to extend 
     universal health care to children--and started the program 
     that became Rite Care. Against immense opposition, he built 
     our new airport terminal. He embarked on the Westin Hotel, 
     the Convention Center, and the Providence Place Mall. He 
     finished the Jamestown Bridge and built the Expressway. And 
     even that's not the end of it.
       It was an amazing burst of activity. I will bet that almost 
     every Rhode Islander, almost every day, is somehow touched by 
     something Governor Sundlun did.
       And through it all, he drove his staff crazy. He was 
     irrepressible, impatient, imperial, unscriptable, combative, 
     frustrating, willful, constantly threw caution to the winds, 
     impossible to keep up with--he drove us nuts.
       And we loved him.
       We loved him because he was bold and brave, and was warm-
     hearted and trusting and generous, and because he was willing 
     to throw caution to the winds to do what was right. We loved 
     him because he never once had us make excuses or try to shift 
     the blame.
       That was not his style. ``Never complain; never explain.''
       We all remember his Bruce-isms:

[[Page E2305]]

       ``Always touch base with those concerned before taking 
     action.''
       ``How fast would you get it done if the Russians were in 
     South Attleboro?''
       ``When you've won, stop talking, close your briefcase and 
     leave.''
       ``Message to Garcia.''
       ``Who, what, where, when; don't bother me with why.''
       The phone calls, at all hours, that began with no ``hello'' 
     and ended with dial tone.
       The road shows known to his staff as ``Dome on the Roam'', 
     or more precisely, ``Bruce on the Loose.''
       And sometimes just that big foxy grin.
       We saw that his qualities of friendship and loyalty had an 
     almost physical force; that he had your back even if you made 
     mistakes (no one ever was thrown under the bus); and that he 
     was a better friend the more the chips were down.
       Politics is full of fair weather friends; Bruce Sundlun was 
     your stormy weather friend. Politics is full of people who 
     take tiny cautious steps with their finger up constantly 
     testing the winds; Bruce stepped boldly down the path he 
     thought was right, even if that meant stepping right in it.
       People wonder what lives on after they die. Well, Bruce, we 
     do. And every one of us has been changed: made better, and 
     stronger, harder-working and more resourceful, by your 
     vibrant elemental force in our lives.
       We've gone on to be judges and lawyers, to run state and 
     federal agencies, to become Senators and councilmen and 
     Lieutenant Governors, banking leaders and senior partners in 
     national accounting firms, but none of us ever will be more 
     proud of anything than the simple title: ``I was a Sundlun 
     staffer.''
       Soozie and Marjorie, Tracey and Stuart and Peter and Kara: 
     Thank you. Thank you for sharing your husband and father with 
     our state. For those who loved and were changed by him, I 
     thank you. For those who knew and were touched by him, I 
     thank you. And for those who never knew him directly, but 
     whose lives are better today because of what he did, I thank 
     you.
       As I close, I want to take you back to a scene from that 
     wonderful movie I saw as a kid, ``To Kill A Mockingbird.'' As 
     you'll recall, Atticus Finch takes on the courageous but 
     unpopular defense of a black man wrongfully accused of rape. 
     At the end of the trial, Atticus's daughter Scout--proper 
     name Jean Louise--is up in the gallery of the courtroom, with 
     the black townspeople, who aren't allowed down on the regular 
     courtroom floor. The courtroom floor empties, but they 
     remain, and slowly stand. As Atticus packs his papers 
     together, closes his bag, and walks out, an elderly man leans 
     down to the little girl and says, ``Stand up, Miss Jean 
     Louise. Your father's passing.''
       At the end of this service, as Bruce is taken to his 
     gravesite after 91 years of a life well and fully lived, we 
     will all stand up. And rightly so. A governor will be 
     passing.

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