[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 148 (Monday, December 8, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6369-S6371]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTES TO MARK PRYOR

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise to give a tribute to Senator 
Pryor, whose remarks we have just heard.
  Through nearly a quarter of a century of dedicated public service, 
Senator Mark Pryor has established a strong reputation as the voice of 
reason.
  From an Arkansas legislator and attorney general to a U.S. Senator, 
Senator Pryor has always put the people first. To me, he has been an 
admired colleague, a great collaborator, and a treasured friend. 
Working with Senator Pryor during his service in the Senate, I know 
that he acquired his voice of reason the old-fashioned way: He is such 
a good listener.
  All of us are pretty good talkers, or we wouldn't be here, but 
Senator Pryor has the distinction of being a good listener. Whether 
debating colleagues on the Senate floor or interacting with his guests 
on his Pryor-Side Chats back home, he has consistently demonstrated 
that he is one of those special individuals who can disagree without 
ever being disagreeable. He always sticks to his principles, yet he 
respects the principles of those with whom he disagrees. He is well 
informed but always open to new information.
  It has been a particular pleasure to work with Senator Pryor on the 
homeland security committee for many years and on the Committee on 
Appropriations. His work ethic, his attention to detail, his 
willingness, once again, to listen to alternative views have been great 
assets in addressing the challenges we face in our country.
  He has been a diligent fiscal watchdog for the Nation's taxpayers. To 
me, Senator Pryor's approach to public service is best defined by the 
crucial role he played in ending the government shutdown in the fall of 
2013 and as a member of the Gang of 14 in 2005. In each case he worked 
closely with me and with other Members to end a crisis and to achieve a 
responsible, commonsense solution. In each case he listened and he led.
  As a charter member of our Common Sense Coalition last year, Senator 
Pryor stepped forward to restore both government operations and help to 
restore some modicum of citizen confidence in our Senate, in our 
government.
  These certainly were not the only times that Senator Pryor's 
bipartisan approach and concern for the well-being of Americans had 
been evident. In 2007, after a large number of recalls following 
injuries and deaths that caused parents throughout America to be 
concerned about the safety of their children's toys--especially those 
manufactured overseas--he once again stepped forward to lead. After an 
extensive investigation in the Homeland Security and Governmental 
Affairs Committee, Senator Pryor worked with those of us on the 
Republican side on a bill to strengthen the Consumer Product Safety 
Commission so that we can now better detect and counter threats to our 
children's health before these threats even reach the store shelves, 
and eventually homes, schools, and daycare centers.
  From restoring trust in government to protecting our children, 
Senator Pryor has proven over and over again that bipartisanship works. 
It is so significant that his message to us today is that the 
dysfunction and hyperpartisanship that have characterized the Senate 
cannot stand.
  That is a wonderful parting message, and it is typical of Senator 
Pryor that rather than talking about all of his accomplishments, he 
instead is beseeching the Senate to work together in the interests of 
all Americans--whether we are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, 
Greens, or not affiliated with any party at all.
  The 2014 election did not produce the result Senator Pryor had hoped 
for, but it did reveal another aspect of his extraordinary character. 
His message to the people of Arkansas and to the new Senator-elect on 
election night was genuine and it was gracious. To the people of 
Arkansas, he simply expressed his sincere gratitude for the opportunity 
to serve. But may these words, spoken that evening to us in the 
Chamber, which he echoed today, be his legacy. He said that night:

       The biggest and most serious problem we are facing in this 
     Nation today is the dysfunction of our political system in 
     Washington. We have incredible potential, but we won't reach 
     it unless Washington starts to work again for all of us.

  Mark Pryor has been an extraordinary individual who always did what 
he believed was right. He has contributed enormously to our country and 
served his State well.
  I commend him for his service and I thank him for his commitment, his 
integrity, and, most of us all, for his friendship.
  Thank you, Mark.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant majority leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the great Cesar Chavez once said: ``If you 
really want to make a friend, go to someone's house and eat with him . 
. . the people who give you their food give you their heart.''
  That is true. Sometimes they give you more than that. Sometimes they 
give you an adventure in eating that you will never forget.
  That is what happened to me when, in January, I was invited by Mark 
Pryor to be his guest at a legendary Arkansas political event. I am 
talking about the historic, well-known, annual Gillett, AR, coon 
supper.
  Never heard of the Gillet coon supper in Arkansas? It is to Arkansas 
what Tom Harkin's steak fry is to Iowa, only it is nonpartisan, it 
draws about 1,200, and unfortunately they don't serve steak.
  Coon is raccoon served in large buckets. Folks just reach inside and 
pull out a chunk of coon, as they say in Gillett.
  I was there that night with Mark Pryor. I wanted to make sure I had 
my best manners as a visiting guest. I was certainly appreciative of 
the invitation to a packed room with the Governor and every walking 
politician in Arkansas. Bill Clinton had been there over and over again 
in his terms as Governor. He never missed that supper, and we weren't 
about to miss it that evening.
  I watched as they put these bowls of coon and other meats on the 
table, and I noticed something interesting. All of the visitors like 
myself had bowls of coon put in front of them. All the folks

[[Page S6370]]

from Arkansas were eating out of the beef platter. It struck me that 
perhaps this was a delicacy they were saving just for guests. We asked 
for advice from Mark Pryor about the proper selection of the cooked 
coon, and he said: Get one with a big bone because they have the least 
amount of meat on them.
  So we followed his advice, nibbled at the corners, smiled, and said 
what a great dinner it was. We looked around and saw that only a 
handful of the local people from Arkansas were actually eating the 
delicacy of the evening, including one old fellow whom I went up to 
afterwards to introduce myself to who was wearing a real coonskin cap. 
He told me he shot the raccoon and this cap had been in his family for 
a long time. He passed it on to his daughter first, of course, and then 
to his grandson.
  Mark Twain, another Mark, it turns out, loved roasted raccoon as 
well, but he always kept an open mind when it came to the issues of the 
day, including the issue of the afterlife.
  Mark Twain once said: ``I don't like to commit myself about heaven 
and hell--you see, I have friends in both places.'' One reason Mark 
Pryor has been such a good Senator is that he has friends on both sides 
of the aisle. We just heard this warm tribute to Mark Pryor from my 
friend Susan Collins of Maine, and I am sure others will join the 
chorus on both sides.
  Mark Pryor is a man of deep faith who takes seriously the admonition 
from the book of the prophet Isaiah: ``Come now, let us reason 
together.''
  Like Kay Hagan and Mark Udall in our caucus, Mark Pryor has politics 
and public service in his bloodstream. Mark Lunsford Pryor is the fifth 
generation of Pryors to serve in politics in his State. The first three 
generations served as sheriffs.
  Mark Pryor served 4 years in the Arkansas House of Representatives 
and 4 years as Arkansas attorney general. In 2002, the people of 
Arkansas elected him to the Senate, the same seat his father David held 
in the Senate for 18 years. Mark Pryor placed on his desk the same 
motto that his father placed on his. It read, simply: ``Arkansas Comes 
First.''
  But he made his own decisions, and he left a considerable mark in the 
Senate. Halfway through his freshman term, a new Member himself, Mark 
Pryor was called on to join forces with the lions of the Senate--John 
Warner, Robert C. Byrd, and Danny Inouye--to forge a compromise over 
judicial nominations that averted a threat to a bigger confrontation. 
That compromise, Mark said, was the result of perspiration, not 
inspiration.
  I disagree. It involved the inspiration of a young Senator from 
Arkansas who realized that public service often meant trying to work 
together and to reason together and to try to break down in your own 
individual fashion the dysfunction of Washington.

  I worked with Mark on so many things over the years. As a whip I went 
to him many times, and we talked about difficult votes. I always found 
him to be honest, straightforward, and highly principled. We didn't 
always come to the same conclusion on the vote, but I respected him 
every time because I knew he gave thoughtful consideration to both 
sides. When it came to his vote, he was going to do what was right in 
his own heart and especially what was right for Arkansas. I knew that 
would make the final decision when it came to the vote.
  I also want to put in a word of thanks to Mark as a grandfather of 
two 3-year-olds who are anxiously awaiting for the arrival of Santa 
Claus in just a few weeks. You see, Mark had the responsibility of 
reforming the Consumer Product Safety Commission. It was an assignment 
long overdue. That commission was grinding to a halt. It was not 
exercising its authority, and it wasn't keeping Americans safe, as it 
should. Mark stepped up, in a bipartisan fashion. He stepped up, and he 
ended up strengthening the Consumer Product Safety Commission through 
his efforts on the Senate commerce committee. That will keep toxic toys 
and harmful products out of stores.
  Many people recognize what Mark Pryor contributed in that effort. 
Parents magazine applauded Mark Pryor as one of the three movers and 
shakers in Washington in the year 2005 for his work on the Consumer 
Product Safety Commission--work that continues to this day to keep 
America safer. Consumer protection has always been a hallmark of Mark's 
service, dating back to his days in Arkansas as attorney general and 
certainly as a Senator.
  Fewer than 2,000 men and women have ever had the privilege of serving 
in the Senate. In our entire history, with hundreds of millions of 
people in our population, fewer than 2,000 have been sworn in to 
represent their States in the Senate. In Mark Pryor we have a person 
who did an extraordinary job as a Senator for Arkansas and for America. 
He has been a great friend of mine--someone I am going to miss very, 
very much, but I hope he will keep in touch. We say that somewhat 
loosely when people leave here, but I mean it, because Mark Pryor 
always brought a smile to my day. I recognize that his work in public 
service aspired to the highest levels and always will
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I came to the floor without any prepared 
remarks, but I want to say a few words, if I could, about our colleague 
Mark Pryor.
  I have affectionately called him ``Hey, man,'' because in Arkansas, 
when you see one of your friends, you don't just say ``hi, Tom'' or 
``hi, Mark,'' you say ``hey, man.'' For the last 12 years, we have been 
saying a lot of ``hey, man's,'' and hopefully we will do so for a long 
time to come.
  Ten or twelve days ago I was down in Honduras--murder capital of the 
world--and trying to figure out how to help save a nation that may be a 
failing nation. They have a lot of gangs down there--gangs involved in 
extorting money from businesses, a lot of them kidnapping people, 
trafficking people. Gangs have a bad connotation in Honduras, as they 
should--here in Washington, DC, and in the Senate, not so much.
  Senator Collins and Senator Durbin have talked about some of the 
``gangs'' this Senator from Arkansas has been involved in, which I 
think most of us would say are doing the Lord's work, doing good work. 
Mark is a man of deep faith, as we know, and he has been a great role 
model for the rest of us.
  Mark has reminded me before--and maybe some others as well--that in 
the Old Testament, in Proverbs, we are reminded we should always pray 
for wisdom--always pray for wisdom. That is something I pray for every 
night--not just for my colleagues, of course, but certainly for me. All 
I can say is the good Lord has answered his prayer.
  One of the reasons he has ended up as a member of these gangs for 
good is because he has so much wisdom. He is a good listener. He is 
just a very, very wise human being.
  It has been a joy serving with him. He got here in 2003. He raised 
his right hand here and took the oath of office in 2003. He came 
through orientation for new Senators, and I talked to him about it 
later, and I said: How was orientation, Mark? He said: Well, it lasted 
about that long. It was over. If you are a Democrat, we are going to 
put you over here, and if you are a Republican, we will put you over 
here, and it was just like, have at it. He and I talked about it, and 
we said: That doesn't make much sense.
  As an attorney general and a member of the Attorneys General 
Association, and myself as a former Governor and a member of the 
National Governors Association, we had a robust orientation program for 
new attorneys general and for new Governors. The Presiding Officer is a 
former Governor of Maine, and he recalls that well. I think one of the 
reasons why the Governors are less partisan and more likely to work 
across the aisle to get things done together--and the same with the 
attorneys general--is because of that orientation that occurs a couple 
weeks after the election. We didn't have anything like that in the 
Senate. So Senator Pryor, along with former Governor and Senator 
Voinovich, former Governor Alexander and myself decided to see if we 
could get some kind of orientation program here for Senators. Now when 
people show up a couple weeks after getting elected new Senators, they 
no longer get put over in one corner as Democrats and one corner as 
Republicans and are told to go at it. They spend some time together--
maybe the most concentrated time they will have together during the

[[Page S6371]]

time they are here--with folks of the other party. Those of us who are 
Senators and spouses and chaplains and so forth go in and provide 
information and tell them to learn from our mistakes--those of us who 
have made plenty of them--and you won't make those same mistakes.
  One of the things Senator Pryor is especially good at doing is trying 
to connect each new Senator with a mentor--a Democratic Member and a 
Republican Member--and he was dogged in that. Not that everybody needs 
a mentor, but we all need friends. We need friends on both sides of the 
aisle, and you will keep those friendships for a long, long time.
  I was a naval officer for 23 years. When I was a 17-year-old graduate 
from high school, I went off to Ohio State to eventually become a Navy 
midshipman. I did that for 4 years, 5 years as a naval flight officer 
in a hot war in Southeast Asia, and 18 in the Cold War until I retired 
in 1991. I started learning about leadership when I was pretty young--
something I learned before I became a midshipman. But among the things 
I learned about leadership is that a leader should be humble, not 
haughty. A leader should say do as I do, not do as I say. Leaders 
should have the heart of a servant, and we should come here with the 
idea of serving. The Scriptures we read say: He who would be a leader 
must be a servant to all; he who would be first should be a slave to 
all.
  A leader should have the courage to stay out of step when everybody 
else is marching to the wrong tune. A leader shouldn't ask what is the 
easy thing to do, the speedy thing to do; they should ask what is the 
right thing to do. And a leader, as has already been said, a leader 
should ask the question asked of a rabbi some 2,000 years ago. A rabbi 
was asked: What is the most important commandment of all? He mentioned 
what one was, and then he said the second one is love our neighbors as 
ourselves. I think that is the most important one of all. Leaders are 
like that. Leaders are like that.
  I just wish to say that I think my friend, ``Hey, man,'' also known 
as Senator Mark Pryor, personifies that kind of leader. God knows we 
need more of them. He has demonstrated by his own character and 
behavior what he believes.
  I am tempted to say we are going to miss him, but we are still going 
to see a lot of him. In the Navy, when somebody has done a great job, 
we say two words: Bravo Zulu--Bravo Zulu. So I say that to my friend.
  We also have this admonition. The Navy has the tradition of hailing 
farewell on a ship or submarine or aircraft carrier, whatever squadron 
you are on. When people come in, we have an event called a hail and 
farewell party. When it is over, for those who are leaving, we say: 
Farewell and a following sea.
  So I would say this: Farewell and a following sea, and we will see 
much more of you in the future.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. King). The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Carper for those good 
remarks, and I think they reflect the quality and the character Mark 
Pryor has displayed as a Member of this Senate.
  I have been asked: Who are some of your favorite people across the 
aisle, Democratic people whom you respect and like? Mark Pryor has 
always been at the top of that list.
  We have both served as attorneys general of our States. We have a 
number of things to talk about. I have been able to commiserate with 
him over Arkansas football in recent years. We kind of keep up with 
those things a lot.
  I just would wish to say something that I basically said at the 
National Prayer Breakfast several years ago. Senator Pryor and I were 
cochairmen, and I was able to say, with great confidence, that Mark 
Pryor is one of the best people I have ever served with in the Senate. 
He is a man of faith and integrity, and his ego is under control--not 
always so around this place, and it makes it run better. He is 
collegial, willing to work with people across the aisle, work within 
his own party, and not one who has had difficulty making decisions. He 
has done what he thought was right year after year here in this great 
Senate.
  We had the opportunity to lead the Senate Prayer Breakfast and then 
the National Prayer Breakfast twice, and it was a special time. Mark 
really did a great job and spent a great deal of time meeting with 
people from all over the world. I think the depth of his faith is quite 
obvious.
  To Mark I wish to say that you are special to me. Your service in the 
Senate has been very special. You have always done what you thought was 
right for your State and done so in a way that is so pleasant and 
collegial to work with. I know you will have some great adventures 
ahead. It looks even like the Razorbacks are coming back. They may give 
Alabama and Auburn a real hard time next year--who knows. Hope springs 
eternal. They did pretty well at the end of this year, I have to say. A 
monster may be arising in Arkansas--who knows.
  We do have a great Senate, with less than 2,000 people having served 
in this body. We have people of talent and ability throughout, but 
there are people over the period of years that touch you as the genuine 
article, people whom you respect and admire, and, Mark, you are one of 
those. God bless you and Godspeed.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  Mr. PRYOR. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I join my colleagues today in all the good words that 
are being said about my friend Senator Pryor. I got to know Senator 
Pryor best in the commerce committee, where early on he scored a major 
victory for the children of this country. That was at a time we learned 
that toys and children's products that contained lead were being 
brought in from all over the world. We actually had a young child in 
Minnesota whose mom went out and bought a pair of Reebok tennis shoes, 
and with the tennis shoes came a little charm. That little child 
swallowed that charm, and that little child died. He did not die from 
choking on the charm; he died over a period of days when the lead went 
into his system. That is just one example. Senator Pryor was heading up 
the consumer subcommittee, and we took a major vote to change the 
standards of lead in children's products, including jewelry and toys, 
and it was a huge bipartisan vote, a very important bill, what was 
called one of the most important pieces of consumer legislation in 
decades. Senator Pryor got that done.
  Later, while he was head of that subcommittee, we had a little girl 
in Minnesota named Abigail Taylor who died in a swimming pool. All she 
was doing was playing in a kiddie pool, and she happened to be sitting 
in the middle of the pool. The pool drain malfunctioned and basically 
sucked her insides out. She survived for a year. When Mark Pryor came 
to Minnesota, he met with that little girl and her dad. She later died 
after a surgery to try to save her life.
  We worked after that to get the bill passed--named after Howard 
Baker's grandchild, who had also died in a similar circumstance--to 
make sure that all these public pool drains--from apartments to YMCAs; 
you name it--were checked. There has been a decrease in the number of 
deaths. We do not hear about them on the news like we used to, and that 
is because of Mark Pryor's work in the Senate subcommittee.
  So I know the Taylor family--that was my proudest moment, standing 
back in the cloakroom and calling them. They believed after they met 
Mark Pryor that it would be easy to pass this bill, that we could get 
this done. It wasn't quite that easy. It took a few months. We had to 
end up putting it in the Energy bill to get it done. But being able to 
call Scott Taylor, who never gave up believing Congress could get 
something done--that is just one more example of the work Senator Pryor 
has done. So I thank him for that.

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