[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 149 (Tuesday, December 9, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6401-S6402]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTES TO DEPARTING SENATORS


                              Tim Johnson

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, if the words Hemingway said so clearly--
``man is not made for defeat''--applied to anyone in the world, they 
certainly apply to Tim Johnson. He is a testament to this sentiment 
because he never ever acknowledged defeat. He refuses to be defeated.
  Tim never lost an election. He served in the House of Representatives 
from 1987 to 1997--for 10 years. He served in the State legislature. 
They weren't all easy votes and weren't all easy elections. He won his 
election in 2002 by 524 votes. Hundreds of thousands of votes were 
cast, but he won by 524 votes.
  Senator Tim Johnson refused to succumb to defeat because he knew he 
was fighting for the people of South Dakota. He fought for South Dakota 
jobs when he fought to keep Ellsworth Air Force Base open and running. 
It was based near Rapid City, and he saved it from closing. He worked 
to this end, saving thousands of jobs, preserving a thriving economy 
based on that Ellsworth Air Force Base.
  During his tenure in the House and Senate he fought for water, which 
is so important. People from so many other States don't realize how 
important water is to States such as South Dakota and many Western 
States. Water is something you always have to keep your eye on. He 
secured funding for the Mni Wiconi Rural Water Project and the Lewis 
and Clark Rural Water System. Combined, those two projects provided 
clean drinking water to some 400,000 people. That is half the 
population of the State of South Dakota.
  Without question though, Tim's biggest fight took place in 2006. I 
can still remember that so clearly. I got a call from his chief of 
staff saying: You need to go to the hospital. Tim has been taken by 
ambulance to George Washington. So I went there because Tim had 
suffered a very bad bleed on the brain. He was born with this 
situation--no one knew of course--but it suddenly hit him. Lots of 
people have this condition, but most people don't have a bleed on their 
brain, but Tim did. I was there in the hospital with him. Barbara was 
there, his daughter Kelsey, and his two boys, Brendan and Brooks, came 
in as soon as they could. One was serving in the military after having 
seen combat duty as a member of the U.S. Army. The other boy is a 
lawyer and is now a U.S. attorney in South Dakota.
  It was a very difficult time for his family and a difficult time for 
him especially. He was in surgery on more than one occasion. His life 
was threatened. Many people don't survive this difficult situation he 
was hit with. But he is a huge man. I, frankly, never realized how 
physically big and strong he was until I saw him lying there in the 
hospital. But Tim met these physical challenges, and they were very 
difficult. Ten months later he was back working in the Senate. He was 
here on the floor.
  After this incident, his physical body would never be the same, but 
his mental capacity is better than ever. With the support of his wife 
Barbara, since 1969, and their three children, whose names I have 
already mentioned, he made this remarkable recovery. It was all very 
difficult. He had to learn to talk again, he had to learn to walk 
again, and much of his life now is physically different than it was 
before. He is now, a lot of times, in a wheelchair, but he has never 
asked for any sympathy. He has pushed forward as he always has his 
whole life.
  Regardless of these changes to his body, his honorable, indomitable 
spirit is the same. One newspaper recently said, in speaking of Tim's 
return to the Senate:


[[Page S6402]]


       Loss of integrity is a greater handicap to any politician 
     and, once lost, cannot be regained with confidence. Johnson's 
     integrity has never been in question.

  Tim Johnson has his integrity. He has his unbreakable determination 
to fight for the people of South Dakota and just fight to do the things 
he needs to do.
  Tim is retiring after 18 years in the Senate and 10 years in the 
House. To say he will be missed by the people of South Dakota is a 
gross understatement. He worked here with my predecessor, the 
Democratic leader Tom Daschle, and they got so many good things done 
for the State of South Dakota. Senator Daschle is missed as Tim will be 
missed, but their friendship is something I have long admired.
  To show the type of person he is, the person he beat by 524 votes 
came back the next election and endorsed him--a Republican and long-
time Member of the House and Senate, Larry Pressler. He endorsed Tim 
Johnson in his reelection. That is the kind of integrity Tim Johnson 
has. People admire him very much.
  Tim Johnson leaves the Senate as he entered it, undefeated. I will 
miss him very much. My wife will miss Barbara. They are members of a 
book club, and I have seen their exchange of emails back and forth as 
to what books they should read, what they thought of the book, and 
where they are going to meet. So the Reids will miss the Johnsons. 
South Dakota will miss the Johnsons. But Tim will still proceed forward 
and be a great blessing to the State of South Dakota, as he has always 
been, and to his family.


                               Tom Harkin

  Mr. President, Abraham Lincoln once said:

       I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I 
     always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought 
     a flower would grow.

  Today I stand for just a few minutes to honor a man by the name of 
Tom Harkin. Throughout his time in the Senate he has planted many 
flowers--so many we can't count them all. Tom Harkin's legacy of 
fighting for all Americans, particularly those who are disadvantaged, 
will never be forgotten. In fact, no one in the history of this 
institution has done more for people who have a physical disadvantage, 
an emotional disadvantage, a mental disadvantage, and disadvantages 
generally, than Tom Harkin.
  Tom's life wasn't easy. His father was a miner. His mother, a 
Slovenian immigrant, died when Tom was 10 years old. He and his family 
pushed forward, living in a house without hot water or a furnace.
  Not one to use his difficult upbringing as an excuse, Tom Harkin 
pushed himself very hard. He attended Iowa State University. He came 
there on a Navy ROTC scholarship. Upon graduation, he enlisted in the 
Navy and became an Active-Duty pilot--a naval pilot.
  I have such admiration for naval pilots, for all pilots, really, but 
thinking of landing on an aircraft carrier out in the middle of the 
ocean, that postage stamp size you have to try to find and land out 
there is something Navy pilots do, and Tom Harkin did this.
  In 1974 he was elected to represent Iowa's Fifth Congressional 
District, a seat he held for 10 years. When he came to the Senate in 
1984, Tom, similar to President Lincoln before him, encountered many 
thistles.
  He was especially motivated to help millions of Americans with 
disabilities, as I have already said. Here is what Tom Harkin said 
once:

       I heard stories from individuals who had to crawl on their 
     hands and knees to go up a flight of stairs, who couldn't 
     ride a bus because there wasn't a lift or couldn't cross a 
     street in a wheelchair because there were no curb cuts. 
     Millions of Americans were denied access to their own 
     communities and to the American dream.

  Tom did a lot to make sure people did have the ability to dream. What 
did he do? He encountered the injustice faced by millions of disabled 
Americans and responded by authoring the Americans with Disabilities 
Act.
  People don't realize now what those disabled people had to go 
through. There was a big dispute here in the Senate and in the House as 
to whether Members of Congress should vote for this. It created a lot 
of issues for businesses. A former Member of the House of 
Representatives, James Bilbray of Nevada, was getting a lot of pressure 
not to vote for this, but he voted for this, and here is why he voted 
for it:
  Just like Tom Harkin saw this long before many of us did, James 
Bilbray had a friend whose daughter was confined to a wheelchair. This 
man wanted to visit Congressman Bilbray and his family here in 
Washington, DC. What an ordeal it was. They couldn't find a place with 
a hotel room. They had trouble getting airline reservations. It was 
extremely difficult. So Jimmy Bilbray said: That is enough for me. I am 
voting for this.
  This landmark legislation that was pushed and pushed by Tom Harkin 
has helped to move areas of employment, public services, 
transportation, and telecommunications for people with disabilities. 
Tom Harkin's work to protect the disadvantaged hasn't been just 
reactive, it has been preventative.
  Tom has lost four siblings to cancer. In response to that heartbreak, 
what has he done? Senator Harkin fought to double the funding for 
groundbreaking medical research at the National Institutes of Health. 
He had a partner in this for many years, Arlen Specter from 
Pennsylvania. They worked on that subcommittee, Labor-HHS, and 
Appropriations. Some will remember that this was an unbelievable thing 
he did to force us to spend more money on medical research. But in 
hindsight, what a blessing this was for America and for Members of the 
Senate who voted for this. It was good for us, and it was good for the 
country. It was good for our constituents. With the extra money NIH 
got, they have engaged in a landmark effort to cure cancer, heart 
disease, and a myriad of other diseases.
  We have a long way to go. Funding hasn't been adequate the last 6 
years. The only boost we got in NIH funding was in the stimulus, the 
first few months of the Obama administration where we got additional 
money. That was done as a result of the work by Tom Harkin and Arlen 
Specter, and that money now is not there. We need to do more for the 
National Institutes of Health.
  Tom Harkin has been tireless. He worked to triple the funding for the 
Centers for Disease Control. In fact, in ObamaCare he is the one who 
was responsible for the prevention title in that bill.
  He has spent his career coming to the defense of the defenseless. A 
longtime defender of human rights, Tom has worked to fight child labor, 
both domestically and abroad. His tireless efforts gave him the U.S. 
Labor Department's Award for the Elimination of Child Labor.
  I have spent much of my Senate life on the Senate floor. I can 
remember when I would look and see one of his staff come to the floor, 
and I thought: Oh, no. I knew we were in for some trouble. His name was 
Richard Bender. I really have such admiration for Senator Harkin's 
staff, but it was epitomized when Richard Bender walked in this door 
because I knew Harkin was going to do something we had not planned. 
Sometimes it took a lot longer to get things done because of Bender and 
Harkin, but in the end it was always better for our country.
  So after a lifetime of service, Tom will finally be able to spend his 
post-Senate time in another direction, still involved in a form of 
public service. I have such great admiration for Ruth, whom I know 
extremely well. I don't know Amy and Jenny, his daughters, but I do 
know they are going to be able to spend a little more time with their 
dad and her husband.
  On a side note, Tom Harkin is one of the few Senators who has been to 
my home in Searchlight. I was there one day, and I got a call. He said: 
``Are you going to be home?''
  ``Yes.''
  ``Do you mind if we drop by?''
  ``No, I don't mind if you drop by.''
  So within an hour he was at my home in Searchlight.
  So as Tom Harkin closes a chapter of service to the American people, 
I salute Tom Harkin on a job very well done. He has become the longest-
serving Democratic Senator in Iowa's history, and he will be greatly 
missed.

                          ____________________