[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 114 (Thursday, July 14, 2016)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1130-E1131]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       HONORING MR. DAVID GRABILL

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. MIKE THOMPSON

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 14, 2016

  Mr. THOMPSON of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the 
life of David Grabill, who passed away on June 9, 2016, after 74 
remarkable years.
  Mr. Grabill led a long and successful career in law and social 
justice advocacy, and worked hard to ensure that disadvantaged members 
of our community had access to top notch legal representation. He 
completed his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science at Yale University, 
before earning his Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania 
School of Law.
  Over the course of a diverse and illustrious career, Mr. Grabill 
earned admission to the bar for the District of Columbia, Indiana, 
California, West Virginia, and the Ogallala Sioux Tribe. In these 
different jurisdictions, Mr. Grabill worked to ensure that our 
country's promise of equal justice under the law was not just an ideal, 
but a reality. He regularly represented victims of housing 
discrimination in both federal and state courts, and also represented 
Native American tribes and interests in Escondido, California.
  Many of Mr. Grabill's cases led to major policy changes to better 
support the interests of disadvantaged groups. While working in West 
Virginia, Mr. Grabill successfully led the lawsuit that overturned West 
Virginia's unconstitutional ban on abortion, allowing the state's first 
women's health center to open and provide safe and legal abortion 
services. The case Sonoma County Housing Now v. City of Healdsburg, 
settled in 1989, resulted in zoning for 500 new apartments and updated 
policies to encourage affordable housing development. Thanks to Mr. 
Grabill's work on another case, the City of Santa Rosa agreed to plan 
for 3000 additional affordable housing units and to build the 80-bed 
Samuel Jones homeless shelter.
  Mr. Grabill co-founded the Sonoma County Housing Advocacy Group, 
which fights for more local affordable housing development

[[Page E1131]]

and represents low-income individuals seeking housing. He also served 
on the Board of Directors for the Sonoma County Chapter of the ACLU 
from 1996 until 2003 and on the Executive Board of the Accountable 
Development Coalition from 2005 until 2010.
  Mr. Speaker, David Grabill was a generous person and a fierce 
advocate for those less fortunate, and therefore, it is fitting and 
proper that we honor him here today.

                          ____________________