[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 172 (Thursday, December 1, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6634-S6635]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          TRIBUTE TO MARK KIRK

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, on January 3, there will be a new Senate 
sworn in. Members come down this aisle, to be sworn in over here by the 
Vice President of the United States, to become Members of the U.S. 
Senate. It will be the passing of the Senate seat in our State from 
Senator Mark Kirk to Senator-elect Tammy Duckworth. I would like to say 
a few words about my colleague Mark Kirk.
  For the last 6 years, Mark and I have had a very positive 
professional relationship. The night he won the election, I was 
standing with his opponent Alexi Giannoulias when Alexi made the call 
to Mark Kirk to congratulate him. Mark asked that I take the phone, and 
I did.
  He said: I want to work with you. I know we just competed against one 
another in the election, but we now have a responsibility together to 
represent the State of Illinois, and we started a positive working 
relationship--a relationship based on mutual respect. One of the things 
we did was to continue a tradition.
  Since 1985, my mentor and colleague in the House, and my predecessor 
in the Senate, Paul Simon of Illinois, started a Thursday morning 
breakfast, inviting people from Illinois who were in Washington and 
those who wish they were from Illinois, to come in for free coffee and 
donuts at no taxpayer expense. It was an hour-long public meeting so we 
could talk about what was happening in the Senate and then answer any 
questions and pose for pictures if they wanted them. I asked Mark Kirk 
to continue this, even though we were of opposite political faith, and 
we did, for a long time. We worked together to make sure the people of 
Illinois felt welcomed. We often took differing views on issues--that 
is understandable--but we did it in a civil way. People said they 
thought it was one of the highlights of their trip to see two Senators 
from two different parties working together. We did--and not just on 
those Thursday mornings. We found reasons to do it on the floor.
  In the vast majority of cases, when it came to filling Federal 
judicial vacancies, Mark Kirk and I worked together to agree. Rarely 
did we disagree on those who needed to be chosen. As a result, we have 
had a pretty good record of filling vacancies in the State of Illinois.
  Then, of course, it was in 2012 that a disaster struck and Mark Kirk 
suffered a stroke. It was almost a life-ending experience. He is 
lucky--lucky--to be alive today. He knows it, and we all know it too. I 
primarily kept in touch with his staff, and with him, during the course 
of his rehabilitation after that stroke. It was a calendar year he had 
to give to rehabilitation, to learn how to walk again and speak again 
and do the basic things we take for granted. It was an extraordinary 
show of courage and determination on his part.
  Finally, before he could return to the Senate, I visited with him and 
saw him some 10 months after the stroke and realized the devastation he 
weathered and how much he had managed to recover because of his sheer 
determination. The one thing he told me, though, was that he was 
determined to come back to the United States Senate and walk up those 
steps right into the Senate Chamber. He was working every single day on 
treadmills and with rehab experts to reach that day when he could get 
out of a car and walk up those steps. He asked me if I would ask other 
Senators to join him--especially his close friend Joe Manchin, a 
Democratic Senator from West Virginia, and we did. That day came and it 
was an amazing day. He started at the bottom of those steps and worked 
his way up, all the way into the Senate Chamber, to the applause of his 
colleagues--Democrats and Republicans--all the way up those steps. We 
realized what an amazing recovery he had made.
  Our colleague Tim Johnson of the State of South Dakota had gone 
through a similar devastating experience. Mark Kirk said many times, 
when he was about to give up, he thought, Tim Johnson got back to the 
Senate. I can get back there if I work hard enough. He did just that.
  He was an exceptional colleague of mine in the Senate. There were a 
lot of things we agreed on. One of them was Lake Michigan. As a 
Congressman from the 10th Congressional District, which is on the 
shores of Lake Michigan, he was always committed to that lake.
  After the election, when the results didn't come out as he wished, I 
sat down with him and said: Mark, what do you want me to do in memory 
of your commitment to public service?
  He said: Do everything you can to protect Lake Michigan. And I am 
going to. I asked his successor Tammy Duckworth to join me in that 
effort, and we will in his name and in his memory.
  I thank him for the service he has given to our State, the service he 
has given our Nation as an officer in the

[[Page S6635]]

Navy Reserve, and for the years he put in as a staff member to 
Congressman John Porter, for the work he did in the House of 
Representatives representing the 10th Congressional District, and for 
his term in the United States Senate. It has been a pleasure and an 
honor to serve with him. Despite our political differences, I count him 
as a friend, as an ally, and as a true champion for the State of 
Illinois.
  I wish my colleague Mark Kirk the very best in his future endeavors.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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