[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 195 (Tuesday, December 11, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S7425]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO HEIDI HEITKAMP

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in thanking Senator 
Heidi Heitkamp for her service to her State and our Nation.
  I remember one of the first conversations Senator Heitkamp and I had 
after she joined the Senate. I told her: ``I would really like your 
support on a bill to help the kinds of mom-and-pop stores that are the 
heart of so many small towns in your state and mine.''
  I was about to give her my ``elevator pitch'' on the Marketplace 
Fairness Act. It wasn't necessary.
  Heidi said: ``Uhm, Dick, you know the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court 
decision that makes the Marketplace Fairness Act necessary. I'm the 
petitioner in the case. `Quill v. North Dakota?' That's me. I was the 
North Dakota tax commissioner who started that lawsuit.''
  As I was quick to learn, helping Main Street, mom-and-pop stores stay 
in business in the age of Amazon is just one of many causes that Heidi 
Heitkamp had been working on, tenaciously, for years before she was 
elected to this Senate.
  Heidi Heitkamp came to Washington with a to-do list. She worked 
doggedly, with Democrats and Republicans, to whittle down that list.
  It was clear from the day she arrived here that she meant to use her 
new position as a U.S. Senator to right as many old wrongs and fix as 
many intractable problems as she could.
  She leaves knowing that she made a difference in the lives of 
countless people, in North Dakota and far beyond.
  She has been a champion for Native Americans, whose voices are so 
rarely heard in the halls of power.
  The first bill she sponsored in the Senate created a new and long 
overdue Commission on Native Children, to try to rectify the conditions 
that cause one-in-three Native American and Alaska Native children to 
live in poverty, with suicide rates 2.5 times the national average.
  Like so much of her work here, that was a bipartisan effort. Her 
partner in that case was Lisa Murkowski.
  When the Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized in 2013, it was 
Heidi Heitkamp who pushed successfully to close a loophole that allowed 
non-Indians who commit sexual assaults on Indian Reservations--very 
often--to go unpunished.
  Her commitment to ``make a better future'' for Native children--and 
all children--is what motivated Heidi to become my partner on a bill to 
increase and improve the treatment of childhood trauma, the root of so 
much suffering and violence.
  We are proud that our trauma bill was included in the new law to 
combat the opioid epidemic. It will save lives.
  Heidi has said that her proudest achievement as a U.S. Senator was 
when she was able to help a Korean war veteran receive the Purple Heart 
and other medals.
  The man, Corporal Andy Shaw, was a Native American elder who had 
served in World War II, was wounded in a gunfight in South Korea at the 
start of that conflict, and spent nearly the entire Korean war as a 
POW, but never received the thanks or medals he should have.
  After 60 years, Heidi Heitkamp was able to right that wrong.
  She and her staff tracked down the facts needed to document Corporal 
Shaw's heroism and sacrifice, and she travelled to the Spirit Lake 
Sioux Reservation in North Dakota to present Corporal Shaw's medals to 
him personally.
  Andy Shaw has a little trouble standing now, but he stood proud and 
straight as his Senator presented his Purple Heart.
  Heidi cried because she knew how much he had sacrificed for that 
medal and what it meant to him.
  That is who Heidi Heitkamp is: a woman who uses her power to help the 
underdog.
  I wish she were not leaving so soon.
  She has been a force for progress, a friend, and a leader for whom I 
have great respect.
  I know that she has a lot of grit and determination still in her, and 
I look forward to seeing what her next chapter will bring.

                          ____________________