[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 29 (Thursday, February 14, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H2001]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 CONGRATULATING KENTUCKY SUPREME COURT JUSTICE BILL CUNNINGHAM ON HIS 
                               RETIREMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
South Carolina (Mr. Cunningham) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I, too, rise today to call attention, 
along with Congressman Jamie Comer, to one of Kentucky's most fearless, 
tireless public servants, who recently retired from the Commonwealth's 
highest court at the beginning of this month and who is my father, 
Justice Bill Cunningham.
  He began his long and distinguished career by serving as a JAG 
officer in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam war, serving in Germany, 
Vietnam, and Korea.
  He returned home to serve later as the city attorney, then the public 
defender, then the prosecutor, followed by circuit court judge, all 
before being elected to Kentucky's highest court, the Kentucky Supreme 
Court, where he has been a justice for the last 12 years.
  His skills in the courtroom were not just limited to the courtroom. 
Growing up the youngest of five unruly boys, we found that he brought 
those skills home with him.
  I recall one time when three of my older brothers came home late, 
past curfew, with the smell of alcohol. Their stories did not jibe with 
one another, so he immediately sequestered each brother in three 
separate rooms and went from room to room interrogating each of them, 
only to find out their story of a flat tire fell apart very quickly 
when they could not decide on which tire was flat and who fixed it.
  He acted as the judge, the jury, and the executioner of our household 
in disciplining five boys.
  I recall one time being disciplined at school for fighting. I came 
home. My father told me: If you are in trouble at school, you are in 
trouble at home.
  He took a 25-pound weight, put it in a backpack, and made me carry 
that backpack around with me everywhere I went--to school, back from 
school to home--with the message that, if I was going to be a weight on 
him, he was going to put a weight on me. No doubt, such behavior would 
probably call attention to child services these days.
  He is the bastion of public service; he is the example of integrity; 
and, last but not least, he is my hero.
  Thank you, Dad, for all of your hard work, for leading by example.
  He treated every single person with dignity and with respect. Even 
today, when he goes inside the walls of Kentucky's State Penitentiary, 
the maximum security penitentiary, he walks around in the yard and 
people approach him--people he has prosecuted, people he has sentenced 
to the penitentiary--and they come up and want to shake his hand 
because he treated every single person with dignity and with respect.
  I want to thank my father, Justice Bill Cunningham, for making this 
world a better one.
  And to my mother, who will be the beneficiary to all of his newfound 
free time, I wish to say to her: Good luck.

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