[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 173 (Thursday, October 31, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6353-S6355]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         REMEMBERING KAY HAGAN

  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I have been privileged to serve, and this 
my 19th year here in the U.S. Senate. A long time ago, I served as a 
naval officer in the Vietnam war and as later State treasurer, 
Congressman, Governor of Delaware, and now I serve as U.S. Senator. I 
have had the privilege of serving with literally hundreds of people 
here, in the House, as Governor, and certainly in the Navy and the 
armed services during the Vietnam war.
  Among my all-time favorite colleagues of all of those, whether it was 
in the military service, the State of Delaware, or here in Congress, 
one of my all-time favorite people to serve with was a woman from North 
Carolina, from a place called Shelby.
  My wife is from North Carolina, from a place called Boone. Her family 
is from North Carolina. She has her father down there. Boone is up in 
the mountains. She has sisters. She has sisters in Raleigh, and some of 
her family has actually lived in Shelby, NC.
  There was a woman born there on May 26, 1953, named Kay Hagan. I 
don't know that she was born Kay Hagan, but she became Kay Hagan, and 
maybe that was after getting married. But she was the daughter of a 
homemaker named Jeanette, and her dad had a tire business. Later, he 
worked as a real estate broker. Apparently, politics was in her blood. 
Her dad also served as mayor, later on, of Lakeland, FL. That was where 
Kay Hagan spent most of her childhood.
  Lakeland, FL, is near to me because it is the spring training camp 
for the Detroit Tigers. I have been a Detroit Tigers fan since I was 9 
years old. So it has been a while. For the people watching the World 
Series, three of the best pitchers in baseball used to pitch for my 
Tigers. They went through training camp in Lakeland and ended up with 
other teams that took them into the World Series.
  Kay was not around to watch any of those former Tigers pitch because 
she passed away just about 3 days ago.
  Her uncle was a former Governor of Florida, with whom I served. 
Lawton Chiles was one of the sweetest, best guys I have ever known. He 
served here in the U.S. Senate for many years--sort of a centrist 
Democrat. He was beloved in his State and beloved here as well.
  Both Kay's dad and her brother served in the U.S. Navy. I did 23 
years

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in all, Active Duty and Reserve, in the Navy, and I treasure those 
days.
  Apparently, Kay also spent summers on her grandparents' farm. They 
had a farm not in North Carolina but in a place called Chesterfield in 
South Carolina. Chesterfield used to be a tobacco brand, It was called 
Chesterfield. She spent summers on her grandparents' farm in 
Chesterfield, SC, and there she helped to string tobacco and harvest 
watermelons.
  I grew up in Danville, VA, the world's biggest tobacco market. The 
kids in my classes at school--the really cool kids, apparently--strung 
tobacco and probably havested watermelons, as well, as Kay did.
  She graduated from Lakeland High School in 1971 and went on to 
Florida State University and received her JD from Wake Forest Law 
School in 1978.
  Her husband Chip, whom she married, I think, in 1977, was a 
transactions lawyer. She raised her family in Greensboro, NC. If you go 
30 or 40 miles north of Greensboro, you are in Virginia, and that is 
where I grew up, in Danville, VA.
  When I first met her, we kind of talked about her background in the 
Navy and her father, and we talked about Lakeland, FL, and my affinity 
for the Detroit Tigers, who have trained there for decades. We talked 
about her raising her family in Greensboro. I spent a lot of my 
childhood in Danville, just north of Greensboro.
  I told her a story about going to Greensboro with my dad, as a kid, 
and we got ourselves a hunting dog from Greensboro, where she raised 
her family.
  She leaves behind three kids--Jeanette, who was named after her 
mother, Tilden, and Carrie. She also is a grandmother of five 
grandchildren whom she loved and adored.
  Before she got into politics she worked in the financial industry. 
She became vice president of what was then North Carolina National Bank 
and went on to become today part of Bank of America.
  She worked as a campaign manager for a guy named Jim Hunt. Jim Hunt 
was Governor for 8 years. In North Carolina, you can be Governor for 8 
years, and you have to step down, or you can come back and be elected 
again. He was elected for another 8 years. She worked for Jim Hunt, a 
great education Governor, who always surrounded himself with just the 
best people in the world. I treasured serving as a Governor with him 
and his friendship, and the fact that she had been his campaign manager 
endeared her to me.
  She was first elected to office, I think, when she was elected to the 
North Carolina General Assembly, not as a State representative but she 
was elected as a State senator. She served, I think, five terms, 
representing Guilford County down in North Carolina.
  She ran for the Senate in 2008 against Elizabeth Dole, another person 
for whom I had great affection, as I did for her husband, Bob. Both of 
them actually served here in the Senate, Bob and Elizabeth Dole. 
Elizabeth is from North Carolina.
  We were fond of her, and when the two of them ran against each other, 
it was tough, but stuff like that happens. Kay won, and she came here 
and served for 6 years until 2015.
  She left the Senate in 2014. She was defeated by Thom Tillis, who 
serves here today. She lost by, I think, less than 50,000 votes, so it 
was a close vote. After her term ended in the Senate, she went on to 
work as a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics and a senior 
policy consultant at a law firm, Akin Gump.
  She died October 28 of this year, 3 days ago, of encephalitis caused 
by a virus she contracted from a tick bite, and it is something that 
happened in 2016, and it was 3 years later that she finally died, which 
is very, very sad.
  She was the second female Senator from North Carolina--first female 
Democrat to be elected from North Carolina to the Senate, the first 
female Democrat. She served, while she was here, on a number of 
committees. I did not have the pleasure of serving with her at the same 
time. She was on Armed Services. There is a lot of military in North 
Carolina, especially the Marines there on the East Coast.
  But she was on the Banking Committee. She joined the committee after 
I left to be a member of the Finance Committee. She served on the 
Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee and Small Business and 
Entrepreneurship.
  In 6 years, you vote on a lot of amendments, you vote on a lot of 
bills, you offer a lot of bills and amendments. She did all of that, 
and I just wanted to focus on one thing that she supported and worked 
on. She was a person who believed that we have a moral obligation to 
the least of these in our society. Matthew 25 speaks to a moral 
obligation--when people are hungry, what we should do about it, when 
they are naked or thirsty, what are our obligations, regardless of our 
faith.
  Matthew 25 states: When I was hungry, did you feed me? When I was 
naked, did you clothe me? When I was thirsty, did you give me drink? 
When I was sick or in prison, did you visit me? When I was a stranger 
in your land, did you walk with me?
  And she answered all of those questions: Yes, yes, yes.
  She was somebody that thought we had moral obligations for the least 
of these, but since we didn't have unlimited amounts of money, we just 
couldn't waste our money, and we had to spend it effectively. She 
believed that we should not just give a person a fish and feed them for 
a day, but teach a person to fish and they would feed themselves for a 
lifetime.
  She was a fitness buff. I love to work out, and my wife loves to work 
out, and she did too. I think that is one of the reasons that she was 
able to fight this disease and fight it off as long as she did. There 
is a gym here that used to be little. It is a little bigger that it 
used to be. The one in the House is much bigger; they have a lot more 
people.
  But they have a little swimming pool at the gym here, and I have 
never used it. For years, it was just men only. In fact, for years 
there was not even an opportunity for women in the Senate to actually 
have a fitness center to work out. She changed that. She led the fight 
to change that. I think when she lost her race in 2014 and the women in 
the Senate threw her a goodbye party, they did it at the pool and in 
the fitness center down in the basement of the Russell building.
  In the 1970s, she was an intern in the Capitol--and we have some 
pages here. I don't think she was ever a page, but later she was an 
intern. She became an elevator operator. I am not sure if Harry Reid, 
who was our majority leader and minority leader here, he was an 
elevator operator, but there was sort of a pecking order, starting with 
pages at a very young age and interns later on, and then they become an 
elevator operator and have some other jobs here and then go off to do 
amazing things with their life.
  And she certainly did that. She was operating an elevator here in the 
Senate that carried Senators, including her uncle Lawton Chiles, who I 
mentioned earlier.
  Joe Biden visited Kay Hagan in North Carolina the day before her 
death--that would have been 4 days ago--and what Joe said of Kay is 
that she was a crucial partner in passing the Affordable Care Act and 
the stimulus package which got us off of our back when we were going 
through the worst recession since the Great Depression. Joe said that 
``She was a crucial partner'' in passing the Affordable Care Act, which 
passed by one vote, and she was that one vote. I think she was probably 
prouder of that vote than anything that she did when she served here.
  I want to segue from Kay, but before I do, she was always interested 
in figuring out the right things to do, not what was easy or expedient. 
She was always asking what is the right thing to do. I remember her 
being here and other Senators--Democrats and Republicans--and we were 
trying to figure out what to do on a particular issue. She would always 
say: What is the right thing to do?
  She was one of those people who had deep faith, and she believed not 
only do we have a moral obligation to the least of these, but she 
thought that we ought to treat other people the way we wanted to be 
treated, and that is the Golden Rule.
  As it turns out, about a week ago, I was invited to worship in a 
Hindu worship service in Delaware with a congregation of a thousand 
people, and I was reminded there that the Golden

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Rule--to treat other people the way we want to be treated--is part of 
every major religion, the Golden Rule. I do not care if you are 
Catholic, I do not care if you are a Jew, I do not care if you are a 
Muslim, Hindu, some form of the Golden Rule is right there. She was a 
big proponent of the Golden Rule, and that was the work of her life.
  She was also one of those people who focused on excellence in 
everything she did. She was committed to doing things well and wanted 
to be surrounded by staff that did things well. When thing would go 
well for her and she would do a good job, she would always give credit 
to her team. When her team would fall short, she was not one of those 
people who blamed the team; she blamed herself.
  Another thing I would say is she just didn't give up. She was 
tenacious--not very tall, not tall in stature, but, boy, was she 
tenacious. She showed this especially by the way she fought for her 
life to the very end 3 days ago.
  I want to talk just a little about her vote on the Affordable Care 
Act and why she thought it was the right thing to do. Matthew 25 does 
not say anything about: I was lame and you gave me healthcare or access 
to healthcare. My own source of healthcare was the hospital, what did 
you do about it? That doesn't say that in the New Testament.
  But I think the implication is clear. We have an obligation--I think 
a moral obligation to try to make sure everybody has access to 
healthcare and, hopefully, to affordable healthcare. That is what we 
tried to do with the Affordable Care Act, and that is why she supported 
it.
  Sometimes people think the Affordable Care Act is just the exchanges, 
just the marketplaces. Every State has an exchange or marketplace that 
is there. It is sort of like a purchasing pool for healthcare that 
people can become a part of. If they don't work for an employer who 
provides healthcare, that is issued by the employer, and they are not 
old enough for Medicare or their income level is too high to allow them 
to participate in Medicaid and, in those cases, they have to find some 
way to get access to healthcare.
  Back in 1993, the Republican Senator from Rhode Island, John Chafee--
who is also a Navy guy, later Secretary of the Navy--he introduced 
legislation here in the Senate in 1993 as a Republican response to 
something Hillary Clinton was doing during her husband's administration 
that was working to find ways to make sure that everybody had access to 
healthcare in this country.
  We worked on something called HillaryCare, and the Republicans 
ridiculed her efforts and those around her. She said basically in 
response: What is your idea? What is your idea?
  The response was by Senator Chafee, joined by 22 or 23 Republican 
Senators, and part of what they came up with is that every State should 
have an exchange and every State should have the ability to set up the 
purchasing pool in their State. People who didn't have coverage could 
get their coverage in the exchanges.
  Neither one was turned into law, but about 10, 12 years later, the 
new Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, took the idea of the 
exchanges and introduced the Mitt Romney Care so that the people in his 
State would have the opportunity to sign up for the coverage in their 
exchange.
  We wrote the Affordable Care Act, we did it, and we took good ideas 
from all over the country and all over the world to provide healthcare 
to people that was affordable. One of the ideas that we stole to put in 
the Affordable Care Act was Governor Romney's idea of the exchanges.
  And you know what? It was a good idea. It was a good idea. The first 
few years of RomneyCare in Massachusetts, they did a pretty good job of 
extending coverage. They did not do such a good job initially on 
affordability, and they kept trying, and they finally figured it out--
competition in the marketplace, in the exchange, and more insurance 
companies providing, participating, and this worked well. We found in 
the first 2 years that the Affordable Care Act was standing up the 
exchanges 7, 8, or 9 years ago that it was a challenge. It was 
difficult.
  What has happened now is the insurers are starting to figure it out. 
They priced too high. The States have come up with ways to buy down the 
risks for the insurers and to make a number of States' health insurance 
in the exchanges more affordable, so that more people can actually 
afford that help.
  I would just close this here. The majority leader is standing here 
waiting to speak, so I will just close if I can by saying after a 
number of years seeing the cost of healthcare coverages in exchanges 
across the country go up, up, up--sometimes by double-digit rates--the 
insurance companies were trying to figure out how to price health 
insurance for people who have not had health insurance for years. It 
took them several years to figure it out, but they finally, for the 
most part, have. The cost of healthcare in exchanges doesn't go up by 
double-digit rates anymore.
  In fact, we have 20 or more States now where the cost of healthcare 
coverage in the exchange is only going up a couple of percentage 
points, maybe less. In a half-dozen States, the cost of healthcare in 
the exchanges is actually going down. In the State of Delaware, when 
the exchanges open up tomorrow, the people will sign up for the 
healthcare exchange in Delaware, the price will not be going up next 
year. It will be going down by 19 percent. There are six other States 
where the consumer experience is similar, and that is encouraging.
  A lot more insurance companies are offering coverage in the States, 
23 last year and 45 this year--and that is going to introduce 
competition and, we hope, a cycle that will allow more people to get 
better coverage for a lower price.
  So, Kay Hagan, we miss you, and we considered it a privilege to have 
served with you here. Something good has come out of something very 
difficult. The passage of the Affordable Care Act was hard. It has been 
hard finding a way forward since then, but I think better days lie 
ahead, and market forces are starting to work, and that is a good 
thing.
  And with that, I will yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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