[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 206 (Thursday, December 19, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7201-S7202]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO KAREN J. LEWIS

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate Karen J. 
Lewis on her many years of service to Congress. After a 45-year career 
distinguished by outstanding achievements, Karen will retire from the 
Congressional Research Service, CRS, in January 2020 after leading the 
Service's American Law Division, ALD, for many years.
  Karen joined CRS as a legislative attorney in 1974 after graduating 
from Albany Law School earlier that year. In the following decade, 
Karen provided nonpartisan advice to Congress on some of the most 
difficult legal matters facing the Nation in the 1970s and 1980s, 
including sex discrimination in the workplace, abortion rights after 
Roe v. Wade, and the Equal Rights Amendment. She also advised Congress 
on the implementation of numerous civil rights laws, including title 
VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, title IX of the 
Higher Education Act, and the Age Discrimination Act.
  In 1984, Karen moved into CRS management, serving first as the 
section head of ALD's consumer law group before heading the Division's 
administrative law section. In the nearly 25 years she served in these 
roles, Karen helped mentor dozens of attorneys, engraining in them 
CRS's core values of providing authoritative and objective legal advice 
regardless of partisan affiliation. Any attorney trained under Karen's 
tutelage is well familiar with her repeated advice to rely on primary 
sources to ensure CRS's legal advice is trustworthy and reliable.
  In 2007, Karen was promoted to senior CRS leadership, serving in a 
variety of capacities, including 11 years as the Assistant Director of 
CRS's ALD. As the head of the law division, Karen played a central role 
reviewing ALD's written work, helping to ensure its accuracy, 
completeness, and quality. She also led countless initiatives for the 
Service. This included helping to establish the Legal Sidebar--CRS's 
first exclusively web-based product line to provide succinct and timely 
analysis to Congress on matters of pressing importance. She also was 
instrumental in raising the profile of the Service's Federal Law 
Update, a seminar series that provides continued legal education for 
Congress, which tripled its average attendance under Karen's 
leadership. Karen also spearheaded the first major revision since 1952 
of the ``Constitution Annotated,'' the Congress' official treatise of 
record on the Constitution. And Karen has been instrumental in hiring 
some of the finest attorneys in the Federal Government to help Congress 
in legal debates over executive power, health care reform, immigration, 
and the future of the Supreme Court. Moreover, throughout her time in 
management, Karen served on countless advisory panels that have helped 
establish organizational practices and policies for CRS.
  While Karen's retirement is a loss for Congress, her imprint on the 
legislative branch will not soon disappear. CRS and the ALD offer an 
invaluable service to Congress by providing members with reliable, 
nonpartisan information to assist the legislative process at every 
step. Karen spent nearly all of her professional career supporting 
Congress's work and strengthening CRS through her work in ALD. She 
served as a role model for hundreds of attorneys who can attest that 
her integrity, work ethic, and dedication to CRS's core values is 
second to none. Her legacy will continue with the division she helped 
build and the Service more broadly. Congratulations to Karen, and I 
wish her many long and happy years in retirement.

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