[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 127 (Monday, July 20, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4257-S4258]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Remembering   John Lewis

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I want to make a couple of comments. It is 
going to be a very significant week. We know pretty much what we are 
going to be doing with the defense authorization bill, which I believe, 
and most people believe, is the most significant bill each year. We 
have things that need to be done. We came to a great agreement prior to 
the Fourth of July in terms of the numbers of amendments and the things 
we had to get accomplished, and I think there is total agreement with 
that.
  We had a tragedy that took place during the last 2 weeks while we 
were in recess. One affected a friend of mine,   John Lewis. We had a 
real interesting--the 100th Congress, we went in, I think, in 1987, and 
the 100th Congress had a lot of really great people.
  John Lewis is one of them.
  John Lewis and I became friends. You couldn't get two guys further 
apart philosophically than   John Lewis and me. Yet we were always 
close. I watched how peacefully he could get things done. He is someone 
I got to know quite well.
  We had a lot of others in that class. Jon Kyl has been very active in 
recent years. He came back from retirement temporarily. He was in that 
class. We had Ben Cardin. He and I became close friends. I think he was 
in the State legislature first. Lamar Smith was one who was very, very 
helpful to me all those years. Lamar Smith is from South Texas. Freddie 
Upton--we referred to him as ``Little Freddie Upton''--is probably the 
most recent one we had who is no longer in that same position. But John 
Lewis was, and I had the honor of coming to Congress and being in the 
same freshman class with him.
  Ultimately, he was a courageous fighter in every part of his life. He 
fought for the civil rights movement on the bridge to Selma, as a 
Freedom Rider, and through his work on the Student Nonviolent 
Coordinating Committee. He consistently did a great and peaceful job. 
He fought for his constituents and the causes he believed in. He was a 
fighter. He would not take no for an answer.
  Up until the very end, he fought cancer. Like everything else, he 
fought it with courage and honor.
  The conscience of Congress may no longer be here, but his legacy for 
his selfless service has been imparted to every one of us who served 
with him and got to know him well. It seems like the ones who knew him 
the best were those of us who served over in the other body, in the 
House.

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