[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 96 (Monday, June 6, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2772-S2773]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Remembering John Edward Porter

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, the name ``John Edward Porter'' may not 
be well known to many people now, but there was a time when he had a 
special impact on America.
  I was proud to call him a colleague and my friend. John Porter was a 
Congressman from Illinois who served at the same time I was a Member of 
the House. He did some remarkable things in his life. In the famous 
10th District, he was a real leader on many issues. He represented that 
district in Chicago's northern suburbs from 1980 until the year 2001 
and for most of the time we served together in the House. I admired 
him. We always had a good, positive working relationship although we 
were of different political faiths. He was a leader and a voice for 
principled, bipartisan cooperation within our Illinois congressional 
delegation.
  John Porter passed away last Friday. He was raised in a family where 
public service was a way of life. He took it to heart. He served in the 
U.S. Army Reserve from 1958 to 1964 and as an attorney with the U.S. 
Department of Justice during the Kennedy administration.
  He was elected to the House in 1980 when his predecessor, Abner 
Mikva, resigned to become a Federal judge. The two men were different 
in political faith, but in many regards, they were the same. Ab Mikva, 
you see, was a legendary liberal Democrat, the son of Jewish immigrants 
from Ukraine who relied on welfare to survive the Great Depression. 
John Porter was a fiscally conservative Republican whose father was a 
judge. But they shared many values. They believed that public service 
was a noble profession and that government could make life better and 
that America must remain a beacon of hope for the world.
  John Porter supported efforts to protect the environment in the 
earliest days. He championed human rights efforts across the globe and 
efforts to protect the environment at home. He was the founder of the 
Congressional Human Rights Caucus. He was a key supporter of the 
Americans with Disabilities Act.
  John Porter was an independent thinker who defied the National Rifle 
Association to support a national ban on assault weapons in 1994. It 
took guts. John Porter did the right thing.
  His greatest and most visionary contribution to America was in the 
field of biomedical research. He was chair of the powerful House 
Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and 
Education. He was a driving force in the House behind the successful 
effort to double the funding for the National Institutes of Health.
  For those who may not know, the National Institutes of Health in 
Washington, DC, is the leading medical research agency in the world--in 
the world--and John Porter, this Congressman from Illinois, teamed up 
with two Senators to take on what seemed like an impossible assignment. 
He joined with Tom Harkin, a Senator from Iowa, a Democrat, and Arlen 
Specter, a Senator from Pennsylvania, a Republican. They set out to do 
the politically impossible--to double the budget for the National 
Institutes of Health.
  The new funding came at a critical moment in history. It made 
possible discoveries that literally changed the

[[Page S2773]]

world, including the famous Human Genome Project, which Dr. Francis 
Collins headed up at that time. It was one of the greatest scientific 
breakthroughs of the 20th century, and it happened because John Porter 
and the Senators I mentioned decided to make certain that the NIH had 
the resources when they needed it.
  The mapping of the human genome continues to transform medicine on a 
daily basis and has provided lifesaving cures all around the world. It 
is the leadership of NIH Director Dr. Collins and the inspiring example 
of John Porter that convinced me to try to team up with Senators on the 
other side of the aisle and do the same in my time in the Senate. I 
admired John's success so much that I decided to try to make it my own. 
So I teamed up with Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri, and also, of 
course, with Patty Murray, a Democrat from the State of Washington, and 
we started our effort to see if we could increase dramatically the 
National Institutes of Health's budget. We did. We increased it by over 
40 percent in the period of time that we have taken on this assignment 
and more to follow.
  The NIH recognized Congressman John Porter's invaluable contributions 
in 2014 by naming its new Neuroscience Research Center in his honor.
  Loretta and I send our condolences to his wife Amy, their children, 
stepchildren, and grandchildren, to John's friends and colleagues, and 
to all who were inspired by his example to make our world and our 
Nation a better, healthier, safer place.