[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 125 (Wednesday, July 27, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3734-S3736]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         SENATOR JOHNNY ISAKSON VA REGIONAL OFFICE ACT OF 2022

  Mr. OSSOFF. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize a giant of the 
great State of Georgia--which the Presiding Officer and I both have the 
distinct honor of serving--to recognize a true legend of the U.S. 
Senate, an extraordinary father, husband, and representative of our 
State, the late Senator Johnny Isakson.
  Senator Isakson served Georgia all his life. Born in Atlanta, Senator 
Isakson attended the University of Georgia, then enlisted in the 
Georgia Air National Guard. He was a successful private businessman, 
growing his real estate enterprise to one of the largest in the State.
  He served in both the Georgia House of Representatives and the State 
senate, and Governor Zell Miller, a Democrat, appointed him, a 
Republican, to chair the State Board of Education.
  In 1999, Senator Isakson was elected to the U.S. House of 
Representatives, where he worked to improve American K-12 education.
  And in 2004, he was elected to this body, where he would serve for 
almost 15 years with courtesy, dignity, and kindness, supporting and 
championing bipartisan efforts to better serve our Nation's veterans. 
And his service culminated in his chairmanship of the Senate Committee 
on Veterans' Affairs and of the Senate Ethics Committee.
  As we will hear from our distinguished colleagues who served 
alongside Senator Isakson--like Senator Blunt--Senator Isakson, through 
his uncommon decency, his generosity of spirit, his commitment to 
integrity and service of others over service of self, won universal 
respect in this body; won respect in the State of Georgia that crossed 
party lines and earned the reputation not just nationally but around 
the world for statesmanship, effectiveness, and hard work.
  Even more than his work as a statesman, Senator Isakson was a father 
and a husband. And I want to recognize Senator Isakson's extraordinary 
family, including his wife of more than 50 years, Dianne; his sons, 
John and Kevin; his daughter Julie--all of whom I have had the pleasure 
of speaking or corresponding with in recent months and all of whom, in 
their lives, carry on the Senator's legacy.
  Senator Isakson had a saying that there are just two kinds of people 
in this world: friends and future friends. I hope we can all be 
inspired by that aspiration and that outlook, by his resilient desire 
to see the good in everyone; to see the opportunity to work with 
anyone; to try to find where our interests align, where we can meet eye 
to eye, where we can get things done together.
  Senator Isakson's courtesy, collegiality, and integrity will forever 
serve as an example to all of us who serve in this body today and in 
the future. And that is why, in recognition of Senator Isakson's 
tremendous contributions to American veterans, to the State of Georgia, 
and to the United States, it has been my privilege to introduce--
alongside my distinguished Republican colleague from Missouri, Senator 
Blunt, and the Presiding Officer, Senator Warnock--the Senator Johnny 
Isakson VA Regional Office Act to rename the VA's Atlanta Regional 
Office after Senator Isakson as part of our Nation's ongoing 
recognition of his service and as an example to those who follow in his 
footsteps of the virtues that his representation embodied.
  I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their support of 
this legislation. We will hear from Senator Blunt and Senator Warnock, 
to share their experiences working alongside and knowing Senator 
Isakson, in just a moment.
  But now, let's get this done and take this action to demonstrate our 
enduring respect and admiration for this extraordinary American 
statesman, Johnny Isakson. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further 
consideration of S. 4359 and the Senate proceed to its immediate 
consideration.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill by title.

[[Page S3735]]

  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 4359) to designate the regional office of the 
     Department of Veterans Affairs in metropolitan Atlanta as the 
     ``Senator Johnny Isakson Department of Veterans Affairs 
     Atlanta Regional Office'', and for other purposes.

  There being no objection, the committee was discharged, and the 
Senate proceeded to consider the nomination.
  Mr. OSSOFF. Mr. President, I further ask that the bill be considered 
read a third time and passed and the motions to reconsider be 
considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or 
debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The bill (S. 4359) was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading, 
was read the third time, and passed, as follows:

                                S. 4359

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Senator Johnny Isakson VA 
     Regional Office Act of 2022''.

     SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

       Congress finds the following:
       (1) John Hardy Isakson, known as ``Johnny'', was born 
     December 28, 1944, in Atlanta, Georgia, to Julia Isakson and 
     Edwin Andrew Isakson.
       (2) Johnny Isakson graduated from the University of Georgia 
     in 1966 with a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration.
       (3) In 1966, Johnny Isakson enlisted in the Georgia Air 
     National Guard, serving until 1972 and attaining the rank of 
     Staff Sergeant.
       (4) Johnny Isakson gained success in private business, 
     serving for 22 years as a real estate executive and growing 
     his business into one of the largest of its kind in both 
     Georgia and in the United States.
       (5) Johnny Isakson was elected to the Georgia General 
     Assembly in 1976, serving in the State House of 
     Representatives until 1990.
       (6) Johnny Isakson was elected to the Georgia State Senate 
     in 1992, serving until 1996.
       (7) In 1996, Governor Zell Miller appointed Johnny Isakson 
     to be Chairman of the Georgia State Board of Education.
       (8) Johnny Isakson was elected to represent the 6th 
     District of Georgia in the United States House of 
     Representatives in 1999, and served until 2005.
       (9) During his time in the House of Representatives, Johnny 
     Isakson, as a member of the Committee on Education and Labor 
     of the House of Representatives, worked to improve American 
     education, and was a key advocate for the bipartisan 
     education reforms that became the No Child Left Behind Act of 
     2001 (Public Law 107-110).
       (10) Johnny Isakson was elected to the United States Senate 
     in 2004, serving until December 31, 2019.
       (11) During his time in the Senate, Johnny Isakson was an 
     exemplar of courtesy, dignity, and kindness, beloved and 
     respected by colleagues regardless of party.
       (12) Johnny Isakson, during the 111th Congress, 
     demonstrated a bipartisan yearning for peace, and crossed 
     party lines to support the ratification of the 2010 Strategic 
     Arms Reduction Treaty between the United States and the 
     Russian Federation, also known as New START.
       (13) During the 114th, 115th, and 116th Congresses, Johnny 
     Isakson served as Chairman of the Committee on Veterans' 
     Affairs of the Senate, a position with which he tirelessly 
     championed reform to improve the benefits and quality of 
     service for our nation's military veterans.
       (14) During the 114th, 115th, and 116th Congresses, Johnny 
     Isakson served as Chairman of the Select Committee on Ethics 
     of the Senate.
       (15) The late Congressman John Lewis once described Johnny 
     Isakson as ``A man who has strong belief but also willing to 
     work with others to get things done.''.
       (16) On December 19, 2021, Johnny Isakson passed away, but 
     his legacy of character and goodwill will endure as an 
     example to all who serve, or will serve, in the United States 
     Senate.

     SEC. 3. SENATOR JOHNNY ISAKSON DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS 
                   ATLANTA REGIONAL OFFICE.

       (a) Designation.--The Department of Veterans Affairs 
     Atlanta Regional Office in Georgia shall, after the date of 
     the enactment of this Act, be known and designated as the 
     ``Senator Johnny Isakson Department of Veterans Affairs 
     Atlanta Regional Office'' or the ``Isakson VA Atlanta 
     Regional Office''.
       (b) Reference.--Any reference in a law, regulation, map, 
     document, paper, or other record of the United States to the 
     Regional Office referred to in subsection (a) shall be deemed 
     to be a reference to the Senator Johnny Isakson Department of 
     Veterans Affairs Atlanta Regional Office.

  Mr. OSSOFF. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I am glad to join you and the other Senator 
from Georgia, Mr. Ossoff, here today and join both of you in sharing 
some thoughts about Senator Isakson.
  Senator Ossoff has already said a lot of things that are easily said. 
Not that they were easy for him to say, but anybody that knew Johnny 
Isakson would make many of those very same points and, hopefully, make 
them as well. I was glad to join him as the original cosponsor of this 
bill.
  Johnny and I served together in the House from 1999 until 2005. I was 
the majority whip during most of that time. And he was one of the half 
dozen deputies that really are key to getting things done. And Johnny 
Isakson liked to get things done.
  In 2005, he came over here to be in the Senate and brought that same 
determination to get things done, to find the place--wherever that 
place was--where something could happen. And he was a master at making 
things happen.
  When I joined him in the Senate in 2011, I was pleased to get a 
chance to serve alongside him again. He was a fast friend and a friend 
that you could count on. He knew how to bring people together. He did 
view, as Senator Ossoff said, people as his current friends or people 
who--the only reason they weren't his friend is they hadn't become his 
friends yet. And that is quite a way to approach life. And Johnny did 
it really well. I don't think there was anyone more respected by the 
other Members of the Senate than Senator Isakson was.
  In September of last year, I had the opportunity to join you, Mr. 
President, along with Senator Coons and Senator Graham, in hosting a 
bipartisan lunch that Johnny first started 13 years ago. I think we are 
going to do that again in September of this year. We have Democratic 
lunches, and we have Republican lunches. The Johnny Isakson lunch every 
year was the bipartisan lunch. And I think that is a great tradition to 
at least one more time do in honor of his service here and his 
friendship.
  He understood the value of sitting down over a cup of coffee or over 
a meal, of talking to one another, of finding the things you agree on, 
and then working together.
  And one thing I found here--and I think one of the ways I found it 
was watching what Johnny did--when a Democratic and Republican Senator 
find something to do together and get it done, invariably, they start 
looking for the next thing to do together. And their staffs start 
looking for the next thing their bosses can do together. And it is an 
infectious kind of thing that gets things done. And that was one of the 
great understandings of the legislative process that Johnny brought to 
the Senate.
  I think when Johnny was in the Georgia House, there were a handful of 
Republicans in the Georgia House when he got there. He told me he got 
to be minority leader pretty quickly--maybe it was because he didn't 
show up in the room that day before they could choose who their leader 
was going to be. But he understood what it took to bring things 
together. He liked to help people. He liked to get things done. He 
especially liked to get things done for his fellow veterans.
  Now, we are going to approach this veterans issue this week. And I am 
sure we are going to get it done. We just had a discussion about 
veterans and our commitments to veterans. But as chairman of the 
Veterans' Affairs Committee, Johnny really led efforts particularly to 
increase accountability at the VA. And there was an accountability 
problem at the VA that Johnny was intent on making sure we got to the 
bottom of it, to be sure that veterans received the care that they were 
entitled to and the benefits they had earned.
  Under his leadership, Congress also passed a MISSION Act, legislation 
that gave veterans real and permanent choice in their healthcare. This 
is something that particularly younger veterans care about. They want 
to go to the doctor that they want to go to. They want to go to a 
doctor close to home, or they want to still have the option, as they 
would have, to go to a veterans facility or be referred from that 
facility to another place where their care would be more easily 
available to them.
  But what veterans really want was the idea of having not just a pilot 
project on choice, which was the case

[[Page S3736]]

before Johnny Isakson as chairman decided, no, we are going to have a 
permanent process where veterans are going to have those choices in the 
future. And so here we have just passed legislation designed to 
designate the VA facility in Decatur, GA, the Senator Johnny Isakson 
Department of Veterans Affairs Atlanta Regional Office.
  I am certainly proud to join my colleagues today as we sought and 
received unanimous consent for this legislation to pass. I really can't 
think of a more fitting way today, as we talk about veterans, to honor 
Johnny's legacy than to have his name associated with an issue he cared 
deeply about.
  Another issue he and I cared about and worked closely on was health 
research and what was happening at the CDC. There will be a building--
the ground is being broken right now, as I understand it, for a 
building--at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta that will also be named 
for Johnny Isakson.
  Those are two very fitting areas of focus for what he did for the 
people in Georgia, what he did for veterans in Georgia, what he did for 
healthcare in Georgia, and what he did for all of those things as it 
related to the entire U.S.A. I am glad to see this legislation pass.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ossoff). The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. WARNOCK. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to honor a 
friend, our late Senator from Georgia, my predecessor, Senator Johnny 
Isakson, as we work across the aisle, just as he did, to rename the 
Department of Veterans Affairs Atlanta Regional Office in his honor.
  I thank my brother and fellow Senator from Georgia for leading this 
effort.
  Without a doubt, Senator Isakson loved Georgia, and he cared deeply 
for our country. He was a patriot, a public servant, and I am proud to 
say that there are members of my staff who used to work for Johnny 
Isakson. They will tell you that he never hesitated to show up.
  In my other job as a pastor, I talk often about the ministry of 
presence. Sometimes, it is not about what you say, because there are 
some situations, quite frankly, for which there are no adequate words. 
When someone has lost a loved one, and you are standing there at 
graveside or standing in a hospital at bedside with a patient, 
sometimes the issue is really showing up--the ministry of presence.
  Johnny Isakson had it. He knew how to show up. Whether it was paying 
a visit to an ill patient or seeing a disabled veteran, he was there. 
Senator Isakson, the consummate public servant, dedicated his years of 
service to our beloved Georgia, to veterans, to our families, and to 
our children.
  He always made it a point to show up at Ebenezer Baptist Church. 
Every year in January, as we celebrate Georgia's greatest son, the 
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Johnny Isakson, without fail, was 
always in the house. Now, to be sure, when the King holiday rolls 
around, politicians do tend to show up, but what was so impressive 
about Johnny Isakson is that, not only did he show up for the service, 
he stayed for the whole service--a service which, I will admit, is 
long, even by Baptist standards. He stayed there the whole time.
  He was unafraid to work across ideological and political differences 
in our State, in our country. I shall never forget his example of 
public service.
  We talked from time to time. In fact, it occurs to me that the first 
time I stood in this Chamber, I stood not as a Senator but as Chaplain 
of the day, and it was at Johnny Isakson's invitation. I remember his 
graciousness on that day and on so many occasions.
  When he announced his retirement, he called me and said: Raphael, I 
am retiring, and I want to drop by Ebenezer and say goodbye.
  When he came that Sunday, he asked the members of our church who are 
veterans to stand. As he looked across the audience and saw all the 
veterans who were in our church, he said: I want to leave a special 
offering for the veterans ministry in this church.
  That was Johnny Isakson.
  So I am thrilled that today, with great appreciation and admiration 
for Senator Johnny Isakson, our bipartisan legislation honors his life 
and his legacy by renaming the Department of Veterans Affairs Atlanta 
Regional Office in his honor, and I am thrilled that it has passed in 
the Senate in a bipartisan way with unanimous support.
  Isn't that fitting? Johnny Isakson is doing now in death what he did 
in life--bringing us together. And in this moment in which we are in a 
debate about what to do for our veterans, isn't it appropriate that his 
spirit summons us to common ground--and the higher ground--so that we 
can do all we can for those who have our back in dangerous places all 
over the globe.
  Senator Isakson cared deeply for Georgia's veterans and for veterans 
all across our country. He understood that there are some things bigger 
than politics. So we recognize his amazing service, his incredible 
legacy of life and self-sacrifice by renaming the Atlanta Regional 
Office of the Department of Veterans Affairs in his honor.
  I am proud to sit in the seat where he sat, and it is my honor to 
help lead the passage of this bipartisan piece of legislation that will 
help preserve the legacy of our late and dear friend.
  Long live the spirit of Johnny Isakson.

                          ____________________