[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 142 (Tuesday, September 6, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4436-S4437]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

                                 ______
                                 

                      TRIBUTE TO GEORGE C. EDWARDS

 Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate my 
dear friend State Senator George C. Edwards, who is retiring from the 
Maryland General Assembly at the end of this year, and to thank him for 
a half-century of principled and productive public service to the 
people of Maryland, especially his constituents in what we call 
Mountain Maryland: Garrett, Allegany, and Washington Counties.
  George was born in Grantsville, MD, and graduated from Northern 
Garrett High School in Accident, MD. He received his bachelor of 
science in business administration, cum laude, from Fairmont State 
College in West Virginia in 1970. He was the starting fullback on the 
football team there and earned National Association of Intercollegiate 
Athletics All-American honors. Despite playing at a small school, he 
was good enough that the Baltimore Colts drafted him. George wanted to 
be a teacher, however, and later attended what was then Frostburg State 
College to receive his teacher's certificate so he could teach social 
studies at his old high school.
  I met George when he won his first election to the Maryland House of 
Delegates in 1982, where I was serving as speaker of the house. Even 
though he was only 33, he was already a seasoned elected official with 
a decade of experience on the Grantsville Town Council and the Garrett 
County Board of County Commissioners. He also served in the National 
Guard for 6 years after he graduated from college,
  George served with distinction in the house of delegates for 24 
years, finishing his tenure there as minority leader from 2003 to 2007, 
when he won election to the State senate, where he has served for the 
past 16 years. George won 4 of his 10 elections to the general assembly 
with 100 percent of the vote and another 3 with 98 percent or more of 
the vote. He and Delegate Sandy Rosenberg are the deans of the Maryland 
General Assembly; each of them started their service in 1983.
  George delivered a farewell address to the State senate that reflects 
the type of person he is, a statement filled with self-deprecating wit, 
congeniality, and a gentleness too rare in politics. He said that his 
first task in Annapolis was to educate his fellow lawmakers that 
Allegany County isn't spelled with an H, that Maryland's longest border 
is with West Virginia, and that western Marylanders speak in a 
particularly folksy way. ``You speak slow and you m-m-m mumble a little 
bit,'' he said. He also noted that when he joined the general assembly, 
there were only 13 Republicans serving in the house of delegates and 7 
in the State senate. ``I can count,'' he said he remembered thinking. 
``I said, hmm, I need to make some friends. And I need to make some 
friends on [the Democratic] side of the aisle. And I think I've done 
that.'' George certainly has made friends on the Democratic side of the 
aisle, and I am proud to be one of them.
  In an op-ed in the New York Times several years ago, Michael 
Ignatieff wrote:

       For democracies to work, politicians need to respect the 
     difference between an enemy and an adversary.
       An adversary is someone you want to defeat. An enemy is 
     someone you have to destroy. With adversaries, compromise is 
     honorable: Today's adversary could be tomorrow's ally. With 
     enemies, on the other hand, compromise is appeasement.
       Between adversaries, trust is possible. They will beat you 
     if they can, but they will accept the verdict of a fair 
     fight. This, and a willingness to play by the rules, is what 
     good-faith democracy demands.

  George understands this crucial distinction between adversary and 
enemy and has acted according to this principle throughout his entire 
career, which is why even his adversaries are his friends. It is why he 
has served as cochair of the general assembly's joint committee on 
legislative ethics, making him the only Republican in leadership in the 
legislature. It is why he has been such an effective representative for 
his constituents in western Maryland. It has been a challenge because, 
as George has noted, ``A lot of people where I live don't think people 
in other parts of Maryland think we're in Maryland.'' As Maryland State 
Senate President Bill Ferguson said, George has ``made sure every 
senator understood the needs of his district and always approached 
negotiations from a standpoint of getting to a resolution, not to 
obstruct.'' Senate Majority Leader Nancy J. King, a former chair of the 
budget and taxation committee, summed it up when she said, ``You can't 
say no to George because he's such a nice guy.''
  In 1946, Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher famously quipped, 
``Nice guys finish last.'' Durocher never met George, who has always 
come in first by putting his constituents first. Being nice is not the 
same as being obsequious. George is a true conservative, a rarity in 
today's politics. He and I have different points of view on some major 
issues like gun safety and government regulation, but that has never 
stopped us from working as a team on behalf of his and my constituents.
  We have worked together to support and expand Federal-State 
partnerships such as the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Economic 
Development Administration, Community Development Block Grants, and the 
Department of Agriculture's Rural Development Program. We have worked 
together to secure funding from Maryland and Pennsylvania and the 
Federal

[[Page S4437]]

Government to complete the North-South Appalachian Highway initiative 
connecting I-68 to the Pennsylvania Turnpike via US-219. We have worked 
together to expand rural healthcare access and opportunities through 
federally qualified community health centers, regional hospitals, and 
other Federal partnerships in the region. We have worked together to 
support higher education and workforce development programs through 
Frostburg State University, the Western Maryland Consortium, and the 
region's three community colleges.
  We have collaborated to provide State and Federal grant training for 
local emergency management and first responders to ensure they have the 
resources they need to protect their communities. We have collaborated 
to ensure that small businesses have access to State and Federal 
resources to grow their businesses. We have collaborated on casework 
for our constituents with State and Federal agencies related to 
healthcare, veterans' benefits, housing, banking and taxes, passports, 
and other issues.
  George's legislative accomplishments are too numerous to list, so I 
will mention just a few. He fought to alter a State revenue formula to 
provide additional funding to counties, such as Garrett and Allegany, 
where the State owns 15 percent or more of the land. He secured changes 
to Maryland's Program Open Space, a land acquisition and recreation 
program, to give Garrett and Allegany Counties the flexibility they 
need to use the program without impeding economic development. He 
increased Allegany County's share of revenue from the Rocky Gap Casino 
Resort and increased the county's flexibility with respect to how it 
can spend that revenue. He succeeded in increasing the speed limit on 
parts of I-68 to 70 miles per hour, which is understandable considering 
that his Senate district--district 1--stretches 125 miles from Red 
House at the far western end of the State to Williamsport in Washington 
County. Earlier this year, Governor Hogan signed into law a bill George 
sponsored to establish the Western Maryland Economic Future Investment 
Board and Senator George C. Edwards Fund to provide $50 million over 
the next 3 years in State grants and loans for capital infrastructure 
and business development projects in the region. Of course, George is 
far too modest to suggest naming something after himself; his 
colleagues voted unanimously to amend the bill to be named in his 
honor.
  When George announced his retirement, he noted that he had spent the 
equivalent of 10 years in Annapolis, away from his family. So I would 
be remiss if I failed to mention Linda, his beloved wife of 55 years, 
and their two children, Kristin and Paul. Paul has followed in his 
father's footsteps and serves as chair of the Garrett County Board of 
County Commissioners. All Marylanders, but especially his district 1 
constituents, owe a debt of gratitude to his family for sharing him 
with the public. He and Linda are the proud grandparents of eight 
children, and I certainly understand his desire, after half a century 
of public service, to spend more time with his family.
  In Shakespeare's play ``Hamlet,'' Polonius counsels his son Laertes, 
``This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the 
night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.'' This 
describes George Edwards and his life of public service. He has been 
true to himself and never false to his colleagues or to his 
constituents. I am honored to count George as a friend and want, on 
behalf of the entire U.S. Senate, to extend my congratulations and 
deepest appreciation to him and wish him and Linda and their family all 
the best as he returns home to Mountain Maryland.

                          ____________________