[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 199 (Wednesday, December 21, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9774-S9775]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


     
     
                               TRIBUTE TO BOB STOLL
     
        Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, today I would like to 
     recognize Robert Stoll, a dear friend, brilliant legal mind, and a 
     steadfast champion for the people of Oregon who just celebrated his 
     80th birthday on December 16, 2022. Adlai Stevenson once said, ``It is 
     not the years in your life but the life in your years.'' Well, Bob has 
     certainly crammed a lot of life into his 80 years on this planet.
       A dabbler in journalism as a publisher of the University of Wisconsin
     
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     (Madison) student newspaper, Bob got a firsthand view of history on a 
     summer trip to Europe in 1963. After embracing the brazen courage of 
     youth to request press credentials from Press Secretary Pierre 
     Salinger, he got to stand 20 feet behind John F. Kennedy as the 
     President declared to Germany and the world ``Ich bin ein Berliner,'' 
     no doubt sparking a lifelong passion for Democratic politics.
       A world traveler, Bob adores spending time in Rome, Italy--his second 
     favorite city behind Portland. On their first trip to the city back in 
     1983, Bob's wife Barre became so ill, she had to undergo emergency 
     surgery. Spending time in that Roman hospital, surrounded by the 
     constant traffic of generous and caring visitors, the two fell in love 
     with the city and the Italian people, wanting to spend as much time 
     there as they could.
       A self-described ``frustrated architect,'' Bob has been involved in 
     renovating and restoring a number of historic buildings around 
     Portland, including the former Portland police headquarters that was 
     originally built in 1912 and which is where the law firm he founded 
     more than 40 years ago, Stoll Berne, can be found.
       It is through that firm that Bob has worked tirelessly, over the 
     course of his long and distinguished legal career, to help others. He 
     has tried over 150 cases--both jury and nonjury cases--in State and 
     Federal courts that cover nearly the entire gamut of criminal and civil 
     law.
       But the majority of Bob's cases were focused on large complex 
     financial litigation like securities, antitrust, and class actions in 
     which he fought time and again on behalf of small investors and the 
     less fortunate. All you have to do is look at the class-action suit 
     against Exxon Mobile Corp after the 1989 grounding of the Exxon Valdez 
     supertanker in Alaska's Prince William Sound that resulted in an 11-
     million-gallon oil spill. Bob led the Oregon State trial team and 
     served on the committee that organized suits filed by more than 32,000 
     plaintiffs like small business and fisherman effected by the spill.
       Bob also stood up for residents of the Fairview Hospital and Training 
     Center when the hospital ignored a statute to continue 
     institutionalizing patients past the age of 18 without reason. He also 
     took up the case of State hospital patients who were left with no 
     financial resources upon release, after the State laid claim to all 
     their Social Security benefits. A former associate justice of Oregon's 
     State supreme court once described Bob in a news article as ``a well-
     grounded, common-sensical legal expert, to the point where people as 
     high up in our system as the governor seek him out for personal counsel 
     on complicated legal issues and political matters.''
       And, as the long-time vice chair of Oregon's Democratic Party who got 
     his start in politics running Lyndon Johnson's 1964 Presidential 
     campaign in the State, Bob has indeed been an incredible source of 
     political counsel and leadership to so many. Among his many 
     achievements on behalf of the Democratic Party is launch of the 
     informal Oregon Progressives group that transformed Oregon politics by 
     building out civic engagement infrastructure like robust voter files 
     and supported new organizations that brought stakeholders together 
     around a shared agenda, especially on things like ballot measures.
       But Bob's contributions to our State and to our country have gone far 
     beyond his legal career and his political work. A strong believer in 
     giving back to the community, Bob has regularly provided legal services 
     to poor and minority communities, helped mentor ``at risk'' children, 
     and served on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's first Consumer 
     Advisory Board, where he championed ordinary Americans dealing with the 
     powerful financial services industry.
       On top of all that, he has also poured himself into the work of 
     finding solutions to the homeless crisis that has plagued our State, 
     especially Portland. He has helped raise the financing for the 
     construction of temporary transition shelters, like Harbor for Hope's 
     River District Navigation Center under the Broadway Bridge, and 
     inspired Portland State University's Homelessness Research and Action 
     Collaborative to conduct a far more accurate and in-depth report on the 
     scale of the homelessness crisis over a single year. Bob's most visible 
     work in this area, though, is as a board member of Here Together, a 
     coalition of service providers, business leaders, elected officials, 
     leaders from communities of color and faith, and community advocates 
     who all refuse to believe that homelessness in our community is an 
     unsolvable problem. In this role, Bob helped craft and pass a regional 
     supportive housing services ballot measure which targets the root 
     causes of the problem through a dedicated funding source to pay for 
     mental health, addiction and recovery services, case management, 
     housing supports, and other proven solutions to the complex challenge 
     of chronic homelessness.
       The website for his firm, Stoll Berne, has this to say about Bob: 
     ``If our lives are only half as full as Robert's has been, we will all 
     feel as though we have lived a life and a half.'' As we look back on 
     and celebrate Bob Stoll's 80th birthday, I cannot think of anything 
     more fitting to describe this great legal and political son of the 
     Beaver State. And I join all those who have paid tribute and have sent 
     their affections and best wishes in honor of this special 
     occasion.
     
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