[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 3, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S18-S19]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO MARCY KAPTUR

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, on the first day of the Senate, the 
Presiding Officer and I had the honor today of escorting the--I guess 
we call him a second-term Senator now from Georgia, Senator Warnock. He 
was elected once to a 2-year term, now to a 6-year term, and he chose 
Senator Kaine and me to walk him down the aisle, which is an honor that 
I consider a great honor. I think my friend from Virginia does too. And 
I know he can't respond sitting in the Presiding Officer's chair, so a 
nod would be good enough. Thank you.
  I rise today to recognize and honor my long, longtime friend, fellow 
Ohioan colleague, Representative Marcy Kaptur from Toledo.
  For 30 years, I have had the privilege of working alongside Marcy 
when I was a Member of the House and now representing Ohio as the 
senior Senator from the State. And for 40 years, Marcy has dedicated 
her life to serving the people of Toledo and Northwest Ohio. And, 
actually, her district--when one particularly egregious map of 
redistricting sent her all the way to Cleveland, she represented all 
along Lake Erie there and did it so well.
  She is a passionate, principled advocate for the Ohioans whom she 
serves.
  Today--today, starting with whatever bedlam is happening straight 
down the hall in the House of Representatives, today Marcy Kaptur is 
beginning the first day of her 41st year in the Congress.
  No woman in the history of this country has served in the House or 
the Senate or the House and Senate combined more than 40 years. I 
believe Barbara Mikulski, who we saw earlier today, House Member for 
years--House Member, I believe, 10 years; Senator for 30 years--she 
escorted Senator Van Hollen down the aisle today, along with Senator 
Cardin. She--Marcy--broke the record of those 40 years that Senator 
Mikulski served.
  Marcy is the granddaughter of Polish immigrants. She comes from a 
working-class, Catholic family. Her father was a trucker and an 
autoworker, small businessman. Her mother worked at the Champion spark 
plug factory, which--of course she did--she helped organize workers to 
form a union.
  Marcy's story echoes that of so many of her generation. Her parents 
worked hard and, with the help of that union card, earned their way to 
a better life for their children.
  Marcy was the first in her family to graduate from high school, then 
the first in her family to graduate from college. Marcy Kaptur never 
forgot those roots, from her work for Ohio's Polish and Ukrainian 
communities to her championing of all Ohio workers--blue-collar, white-
collar, African-American, Latino, Asian--workers, regardless whether 
they punched a clock or swiped a badge or worked for tips.
  Unemployment reached almost 20 percent in Toledo in the early 
eighties when she first ran for office. She said this:

       [It was] the condition of working people that drove me to 
     change my life and run for office.

  She has lived up to that ideal, fighting for working families in 
Ohio. Every day she has served in Congress, she stood up for Americans. 
She stood up to corporate interests over and over through her whole 
career.
  Marcy and I worked together--my first year in the House; her, I 
believe, 11th year in the House--fighting against the North American 
Free Trade Agreement because we knew it would cause job loss across 
Ohio and around this country. Unfortunately, time has proved that 
right. And since then, as Marcy and I have fought trade deal after bad 
trade deal after bad trade deal, she has been an ally, a leader in that 
fight for a trade policy that puts workers first--not corporate 
interests, not stock portfolios, not rich people first--put workers and 
small businesses first.
  That fight has paid off. This year, with a new President and a new 
Senate; we passed the CHIPS Act; we passed the Inflation Reduction Act; 
we passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. We passed the 
strongest buy-America language ever in Federal legislation, bringing 
supply chains home, creating an economy that puts American workers, 
American jobs, American production first. It is Intel in Columbus; it 
is First Solar in Wood County, up Marcy's way.
  We worked together to protect Ohio's greatest natural resource, Lake 
Erie. Our economy couldn't function without it.
  My favorite piece of trivia about Lake Erie--five Great Lakes, Lake 
Erie is the smallest, the shallowest. The shallowest is 30 feet in the 
western basin. Of all the Great Lakes, Lake Erie has 2 percent of the 
water but 50 percent of the fish. Lake Superior has 50 percent of the 
water and 2 percent of the fish. That is why keeping Lake Erie is so 
important to my State, so important to the environment, so important to 
marine life and all that suggests.
  Marcy has been a leader in veterans' issues too. She wrote and 
introduced the legislation designating the World War II Memorial, and I 
am grateful for all she has done for veterans. She has been a real role 
model for a lot of us.
  Over the summer, we passed the PACT Act to ensure that veterans 
exposed to toxic substances, those football field-sized burn pits--
especially in Iraq and Afghanistan--that so many soldiers, so many of 
our service men and women were exposed to--we passed the PACT Act so 
they will get the kind of coverage they need. Marcy Kaptur was there 
for that.
  A few weeks ago, we announced the restoration of the pensions of 
hundreds of Toledo union roofers made possible by our Butch Lewis Act. 
It took years of fighting; we got it done. Now hundreds of thousands--
literally a million

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workers around the country--100,000 in Ohio--can breathe easier knowing 
the pensions they were promised, they earned at the bargaining table--
they gave up wages today so that they could put money aside for those 
pensions--that those pensions are protected.
  We secured more than $180 million in funding for Ohio to make a 
difference for communities across Ohio.
  She has gone to bat time and again for the American auto industry. 
Never bet against American workers and the American auto industry. That 
is what Marcy is all about.
  And look how that fight pays off. We make Ohio workers the future of 
the auto industry. GM's recent investment in Toledo, Honda's investment 
near Columbus--none would have been possible without Marcy. That 
scrappy, fighting spirit is one of the qualities I love most about my 
State, the workers in my State. You see it in abundance in 
Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur. No one fights harder for Northwest Ohio--no 
one.
  You can see the love and respect folks have for Marcy everywhere you 
go. I remember going to a rally in Toledo for President Obama. People 
were excited to see him. I guess a few people may have noticed I was 
there too; but what I really noticed was when Marcy walked in, someone 
screamed ``Marcy,'' and it was pandemonium. Everyone got to their feet 
like a rock star had just taken the stage, because in Toledo, she is a 
rock star. She is a fighter for the people of my State. She is a 
fighter for women in her district, in Congress, and all over the 
country.

  When she first joined the House--think back to this--there were fewer 
than two dozen women serving in Congress just 40 years ago. She helped 
blaze a trail for so many women, even told the stories of the women who 
paved the way in her book: Women of Congress, a 20th Century Odyssey. 
Frankly, not a very long book when she wrote it. It would be an 
increasingly expansive volume today.
  Having Marcy in Congress matters for so many reasons. It matters for 
the perspective she brings, especially as the daughter of working-class 
parents in our industrial heartland.
  It matters for little girls in Toledo, who, for 40 years, have looked 
at pictures of their Representative in the local news and not seen 
another guy in a suit but someone who looks more like them, someone 
they could grow up to be.
  To Marcy Kaptur--I know she is still sitting in the House as they are 
trying to elect a Speaker. I don't pretend to understand the 
complexities of that, but as she does that, I just say: Marcy, thank 
you for your service to Ohio. Thank you for your service to workers. I 
hope we get to keep working with you for years into the future.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown). The Senator from Virginia.

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