[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Pages 26658-26659]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                    IN HONOR OF SENATOR JOHN CHAFEE

  Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, I just returned. I was down-State when I 
heard the news of John Chafee's passing. I felt compelled to come to 
the floor for just a very brief minute and say that, in my judgment, 
John Chafee was as decent a human being as any individual I have 
encountered in public service.
  He was a personal friend during the time he was here in Washington. 
We happened to attend the same church in northern Virginia. We happened 
to have worn the same uniform of the U.S. Marine Corps in service to 
our country. But most of the time I spent with John Chafee was right 
here in the Capitol frequently in his hideaway. I spent more time in 
that particular hideaway than I did in my own office, or any other 
Senator's hideaway in the Capitol, meeting with a bipartisan group of 
Senators from both sides of the aisle trying to make the system work.
  John Chafee was an extraordinary human being in many ways. But he 
understood the need for bipartisanship if this institution were to 
accomplish the goals which the American people expect us to accomplish. 
And it was always at the call of John Chafee that we would gather and 
try to see if we couldn't find some common ground upon which the Senate 
could at least offer an alternative to the occasional gridlock into 
which we have occasionally found ourselves forced by the process or 
other agendas.
  It was never with any rancor that he disagreed with anyone, whether 
it be someone on his own side of the aisle or someone on this side of 
the aisle. He was always a voice of reason, always a voice of 
bipartisanship, always someone wanting to make the system work

[[Page 26659]]

and committed to the goals for which he was elected to this particular 
institution by the people of Rhode Island.
  Mr. President, I have no prepared remarks. I could not pass up this 
opportunity to express my own profound sense of loss of someone who was 
far more special, I suspect, to this institution than many of those who 
do not or have not had the privilege of serving in it may realize, and 
whose loss we may feel in ways that many of its Members have not fully 
come to grips with at this particular point.
  John Chafee was one of those extraordinary individuals with whom I 
was very proud to serve and call a friend.

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