[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14810-14811]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                TRIBUTE TO SENATOR KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I want to take a few moments to say some 
words in tribute to the senior Senator from Texas, one who this week 
marks her tenth anniversary as a Member of this august body, Senator 
Kay Bailey Hutchison.
  Senator Hutchison is a wonderful spouse to her husband, Ray; a 
wonderful mother to her children, Bailey and Houston; an excellent 
Senator; and a great Texan. I am enormously grateful to be able to work 
alongside of a woman of her vision, a woman of her energy, and someone 
who represents the very best of the State of Texas.
  After 10 years in the Senate, Senator Hutchison has shown herself to 
be a great leader in so many different ways. She has devoted herself to 
our national security. She has dedicated herself to preserving our 
homeland security. She has energetically sought legislation that will 
create jobs and greater opportunities for all Americans. She has worked 
hard to improve health care, not just for people in our State, the 
State of Texas, but for all Americans.
  All of us came here from our various States to serve those States, 
but we also came here to serve this great Nation. Senator Hutchison 
came here, in addition, to make a difference, to work to find solutions 
to the complex problems of modern society, to attain real and lasting 
change for the good. She has succeeded in brilliant fashion.
  President Ronald Reagan once said:

       We have been blessed with the opportunity to stand for 
     something, for liberty and freedom and fairness, and these 
     are things worth fighting for, worth devoting our lives to.

  Senator Hutchison has devoted her life to these very values. Her life 
serves as an example to us all, a life of patriotism, responsibility, 
dedication, and abundant friendship. She has been a leader in Texas and 
here in the Senate. It is lives like Senator Hutchison's that make me 
proud to say I am from the great State of Texas, and prouder still to 
call her my friend.
  Senator Hutchison, over these last 10 years in the Senate, has made 
Texas proud as she works hard for all Americans as a woman of great 
valor. I thank Senator Hutchison for her leadership, for her counsel, 
and for her steadfast service to the great State of Texas and to the 
United States of America.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I commend my colleague, Senator Cornyn, 
for his remarks. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has distinguished herself 
over these 10 years. It is very appropriate that her junior colleague 
bring that to the attention of the Senate. She is a Senator from our 
second largest State. She has been a pioneer in women's rights and 
advancement by women. When she began her career, as was true for our 
colleague from North Carolina, Senator Dole, not many legal jobs were 
available to women, much less positions in the Senate.
  She has achieved a lot. She is part of our leadership, and I am glad 
I was here to hear Senator Cornyn's remarks.
  I hope both Senators will permit me to comment on the fact that some 
of the best things in Texas come from Tennessee. A lot of Tennesseans 
went to Texas in the 1830s. One of Senator Hutchison's ancestors was 
Governor Hall, of Tennessee, just as Sam Houston was Governor of 
Tennessee before he was Governor and Senator from Texas. So Tennesseans 
take special pride in 10 years of service by someone we consider, if 
not our daughter, at least our cousin.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I thank my desk mate and member of the 
freshman class of 2002 in the Senate, Lamar Alexander, for his comments 
and his friendship and his great service, not only on behalf of 
Tennessee but on behalf of the Nation. He did make a very appropriate 
observation about the connection between the people of the State of 
Tennessee and Texas. Some have said many of the people who populated 
Texas were evading their creditors in Tennessee, which is one reason 
for their going to Texas in the first place, where they believed there 
would be great opportunity. With a land the size of Texas, with the 
opportunity to till the soil and take risks and perhaps reap the 
rewards of that risk, many people came from all over the United 
States--indeed, the world--to Texas.
  One great Tennessean--and I want to just make this comment while 
Senator Alexander is here--with whom I am proud to connect myself is 
Sam Houston, who was a distinguished figure in Tennessee before he came 
to Texas, then served as Governor, President of the Republic, and whose 
seat in the U.S. Senate I now hold. When Texas was annexed to the 
United States of America in 1845, Thomas Jefferson Rusk, a former 
member of the Texas Supreme Court at that time, and Sam Houston, came 
to Washington to represent the State of Texas.
  So I am proud to have that connection, another connection with the 
good people of Tennessee and with my friend Lamar Alexander, and to be 
connected through that lineage to that seat originally held by a great 
Tennessean, and we claim him as a great Texan, a great American still, 
Sam Houston.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, is the Senate in morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is in morning business.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of 
order for such time as I may consume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the Chair.

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