[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 11]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 14869-14870]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         A TRIBUTE TO AL DAVIS

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                          HON. XAVIER BECERRA

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 10, 2003

  Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to join with my 
colleagues and celebrate the life and mourn the untimely, tragic death 
Friday evening, May 30, of Albert J. Davis, Chief Democratic Economist 
of the House Ways and Means Committee.
  Let me express my deepest condolences to Al's longtime companion, 
Mary Beilefeld. While our words today cannot replace the loss felt by 
Mary, I hope it is somehow comforting that her loss is not only hers 
but is shared by the Members and staff of the House Committee on Ways 
and Means and by all inside and outside of this institution who had the 
privilege of working with Al.

[[Page 14870]]

  I never saw a day when Al did not possess an amiable and peaceful air 
about him. And when you got him talking, it was wonderful seeing this 
gentle man's passion for his work, for economic justice and fairness 
come pouring out, the passion that fueled his mind and body while he 
spent long hours in his Longworth office writing the reports and memos 
on which my colleagues and I on the House Ways and Means Committee 
relied.
  During the past several years, Al provided us with the most up-to-
date, readable, and, dare I say, entertaining analyses of budget and 
tax information available in Washington. There were many flights back 
to Los Angeles where a stack of Al's most recent memos written late the 
night before or bright and early that morning helped me pass the time 
and prepare for the committee or floor debates ahead.
  I have many fond remembrances of Al. For instance, there were the 
times when the two of us and perhaps John Buckley, his colleague on the 
Ways and Means Committee Democratic staff and accomplice in such 
matters, would sit behind the committee dais in 1100 Longworth and in 
an effort to liven things up a bit, devise a spirited line of 
questioning for a witness before the committee. Or other times when 
with only moments to spare, Al would come through with a quote, note, 
number, or other factoid from his encyclopedic memory or his always-
threatening-to-burst accordion file folder that was central to the 
argument I was preparing to make during a tax mark-up. But perhaps my 
fondest memories of Al will be the after-hours, informal banter in the 
hallways or whenever we would run into each other in which the 
thoughtful, comedic, and interesting character of this wonderful human 
being would shine.
  Mr. Speaker, Al Davis was a public servant in the best sense of the 
phrase. The work he did, whether it was writing memos, crunching 
numbers, or producing charts and graphs, was all with the goal of 
ensuring that the public was served well by its government. I will long 
remember Al and his contributions to the Ways and Means Committee and 
this House and I ask that my colleagues remember and honor his memory 
as well.

                          ____________________