[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Pages 24159-24160]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTES TO RETIRING SENATORS

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, obviously, in the brief time here I am not 
going to be able to say everything that comes to mind about the 
Senators who are retiring but to summarize a little bit of the 
information for the benefit of those who might be watching.
  When you have long, distinguished careers of Senators and they decide 
not to run for reelection but leave the body, there is a lot that comes 
to mind about their service. I think it is good to remind ourselves of 
just a few of these things because of the service they have provided, 
both to the people of their own States and to the United States.


                              Don Nickles

  Starting, for example, with our colleague from Oklahoma, Don Nickles, 
he served both in the leadership of the Senate Republican Conference as 
well as chairman of the Budget Committee. The last 2 years of his time, 
during his chairmanship of that committee, he was deeply involved on 
behalf of taxpayers in saving literally hundreds of billions of dollars 
in taxpayer money that might otherwise have been spent but for his hard 
work in ensuring that we had the procedural mechanisms in place to 
object to excess spending.
  Second, ensuring that taxpayers could keep more of their money. 
Helping to get passed significant tax reform, especially during the 
first term of President Bush, the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts in particular, 
coupled with the tax cuts of this past year, has meant substantial 
savings for all American taxpayers.
  The marginal rate reductions accelerated in 2003, and the reduction 
in capital gains and dividend tax rates, have been a substantial reason 
that the economy has moved forward as quickly as it has.
  Senator Don Nickles was significantly involved in every one of those,

[[Page 24160]]

and his leadership in tax policy is going to be sorely missed when he 
leaves the Senate.
  He got his start in Nickles Machinery back in Ponca City, OK, and he 
understood early on the lessons of how Government involvement in 
business could make it much more difficult to not only grow a business 
but to employ people and to contribute to the economy. It is one of the 
reasons, when his father passed away, that he began to understand how 
the estate tax can act in a pernicious way on American families when 
his business had to actually sell off part of its equity in order to 
pay the estate tax, to make it more difficult for them to stay in 
business, to employ the people they did, and do the work they did. He 
understood, therefore, from practical experience why we needed to 
reform the Tax Code, and he was instrumental in the reformation of the 
estate tax as well with the spouses' deduction, which was largely his 
work.
  There is so much more one could say about the efforts of Senator Don 
Nickles. He is a great friend of all of us. In addition to being very 
focused on getting the work done, he always managed to do so with a 
smile on his face and a slap on the back in a way that made it hard for 
people to disagree with him even when they didn't particularly follow 
his legislative agenda.
  Don Nickles will be very much missed in the Senate. He leaves, even 
after 24 years, at such a young age that he will be in Washington and 
around this country in a way to continue to have interaction with us. 
We all cherish that because of our friendship with Don Nickles.
  It is bittersweet that Don will be leaving the Senate, but we know 
after his significant contributions to this country he certainly 
deserves an opportunity to move on.


                    Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I wish to say a word about another of our 
colleagues, Ben Nighthorse Campbell. Senator Campbell and I served 
together in the House of Representatives. He is unique in the history 
of the Senate. He is a Native American who came first to the House and 
then to the Senate. He represents the people of the State of Colorado, 
as does the Presiding Officer, with distinction. He is a real man of 
the people. He is a jeweler, a motorcycle enthusiast, a real athlete--
an Olympian, as a matter of fact, in judo. He is a man whose interests 
are extensive beyond the kind of humdrum interests sometimes we in the 
Senate focus on. He brought a lot of spirit and a lot of light to this 
body. I know Ben will be missed by every one of us as well.


                        Senator Peter Fitzgerald

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, my colleague Peter Fitzgerald from Illinois 
is an extraordinarily smart and focused individual who came to the 
Senate to represent his State of Illinois and did so with great 
passion, enthusiasm, and courage, in some cases, when he had to stand 
against a lot of other Members who were attempting to act in ways he 
felt were inimical to the interests of his State.
  Peter Fitzgerald, though here only one term, I think will be 
remembered as a great Senator from the State of Illinois and certainly 
a colleague I will miss personally.


                          Senator Zell Miller

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, let me mention our colleague Zell Miller. 
Zell Miller is another person who will be in the history books of this 
body because of his passion and because of his unique character as 
well. He is probably best exemplified by one of the books he has 
written called ``Corps Values,'' obviously a reference to the U.S. 
Marine Corps, in which he describes how a lot of the values that have 
animated the course of his career and the values he has held dear 
throughout the rest of his life came from his training as a marine and 
from his drill sergeant whom he describes so vividly in the book as 
having almost literally pounded some very important lessons of life 
into Zell's head at a very young age--lessons that he took away to 
apply throughout the rest of his life and which have stood him in very 
good stead throughout his career.
  He has represented the people of his State of Georgia with passion 
and with great capability, not only as Governor but then to come to the 
Senate. He has certainly been a friend of people on both sides of the 
aisle. He is a Democrat, but he still, of course, has many friends here 
on the Republican side of the aisle.
  I can't think of Zell without thinking of some of the more humorous 
things he has done as well because despite his passion and enthusiasm, 
he also has a very good sense of humor. I remember one case in 
particular when he and Phil Gramm from Texas, who has left the Senate, 
teamed up to offer an amendment which had no chance of passing. There 
was no real rationale for it. It was an amendment to exempt pickup 
trucks from the mileage standards we were going to apply to all other 
vehicles in the Energy bill, but they thought there was something kind 
of un-American about having these standards applied to pickup trunks. 
The two of them offered the amendment.
  During the course of the debate, more and more people came over here 
to listen to them. Their case made such great sense that one by one the 
Senators began to think maybe this is an amendment that ought to pass. 
At the end of the day, when they pointed out that, after all, there was 
no other place to haul your coon dogs when you are going to hunt, or 
have the rack for your gun, and all of the other things they pointed 
out what a pickup is for, and no other vehicle could do that job, the 
Senate finally, I think on a voice vote, acquiesced in their amendment. 
Because, after all, it made sense when Zell Miller and Phil Gramm 
argued that pickup trucks should be exempted from that standard, we 
exempted pickup trucks from that standard.
  In other words, they knew how to have fun with the seriousness of 
this body to point out some of the commonsense things most Americans 
believe and we sometimes forget here in this body.
  He is a man of great common sense, a man of the people who loves 
America greatly, and who certainly inspired me, Senator Zell Miller 
from Georgia.
  These are only four of the colleagues who are going to be leaving us 
at the end of this session. These are Senators whom I became 
particularly close to. I wanted to say a word about each one of them, 
to wish them all the very best, bid them farewell, also to know they 
have too many friends around here to ignore. And we are going to be 
staying in touch with every one of them.
  We thank them for their service to the people of their States, to the 
Senate, and to the people of the United States of America.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.

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