[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 25178-25179]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         FAREWELL TO THE HOUSE

  (Mr. TAUZIN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, today I cast my last vote in this august 
Chamber, and today I spend my last day with my colleagues here with 
nearly 25 years of service on behalf of the third congressional 
district and the great people who live there in Louisiana, and I wanted 
to take a minute to say good-bye and to say a few words of thanks.
  First, I want to thank the good Lord for giving me this week. Were it 
not for this lame duck session following a year of illness with cancer, 
I might not have had the chance to come back and spend this week with 
you where I could renew friendships and thank all of you on a personal 
level for the many acts of kindness and the extraordinary times we have 
had together over the last 25 years.
  Secondly, I want to thank all of you on both sides of the aisle for 
the amazing amounts of friendship.

                              {time}  1615

  One of our esteemed colleagues who we lost to a brain tumor, Mr. Mike 
Sarne of Oklahoma, one of my dearest friends, once said the only reason 
he kept running for reelection was the immense honor and privilege of 
serving with such an amazing group of men and women who come to this 
great capital and serve their country and their individual districts 
and the honor and

[[Page 25179]]

privilege of getting to know them and to work side by side with them, 
and I feel that today after this nearly 25-year term of service.
  I have served the people of the 3rd district of Louisiana longer than 
any other Congressman has served, and I have that enormous privilege, 
and I want to thank them in Louisiana who have shown such patience and 
such amazing amount of tolerance to put up with the likes of me for the 
last 25 years.
  I have served them 15 years as a Democrat and almost 10 years now as 
a Republican. I do not know if any other district in America would 
tolerate a Congressman making those sorts of shifts and turns in a 
political career as well as the folks in Louisiana have tolerated me, 
but it has given me some insight, and I want to quickly share them with 
my colleagues.
  Like few people in this Chamber, I have come to know the Members of 
this side of the aisle for over 15 years, not as partisan enemies, but 
as friends; and I have come to know now the people on this side of the 
aisle for the last 10 years, not as partisan enemies but as friends. I 
wish that all of my colleagues had that opportunity in this House. I 
wish they could somehow cross this aisle and get to know one another 
the way we used to know one another in this Chamber.
  The politics and personal attacks and personal destruction have 
almost taken hold in this place in a way that we cannot reverse it, and 
we need to reverse it soon if this Nation and this institution are to 
survive.
  This institution is a place for diversity, for great clashes of 
ideas, for great principles to come together and in a great crush of 
public debate so that it might redefine itself on a regular basis. It 
is not a place we ought to be constantly attacking each other and 
questioning one another's motives, but we have somehow gotten there.
  I plead with my colleagues as I leave this place, this place that has 
been so important to me and the folks of Louisiana who have put their 
faith and trust in me in the last 25 years, please end this system and 
go back to a time and place where we can begin debating one another and 
recognizing we all come over here as patriots, as Americans first and 
as party members second.
  I leave with a great fondness for my colleagues, a great amount of 
appreciation for all the days I have spent with you, and I want to say 
a fond farewell on behalf of the 650,000 people of Louisiana who have 
allowed me the chance to work with you. I want to wish you well in the 
upcoming sessions. I will try to be in touch and to stay close to you 
as we go forward. You have made for me a home in this Chamber that I 
shall not forget, and you have given me a most extraordinary honor and 
privilege of being a part of the greatest democratic institution on the 
face of the Earth, and I thank you for that and bid you farewell.

                          ____________________