[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 25938-25939]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO SENATOR JOHN EDWARDS

  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, in 1998, John Edwards was elected to the 
U.S. Senate from his home State of North Carolina to fill the seat once 
held by Senator Sam Ervin. He had never before run for, or served in, 
public office. From the time he received his law degree in 1977 until 
he entered the Senate, he was an attorney in private practice. For two 
decades John represented in court North Carolinians who had been 
grievously injured or disabled and had no one to speak up for them. He 
quickly made the transition from the courtroom to the Senate Chamber, 
however, because in both he has been guided by the same unwavering 
principle: putting to work his formidable talents and energy, along 
with his training, on behalf of ``the people I grew up with.''
  John Edwards grew up in Robbins, NC. Robbins was a mill town. John's 
father spent nearly four decades working in textile mills; his mother 
worked in a number of jobs as well. As David Broder once put it, his 
parents and their friends and coworkers were people who ``earn their 
bread by the sweat of their brow.''
  John was the first person in his family to go to college. For the 
millions of Americans who were the first in the family to receive a 
college education--and I count myself among them--this has very special 
meaning. He worked his way through school in 3 years, finding summer 
jobs in the mills. He went on to study law at the University of North 
Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of

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the Nation's ranking law schools, and there he met, and soon married, a 
fellow student, Elizabeth Anania. In his book, ``Four Trials,'' which 
was published just this year, John pays tribute to the men and women 
who have played some part in his life, but none is more moving than his 
richly deserved tribute to Elizabeth: ``I have spent many years trying 
to live up to what she believed I could be, and I am the better for 
it.''
  In the 108th Congress, John served on the Health, Education, Labor, 
and Pensions Committee; the Judiciary Committee; the Small Business 
Committee; and the Intelligence Committee--and also for a while on the 
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, where we first had an 
opportunity to work together. These are formidable, wide-ranging 
jurisdictions. In every assignment he undertook, John fought for 
policies, as he has put it, that ``reward work--not just wealth, work--
and (to) ensure that the American dream stays alive and available to 
every single American, no matter where they live or who their family is 
or what the color of their skin.''
  Together with the senior Senator from Massachusetts and the senior 
Senator from Arizona, John Edwards led the successful effort in the 
Senate to pass landmark patients' rights legislation, only to see the 
bill falter in the face of implacable opposition from the White House. 
John has been a forceful advocate for the thousands of North 
Carolinians, and indeed Americans, who ``did everything right,'' but 
were still powerless to prevent their jobs from being swept overseas.
  When the 109th Congress convenes in January, John Edwards will no 
longer represent his beloved State of North Carolina in the U.S. 
Senate. He will be home in the State he loves--``the place that made me 
love America to begin with''--with the family he loves so dearly. 
Whether in the Nation's Capital or in North Carolina, however, we know 
that John will continue to do what he has always done so well, fighting 
``for those who do not have a voice, to make sure that ``no one--no 
one--is lost in America, that that dream is everlasting.'' He will be 
sorely missed in this Chamber.

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