[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Pages 23506-23507]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      HONORING SENATORIAL SERVICE


                             Paul Sarbanes

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, with the close of the 109th Congress, the 
Senate will lose to retirement one of our most seasoned and respected 
Members--Senator Paul Sarbanes of Maryland. Across five terms in this 
body and before that three terms in the House of Representatives, where 
I was privileged to serve with him also, Paul Sarbanes has made his 
mark as a serious and diligent legislator, a classic workhorse Senator 
rather than a showhorse Senator. The Baltimore Sun has called him the 
silver fox Senator who ``works quietly but with shrewd skillfulness.''
  I have always respected and admired Senator Sarbanes, both as a 
stalwart Democrat and also always a proud, unabashed progressive.
  As a young man, he graduated from Princeton and went on to Oxford as 
a Rhodes Scholar and then Harvard Law School. But he never forgot his 
experiences growing up among the families of Maryland's Eastern Shore. 
He never forgot his roots as the son of a Greek immigrant who worked 
long hours to build a successful restaurant business.
  In the Senate, Paul Sarbanes has been outspoken in his support for 
public schools, expanded access to higher education, to job training, 
and the other essential rungs on the ladder of economic opportunity in 
America.
  He has fought to protect Social Security, to clean up corruption in 
the business world. In the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals, 
Senator Sarbanes took the lead in crafting legislation to prevent the 
recurrence of the rampant accounting fraud that was destroying 
confidence in corporate America.
  In the early years of this past decade, in classic Sarbanes style--
methodically, thoughtfully, and minimum of partisanship--he held 10 
hearings on the issue in 2002, listening to all points of view. The 
result is known universally as the Sarbanes-Oxley law which cleaned up 
the accounting industry and mandated new disclosure and conflict-of-
interest reporting requirements on U.S. corporations.
  There are many reasons why Paul Sarbanes is the longest serving 
Senator in Maryland history. Throughout his career in this body, he has 
fought hard on issues of special importance to Maryland, including 
legislation to protect the Chesapeake Bay. But he has never lost touch 
with his roots among working people and the immigrant community.
  He has always been a model public servant, a person of enormous 
intellect, intelligence, integrity, and industry. For 30 years in the 
Senate, Paul Sarbanes has faithfully served the people of Maryland and 
the people of the United States, and there is no doubt he will pursue 
new avenues of public service in retirement.
  I will miss his friendship, I will miss his wise counsel in the 
Senate, but I wish Paul and also his wonderful wife Christine all the 
best in the years ahead.


                              Mark Dayton

  Mr. President, I would like to follow that up by expressing my 
respect and admiration for a longtime friend of mine, my neighbor to 
the north, so to speak, who is also retiring this year; that is, our 
Senator from Minnesota, Mark Dayton.
  Senator Dayton is a public servant in the purest sense of that term. 
He did not come to the Senate 6 years ago in search of status or 
celebrity or power for power's sake. He has never sought the spotlight. 
He came here for one reason: to serve the people of Minnesota and of 
the United States. He has done so in a diligent, consistent, and 
selfless manner.
  I especially appreciate the way Senator Dayton has followed in the 
progressive tradition of Minnesota's great Senators, Hubert Humphrey, 
Gene McCarthy, Chris Mondale, and Paul Wellstone. On issue after issue, 
he has fought for working people and their families, for seniors, and 
for the least fortunate among us. To take just one case in point, no 
Senator has been

[[Page 23507]]

more persistent and eloquent in fighting to allow seniors to purchase 
prescription drugs in Canada where pharmaceuticals are oftentimes less 
expensive. He has donated his entire Senate salary to the Minnesota 
Senior Federation to help finance trips on the ``Prescription Express'' 
to purchase cheaper drugs in Canada, and he has gone to bat for seniors 
when they were harassed by border agents upon their return.
  To his everlasting credit, Senator Dayton voted against a resolution 
effectively authorizing the war in Iraq. He spoke out passionately 
against the dangers of launching that war. He has used his seat on the 
Armed Services Committee to take the administration to task for its 
multiple mistakes and failures in conducting that war. There has been a 
singular absence of effective oversight of this war on the part of this 
Congress, but as an individual Senator, Mark Dayton has done his best 
to fill that vacuum. On the Armed Services Committee, he has been 
courageous and outspoken, and we will remember him for that.
  Throughout his adult life, Mark Dayton has been devoted to serving 
others and looking out for those in the shadows of life. After 
graduating from Yale, he could have gone on in the family retail 
business. He could have coasted on his family's wealth, but he chose a 
very different course. He chose to work as a teacher for 3 years in a 
pretty tough public school on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Later he 
went to work as a counselor for runaway young people, as chief 
financial officer of a social service agency in Boston, and then as a 
staffer to Senator Walter Mondale. After returning home to Minnesota, 
he also served as the commissioner of the Minnesota Department of 
Energy and Economic Development. He was elected State auditor in 1990.
  I think the first time I met Mark Dayton, I was a Congressman in Iowa 
and he was running for the Senate in Minnesota, and that was 1982. I 
went up to campaign for him. I had been involved in agriculture and 
agricultural endeavors, and so I went up to meet with them and met this 
young guy running for the Senate. He was unsuccessful that year--I hope 
not due to the fact that I went to campaign for him. He was 
unsuccessful that year, but he never gave up. He never gave up trying 
to find new avenues to serving the people of Minnesota.
  As I said, that culminated in him serving as the commissioner of the 
Department of Energy and Economic Development for a number of years 
under Governor Perpich and then being elected in his own right as the 
State auditor in 1990. Under his leadership as State auditor of 
Minnesota, he did a lot to make sure that State government was running 
efficiently and effectively and transparently and making sure the 
auditor's office kept a check on all the different agencies in 
Minnesota to make sure they were expending the taxpayers' dollars 
wisely and legally and transparently.
  So I was delighted when, even though in 1982 he didn't make it to the 
Senate, he then made it in the year 2000. In the last 6 years, again, 
as I said, Mark Dayton has devoted himself selflessly to helping people 
less fortunate in our society. His common theme has been amplified 
powerfully: his passion for public service and his commitment to 
looking out for others. So I have no doubt that Mark will pursue other 
avenues of public service in the years ahead.
  I will miss his friendship here on the Senate floor, but our 
friendship will continue. I know that in whatever capacity he can find, 
he will do what he can to make Minnesota and our country a better, 
fairer, and more just place for all its citizens. I certainly wish my 
good friend Mark Dayton the best in the years ahead.

                          ____________________