[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 26912]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               TRIBUTE TO THE LATE HONORABLE JO ANN DAVIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to pay 
tribute to our fallen colleague, the Honorable Jo Ann Davis, Member of 
Congress from the Commonwealth of Virginia. Let me, first of all, offer 
my deepest sympathy to her family and to acknowledge the special role 
that Congresswoman Davis had in this body.
  She was a veteran legislator, a business woman, and a Member of 
Congress from Virginia's First District. She was the first Virginia 
Republican woman elected to the House in her own right, and she was the 
second woman from Virginia to be elected in the United States Congress.
  More importantly, she loved the work. She loved this House and loved 
America. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, 
Intelligence, and Foreign Affairs Committees, she was diligent in her 
work. I am reminded of her participation in the Women's Caucus. The 
caucus was bipartisan. We had many opportunities, as women Members of 
the United States House, to sit together to study issues, particularly 
health issues, the way a number of diseases impacted women. We were 
able to gather together to sponsor legislation that particularly 
focused on enhanced research on diseases that impacted women 
negatively.
  I am reminded of the leadership of a former colleague also recently 
deceased, Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald, who organized the 
women's effort to lay a wreath at the Women's Memorial at Arlington 
Cemetery, and I have in my mind a memory of Congresswoman Davis joining 
us on those many occasions, uniting around our effort to pay tribute to 
women members of the armed services of the United States of America.
  So this evening I simply say that we will miss her, thank her for her 
pioneering spirit and her leadership, and I would like to say simply to 
her husband, Chuck; her children; and to thousands of her friends 
around the Nation and in her district our prayers and condolences are 
to your family and certainly to your community. So many lives were 
touched by your service. So we say to you, farewell, our dear friend. 
May you rest in peace.

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