[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 4650-4651]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    SENATOR KENNEDY'S 75TH BIRTHDAY

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to join many 
of our colleagues in honoring one of our colleagues who celebrated a 
very special birthday last week; Senator Kennedy from Massachusetts 
turned 75. He was congratulated and applauded and heralded throughout 
these last few days on that milestone. I have come to the floor to give 
a few brief remarks in honor of this tremendous achievement because it 
has been 75 years well lived, in dedication to this country.
  He has been an inspiration to me and to many of us in the Senate. His 
energy, his commitment to his work, his constant thinking about new 
approaches and innovation is a testament to his presence and his 
service in the Senate.
  I also wish to acknowledge that, at first, coming to the Senate I 
felt very close to the Senator. Mr. President, you would appreciate 
this because you are from a large Catholic family yourself. Senator 
Kennedy was raised some years before I was but in a similar kind of 
situation, in a large and loving Catholic family, with strong parents 
and a real focus on community service and service to the family. That 
is apparent in his work. His Catholic upbringing and his deep religious 
beliefs are reflected in the teachings of the Catholic Church, about 
thinking not of yourself but of others, of service, of sacrifice. Many 
people talk about religious values, and I am getting somewhat skeptical 
the more I hear people talk. I am never skeptical of Senator Kennedy 
because he actually lives the values he preaches. Sometimes some of the 
greatest things I see him do are not evident to the camera. I would 
like to share one of them. I could give plenty of examples.
  Many people might be surprised to know that not only is Senator 
Kennedy a champion of education, but he actually, for over 2 years, 
took time out of what is an extraordinarily busy and hectic Senate 
schedule to tutor a child, teaching him how to read. How would I know 
this? Because, on occasion, I had the great honor of sitting next to 
him in the library down the street, where I was trying to keep up with 
him and thinking if Senator Kennedy can carve an hour out of his 
schedule, certainly I could try to do that as a freshman Senator. 
Needless to say, I could never keep up with the schedule. But I watched 
him and observed him one-on-one with a child no more than 10 years old, 
patiently teaching him how to read. The next year it was a little girl.
  One particular day, he even had the foresight or kindness to bring 
his pet bunny from home. He has many pets--Splash the dog, being one, 
and Sonny. He brought his pet rabbit to the school, to the joy of the 
children perhaps to encourage them to read about animals, which is a 
good way to get kids interested in reading, to actually show them. He 
knew this instinctively. Maybe that is because of the family he is from 
or because of the kind of guy he is. He is an extraordinary and a very 
different kind of Senator. I have been inspired by him, and I am 
confident our colleagues have been as well.
  I also wish to acknowledge the tremendous partner he has in Victoria 
Reggie Kennedy, a daughter of Louisiana. I have watched this couple 
grow in love and support of one another. I think they are a model for 
couples who are in public office. We could not find a better couple, in 
terms of their commitment to each other, to this body, to the Nation, 
and to the State of Massachusetts and, when they have extra time, to 
Louisiana. That was brought home when we experienced the last two 
hurricanes, Katrina and Rita. As you know, they struck our State in the 
latter part of the year 2005.
  These storms were of historic proportion. It was hard to describe the 
damage--which I still struggle with trying to describe to this body. 
But there was one Senator to whom I did not have to take too long to 
describe the damage, and that was Senator Kennedy, who got it 
immediately, perhaps because he has walked through south Louisiana with 
Vicki Reggie, his wife; perhaps he just has a big heart and great mind

[[Page 4651]]

that can grasp situations fairly quickly; and perhaps because he leans 
forward always in his ability and his desire to help people in need. He 
didn't need the situation to be explained to him. He understood.
  Not only did he help us pass one of the most extraordinary pieces of 
legislation in that whole confusing time of the first 6 months when we 
didn't know what levees had broken, where they had broken, whose they 
were, whose fault it was, and everyone was blaming everyone, but 
Senator Kennedy focused on getting 330,000 children into school, and he 
focused on getting them into the best school, any school, that would 
take them.
  He passed legislation I think will serve this country significantly 
and powerfully in the decades to come. If any major catastrophe, 
whether manmade or natural, hits our country again, at least the 
families with children from K through 12 and the children who are in 
those grades will know they have a champion in Senator Kennedy, who was 
not in the majority, but with Senator Enzi as chairman of the Education 
Committee and with a group of us who were committed to being their 
helpers, we passed an extraordinary piece of legislation that, with 1 
million people having been evacuated from their homes, 250,000 homes 
destroyed, hundreds of schools, hospitals closed, literally within a 
few weeks, children were, for the most part, safely ensconced. Even 
those who found themselves in shelters for weeks and months at times 
were allowed and encouraged and welcomed into schools because of 
legislation that Senator Kennedy passed.
  In addition to showing up on this floor day after day fighting for 
that legislation and fighting against the extremes who wanted to turn 
it into a political football and vouchers, he held steady to allow 
children to go to public schools or Catholic schools--to allow children 
from Catholic schools to go to public schools and children from public 
schools to Catholic schools, which seems simple, but at the time it 
wasn't--he personally delivered to our office some nourishment and 
encouragement to my staff who were overworked and under tremendous 
stress and didn't call me to let me know he was coming, didn't call the 
news media to make sure they saw him bringing these things, but just 
showed up. To me and to my staff, that meant the world.
  I thank him for his great service to this country on his 75th 
birthday. I will submit a lot more for the public record because his 
legislative achievements are quite long. Since they are well known, I 
thought I would add some points people might not know about this 
extraordinary public servant and Senator who turned 75. I only wish 
medicine would keep up with us so that he could serve another 75. That 
is unlikely, but I am sure in the final years, in the final chapters of 
his life, he will continue extraordinary service and will probably go 
down in history as one of the finest Senators to ever serve in this 
body.

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