[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 4676]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      HONORING DANIEL P. MULHOLLAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Price) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the 
distinguished career of a man who has been an institution within an 
institution: Daniel P. Mulhollan, the director of our Congressional 
Research Service, who will retire next month after more than 17 years 
at the helm of CRS and nearly 42 years of service to the Congress 
overall.
  To say that Dan is an institution around here is really an 
understatement. In many ways, he has personified the growth of CRS from 
a relatively small division of the Library of Congress into the world-
class source of objective and authoritative research and analysis that 
it is today.
  Dan first joined what was then the Legislative Reference Service as 
an analyst in American national government in September of 1969, fresh 
out of his doctoral training at Georgetown. At the time, just two of 
the 435 Members currently serving in this House had been elected to 
Congress--and a fair number serving here hadn't even been born yet!
  For the next 25 years, Dan steadily acquired seniority and respect 
within the Government Division of CRS, excelling as both an analyst and 
a division chief. When the Librarian of Congress, Dr. James Billington, 
conducted a strategic review of the Library's priorities in the early 
1990s, Dan was tapped to help ensure that the Library's services were 
as relevant as possible to the Members, committees, and staff that it 
exists to serve. This assignment led him to assume the role of Acting 
Deputy Librarian of Congress, and when CRS found itself in search of a 
new director a few years later, Dan was a natural fit.
  As director, Dan has continued to exemplify both the analytical depth 
that is at the core of his organization's mission and the strategic 
vision needed to bring CRS into the 21st century. He expanded the 
service's ability to bring interdisciplinary scholarship to bear on 
complex issues of policy, recruiting scientists and engineers to work 
alongside policy analysts and attorneys. He developed a personnel 
succession plan to ensure that CRS will continue to be able to recruit 
topnotch talent as older analysts retire.
  Mr. DREIER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I would be happy to yield to my friend 
from California, who I know has made a special effort, given his 
leadership duties, to join us on the floor.
  Mr. DREIER. I would like to join the gentleman from North Carolina in 
extending our hearty congratulations to Dan Mulhollan for his 
extraordinary service to this institution and, in particular, for the 
work that he has done to ensure that the House Democracy Partnership 
has been able to succeed.
  I want to thank my friend for taking out this very important time, 
and I thank him for yielding.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I thank my friend and colleague Mr. 
Dreier, the chairman of the House Democracy Partnership, which I had 
the privilege to chair for the past four years.
  Dan Mulhollan and the Congressional Research Service have indeed been 
critical partners in our efforts around the world in developing 
democracies to increase the capacity of their parliaments.
  Mr. DREIER. We should say we have four of them here, in fact, this 
week.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. We have delegations from four 
parliaments in town this week for workshops on committee operations. 
They're from Pakistan, Indonesia, some members from Iraq----
  Mr. DREIER. Lebanon.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. And from Lebanon. That's right.
  There are four groups of parliamentarians here this week, and the 
CRS, as usual, is a full partner in putting on workshops for these 
members, workshops that will help them strengthen their operations back 
home. These exchanges are very useful to us as well.
  As my colleague has stressed, the main reason for the two of us being 
here to offer this tribute today is because of the support Dan 
Mulhollan has offered over the years: first to the Frost-Solomon Task 
Force, the precursor of our present commission, which in the early 
1990s worked in Central and Eastern Europe, offering technical 
assistance to the parliaments emerging from communist rule; and then 
for the last 6 years to the House Democracy Partnership.
  So we are happy to join today in thanking Dan Mulhollan for all these 
years of work on behalf of the Congress and particularly for the kind 
of support that he has offered our international partnerships.
  Dan knows a lot about Congress and has a profound respect for the 
institution. He has brought a particular sense of mission to the work 
of our commissions. As a political scientist, he recognizes how 
critical legislative research is to the growth of democracy, first in 
post-Communist Europe and now to all kinds of emerging democracies 
around the world.
  I had the privilege of traveling last year with Dan to Warsaw to 
observe the 20th anniversary of that earlier task force's work. I can 
assure my colleagues he received a hero's welcome. His work has not 
gone unnoticed, and it is not going to go unnoticed by us either.
  We want to salute Dan Mulhollan for his many, many years of 
distinguished service. We want to thank him for all that he has done, 
and we want to wish him well in his retirement and offer him our 
sincere gratitude and praise for a job well done.

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