[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5348-5349]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 HONORING FORMER CONGRESSMAN JOHN ADLER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Reed). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Lance) is 
recognized for 17 minutes.
  Mr. LANCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening in a very sad moment for 
the people of the State of New Jersey. I want to thank Congressman 
Pallone for joining with me this evening, as well as other Members of 
the House, as we pay tribute to our colleague, John Adler, who served 
in this House in the last Congress, an extremely close personal friend 
of mine, he and I having served 17 years together in the New Jersey 
legislature.
  Mr. Speaker, before I deliver my remarks, we are honored this evening 
to be joined by the minority whip, the former majority leader, who 
certainly knew Congressman Adler well.
  I yield to the distinguished minority whip, the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  I did not know that he was taking a Special Order, but I was here on 
the floor, went over to say hello to my dear friend and he indicated 
this Special Order was being taken for John Adler.
  John Adler died too young. John Adler contributed extraordinarily to 
his family, to his community, to his State and to his Nation.
  He served here too short a time. He was full of energy and of ideas, 
of intellect, of integrity; and he became a good friend in a short 
period of time. And I counted him as one of the assets of this 
Congress, not a Democratic asset or a Republican asset, but someone who 
cared about his country and who wanted to see it adopt policies that 
were productive for its people.
  It is appropriate that we remember this too short a life that, 
notwithstanding its brevity, was filled with great productivity, 
service and commitment. I appreciate the fact that the members of the 
New Jersey delegation have allowed me to join them, Mr. Speaker, in 
paying tribute to this great American.
  I want to say to his family, I called Shelley the other day and 
didn't get her but left a message, four children are missing their 
father tonight, a loving wife, whom I got to know as well, missing her 
husband. While our loss is certainly not as personal or as keen as 
their loss, we share that loss in a very real sense.
  Not only have we lost an American public servant; we have lost a 
friend and a colleague. For that we will say a prayer for his family, 
and we will be there for his family whenever they need us.
  So I thank the gentleman from New Jersey, my friend Mr. Lance, for 
giving me this time to join him and Mr. Pallone and Mr. Holt in paying 
tribute to this wonderful human being whom we had the privilege of 
serving with, for too brief a time.
  Mr. LANCE. Thank you very much, Mr. Hoyer.
  Mr. Speaker, I have known John Adler for 20 years.

                              {time}  2130

  He entered the New Jersey State Senate in January 1992, having been 
the only Democratic candidate to win an open seat that year, defeating 
an incumbent in what was not a strong year for the Democratic Party, 
his party. It was a strong year for my party, the Republican Party. And 
so he came to Trenton as a phenomenon.
  He was a very young man. He was born in 1959, so he would have been 
32 years old when he became a member of the State Senate. I had been 
elected to an unexpired term in the General Assembly the year before, 
and I served in the 1990s in the General Assembly, the lower house of 
our legislature, and he served continually in our upper house, in our 
State Senate, having first been elected in 1991 and then reelected in 
1993, 1997, 2001, 2003 and 2007.
  He rose to a position of prominence in the New Jersey Senate. He 
eventually chaired the State Senate Judiciary Committee, which is an 
extremely important responsibility in the structure of our government 
in New Jersey. And he was always interested in public policy. The year 
before he was elected to the State Senate, he had run as an underdog in 
a congressional race. And although he did not win that race, I think 
that many took note of his candidacy, and I think that propelled him 
into our State Senate.
  I moved from the lower house of the New Jersey legislature to the 
State Senate in the election of 2001 when we became direct colleagues, 
and we worked together on many different issues. And he always worked 
in a collegial and extremely competent fashion.
  Indeed, we sat next to each other for a period of time of our service 
in the State Senate, divided only by the center aisle. To those who 
know our State Capitol in Trenton, the State Senate chamber is a very 
small room. It was designed originally for 21 members, one State 
Senator from each of our 21 counties, and when the State Senate was 
increased in population in the 1960s, based upon the principle of one 
person one vote, to 40 members, it became a place where it's really 
quite overcrowded. And so we really sat extremely close to each other 
in this small chamber of the State Senate.
  John Adler's career in the legislature was one of distinction--for 
example, prohibiting smoking in indoor public places and workplaces. He 
also sponsored an act promoting lower vehicle emissions and an 
antipredatory lending act to protect consumers from unfair credit 
practices. And based on that and many other accomplishments when he 
came here, he was appointed to the Financial Services Committee, the 
committee to which I was appointed, as well, and so we became 
colleagues not only here in this Chamber, the House of Representatives, 
the people's House across the United States, but we became colleagues 
on the Financial Services Committee.
  John was not raised in circumstances of affluence. He lost his father 
when he

[[Page 5349]]

was a young man, and for him and his mother, it was a struggle. And yet 
despite that, he went to Harvard. He was graduated from Harvard College 
in 1981, and from Harvard Law School in 1984. He was an excellent 
student. And at Harvard, he met the person who became his wife, 
Shelley, someone whom I know and who is known by my wife, Heidi, and we 
consider ourselves to be friends with the entire Adler family.
  And together, John and Shelley brought into this world four wonderful 
sons, Jeff, Alex, Andrew and Oliver, all of whom I know. Jeff is at 
Harvard at the moment, Alex is at Cornell, and they have two younger 
brothers. And tonight on this sad day, the day when John's funeral took 
place at Temple Emanuel in Cherry Hill, we remember prayerfully his 
wife, Shelley, and their beautiful sons, Jeff, Alex, Andrew and Oliver.
  In 2008, there were two open seats in the House of Representatives in 
New Jersey due to retirements: Jim Saxton in District 3 and Mike 
Ferguson in District 7. And John succeeded Jim Saxton, as I had the 
honor of succeeding Mike Ferguson. So we were the only freshmen in the 
class of 2008 from New Jersey. And I think that we shared that bond as, 
of course, every member of a freshman class shares a particular and 
special bond.
  Certainly, it is exciting for someone to move from a State 
legislative chamber here to the House of Representatives, and I think 
we shared that excitement, for example, when we went together to the 
Harvard seminar that took place for new members, and of course the 
orientation that takes place here and when we would bump into each 
other in the Hall here during orientation sometimes we thought, what 
were we doing here? It was an exciting time for both of us.
  John Adler was a person of enormous wit, a very dry, subtle, and 
sophisticated wit. And it really pierced the veil of much of what 
occurs in public life and in political life where in so many instances 
we take ourselves too seriously. That was not Congressman Adler.
  He had been involved over the course of his life in many different 
charitable activities. He served on the Cherry Hill Township Council 
before he went to the State legislature, the boards of the Camden 
County Chapter of the American Red Cross, the Food Bank of South 
Jersey, the Virtua West Jersey Health and Hospital Foundation, and the 
Camden County Advisory Board on Children. And certainly his respect for 
the political process is something that we should all recall, 
especially those of us who had the honor of serving with him in Trenton 
and in Washington.
  I believe that those who serve in public life do so out of a sense of 
responsibility. John Adler could have made a great fortune in the 
practice of law given his native intelligence, given his academic 
training and given his ability as a speaker. He chose to be involved in 
public life in Cherry Hill, a great suburban community in Camden County 
in southern New Jersey, in the State legislature, where he was very 
much involved in making sure that the judges who were appointed to 
office in New Jersey were men and women of ability. We have a system in 
New Jersey, Mr. Speaker, where our judges are appointed, not elected; 
appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the State Senate. And as 
chairman of the State Senate Judiciary Committee, John was intimately 
involved in that.
  The district he served was an interesting district. The only Camden 
County community in the district is his hometown of Cherry Hill, and he 
served vast portions of neighboring counties, Burlington County and 
Ocean County. And to those who are not familiar with the geography of 
the State of New Jersey, places in Ocean County are among the most 
beautiful beaches anywhere, not only in this country but in the entire 
world. And I know that he had a commitment to protecting our 
environment.
  John Adler's life was ended by a bacterial infection in his heart at 
age 51. His father had died in his late 40s also based upon a heart 
condition. So perhaps John Adler had a weakened heart. But he had a 
very strong heart in his views on public policy, in his views on 
helping the people whom he represented, first in a municipal governing 
body for many distinguished years in our State senate, and in the 111th 
Congress, where he was my colleague and my friend. And where we, too, 
alone, were the freshmen from the State of New Jersey.
  I'm pleased to yield to Congressman Holt.

                              {time}  2140

  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Lance) and my other colleague from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) for setting 
aside this time.
  Too young, too soon, not fair, not explicable in a larger sense. It 
is with great sadness that we come to the floor tonight to honor the 
life of a fine colleague and a friend, a dedicated public servant to 
the State of New Jersey, John Adler.
  John was dedicated to the service of the people of New Jersey. His 
devotion to New Jersey led him to run for and win a congressional seat 
in 2008, as you heard from our colleague, Mr. Lance. While John 
ultimately was not returned to this body for this session of Congress, 
his legacy of public service will indeed live on. No doubt he would 
have continued to find ways to improve the lives of New Jerseyans.
  Sharing not only a State but also a hallway in the Longworth Office 
Building with John, I had an opportunity to get to know him fairly 
well. He was a wonderful colleague. I will miss, as we all will, his 
cheerful demeanor and wonderful sense of humor that he brought to all 
of his work. A sense of humor, a good spirit in good times and in bad. 
And I will miss his wisdom and his sharp political insight and his 
policy knowledge.
  Today, during a memorial at his funeral in New Jersey, there were 
several comments made, and I would like to read a few. His law school 
roommate and best man commented that John Adler really did believe that 
worrying was just a waste of time. He believed that any setback was an 
opportunity for something good to happen.
  Friends remembered that after he had been defeated but Congress was 
still in session for another 2 months, he continued diligently to work 
here in Congress. As they said, he wanted to make sure that he made it 
to all of the caucus meetings on time. He wanted to continue to make 
the right votes for the people of New Jersey.
  His brother-in-law commented that playing knowledge games against 
John was like playing against Google. He recalled John's near-brush 
with ``Jeopardy'' fame that fizzled after the former Congressman paid, 
out of his own pocket, to fly for a taping to the television program. 
He made it to the makeup room, and one of the functionaries asked in a 
formal sense whether John knew anyone who worked for ABC. And John 
said, Well, yes, he thought one of his law school classmates had taken 
a job with a station. And the producers said that was it; he couldn't 
participate.
  Said his brother-in-law: You mean you flew all the way out to 
California on your own dime? Why on Earth would you tell them that? And 
John replied, because I didn't want to lie.
  Shelley, John's wife, is an accomplished, lovely person. And there is 
every indication that their sons are as bright and public spirited as 
their parents. This is a real loss for many of us, as well as for the 
people of New Jersey.
  I ask that the Members of the House join me in extending our sympathy 
and condolences to John's family and friends and his many admirers.

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