[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2462]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          THANKING JOYCE MEYER

  (Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, all of us have people in our 
lives, in these vocations, without whom none of this would be possible. 
Today, I want to say good luck and good-bye to one of those people.
  Joyce Meyer, whom many of you know on my staff, is heading to the 
White House after being with me in this office for 18 years--and, yes, 
there are some gray hairs here. She and I go back even further than 
that.
  Joyce and I started off as staffers together in the United States 
Senate. In many ways, we grew up together. We were just kids then, 
fresh out of college. She went by Joyce Yamat in those days. She was a 
good friend, but she was an equally good staffer, which is why she was, 
at that time, one of the first people I asked to come work with me when 
I, at 28 years old, got elected to the House of Representatives.
  She has been at the heart of our team ever since--through every up 
and down, every adventure, every budget, every run for office. So much 
of what we have accomplished has been because of her--because of her 
leadership, because of her planning, because of her caring nature, 
because of her deep understanding of how this place works. She really 
is a person of the House.
  Above all, she never, ever forgot and never let me forget whom I was 
working for: the people of the First District of Wisconsin. She is from 
Wisconsin. She is from Franklin, Wisconsin, which is a small town in 
southern Wisconsin, near Milwaukee. She is a Badger. Wisconsin is so 
much at the heart of who she is. She knows when the deer rut is. She 
knows that, on Sundays, there are only two things you do: Mass and 
Packers games in the fall. For all of her years here, she never forgot 
where she came from.
  The truth is we have been through it all together. In fact, she has 
not just been a confidant or a friend--she is family. I often refer to 
her as my sister; and, to Joyce, family is at the center of everything. 
She treated all of our staff like family. She hosted wedding showers 
and baby showers. She made sure that everyone on our team put their own 
loved ones first. It is her own family that, through all of these 
years, has really been her source of inspiration: her parents; her 
sisters; her husband, Don, who, himself, was part of our team; and, of 
course, their beautiful and sweet daughter, Eva.
  I know it is for a better life for Eva and her generation that Joyce 
has made serving government her life's work. She could have gone on and 
done something so much more rewarding to the pocketbook, but she is 
doing this because she believes in our country.
  I will cut this short because, for anyone who knows Joyce, she does 
not like attention; she does not like the fuss. She is here to serve. 
She is the best of what we aspire to in public service. This woman has 
done so much to make us successful, has done so much to make me 
successful. I just want to thank, from the bottom of my heart, a person 
who has done so much to make this House successful, and she is Joyce 
Meyer.
  Joyce, I wish you and your family the best of luck. Thank you for 
serving us so much. Joyce, you are always going to be considered a 
person of the House of Representatives. Thank you so much, Joyce.
  And there is her mom.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank Speaker Ryan for yielding. He 
admonished us to be brief. So, Joyce, I will be brief.
  Often I rise on this floor when we have extraordinary staffers retire 
on either side of the aisle, Republican or Democrat, and observe what 
an extraordinary difference they make to the comity that does, in fact, 
exist but is rarely seen by the public.
  Joyce Meyer has been an extraordinary member of our family. Speaker 
Ryan says family is important to her. Family is important to all of us, 
and this is a family. It is sometimes a contentious family, but it is a 
family.
  Frankly, the peacemakers in the family are largely the members of the 
staff, particularly the highest ranking staffers, and particularly 
those staffers who have been with each of us and many of us for a 
significant period of time. They understand the tensions that can be 
created, but they also understand that there is a responsibility to the 
American people. Every time I went across the aisle and talked to Joyce 
Meyer, I knew that she understood that and that she wanted to be a 
positive force in making this institution work better.
  Let me say that Joyce Meyer now has an even bigger responsibility 
because she is going to the White House. May we all wish her the best 
in making that institution work better.
  Joyce, God bless you and Godspeed.

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