Senator Johnny Isakson VA Regional Office Act of 2022

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 4359) to designate the regional office of the Department of Veterans Affairs in metropolitan Atlanta as the ``Senator Johnny Isakson Department of Veterans Affairs Atlanta Regional Office'', and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on S. 4359.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill, S. 4359, which will rename the VA regional office in metropolitan Atlanta the Senator Johnny Isakson Department of Veterans Affairs Atlanta Regional Office.

I knew Senator Isakson well from his years of service on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. Like many of my colleagues, my enduring memory of Senator Isakson is that he was a reasonable man, a tireless advocate for veterans, and was someone you could work with to find common ground--something that is all too rare in today's political environment.

I didn't always agree with Senator Isakson's politics, but I never once questioned his commitment to the men and women who have served in the U.S. military.

I worked closely with Senator Isakson on a number of significant bills, including a wide-ranging VA reform bill--the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014--that President Obama signed into law during my first term in office.

The bill expanded survivor benefits and educational opportunities and improved care for victims of sexual assault and veterans struggling with traumatic brain injuries while making important strides toward ensuring veterans' access to timely healthcare at VA medical centers.

Senator Isakson was heavily involved in other bipartisan initiatives affecting our Nation's veterans, including a 2017 law intended to improve processing of VA benefit appeals and a 2018 law giving VA the authority to expand healthcare access to community providers.

These pieces of legislation will have a profound impact on veterans' access to the benefits and services they rightfully earned for generations to come, and we owe Senator Isakson a debt of gratitude for his persistent efforts in seeing these bills through.

Senator Isakson was a veteran himself, having served as a young man in the Georgia Air National Guard from 1966 to 1972. He ran his family's real estate business for over two decades and ably represented his constituents in the Georgia House of Representatives and the Georgia Senate before serving in the U.S. House and Senate.

He has the distinction of being the longest-serving Republican Senator in Georgia history, and, at a personal level, I cannot think of a more suitable name for this VA facility--where so many civil servants work to provide veterans the benefits they earned--than the Johnny Isakson Regional Office.

S. 4359 was introduced by Senator Jon Ossoff, while the House companion was led by Representative Sanford Bishop of Georgia's Second Congressional District.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record letters of support for H.R. 4359 from The American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Disabled American Veterans, as well as the Georgia delegation.

The American Legion,

Department of Georgia,

June 14, 2022.

Hon. Jon Tester,

Chairman, U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Mark Takano,

Chairman, U.S. House Committee on Veterans' Affairs,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Jerry Moran,

Ranking Member, U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Mike Bost,

Ranking Member, U.S. House Committee on Veterans Affair,

Washington, DC.

Dear Honorable Gentlemen of the U.S. Congress: The American

Legion Department of Georgia is in full support of S-4359:

the Senator Johnny Isakson VA Regional Act of 2022.

We respectfully implore and sincerely request that the U.S.

Congress favorably considers naming the regional office of

the Department of Veterans Affairs in metropolitan Atlanta as

the ``Senator Johnny Isakson Department of Veterans Affairs

Atlanta Regional Office''.

Senator Isakson's distinguished himself as a tireless and

unrelenting advocate who championed reform to improve the

benefits and quality of service for our Nation's veterans. It

is our solid and steadfast position that this Act will be the

hallmark tribute to a fellow Georgian who labored to bring

about better and improved healthcare and quality veterans'

services. We are indebted to our veterans for their service

and sacrifice. Senator Isakson recognized the debt and

devoted his efforts as Chairman of the Committee on Veterans'

Affairs of the Senate ``to make right the master of might''.

Naming the Atlanta VA Regional Office in honor of Senator

Isakson is a step in the right direction for the sake of

veterans of the great State of Georgia and the veterans

across this great Nation.

For God and Country. . .

Mark Shreve,

(For Z.C. Debro, Dept. Adjutant),

State Commander, Department of Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop) who serves as subcommittee chair on the Appropriations Committee and also as a former member of the House of Representatives House Veterans' Affairs Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, again, I ask all my colleagues to join me in passing S. 4359, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. President, I am glad to join you and the other Senator from Georgia, Mr. Ossoff, here today and join both of you in sharing some thoughts about Senator Isakson.

Senator Ossoff has already said a lot of things that are easily said. Not that they were easy for him to say, but anybody that knew Johnny Isakson would make many of those very same points and, hopefully, make them as well. I was glad to join him as the original cosponsor of this bill.

Johnny and I served together in the House from 1999 until 2005. I was the majority whip during most of that time. And he was one of the half dozen deputies that really are key to getting things done. And Johnny Isakson liked to get things done.

In 2005, he came over here to be in the Senate and brought that same determination to get things done, to find the place--wherever that place was--where something could happen. And he was a master at making things happen.

When I joined him in the Senate in 2011, I was pleased to get a chance to serve alongside him again. He was a fast friend and a friend that you could count on. He knew how to bring people together. He did view, as Senator Ossoff said, people as his current friends or people who--the only reason they weren't his friend is they hadn't become his friends yet. And that is quite a way to approach life. And Johnny did it really well. I don't think there was anyone more respected by the other Members of the Senate than Senator Isakson was.

In September of last year, I had the opportunity to join you, Mr. President, along with Senator Coons and Senator Graham, in hosting a bipartisan lunch that Johnny first started 13 years ago. I think we are going to do that again in September of this year. We have Democratic lunches, and we have Republican lunches. The Johnny Isakson lunch every year was the bipartisan lunch. And I think that is a great tradition to at least one more time do in honor of his service here and his friendship.

He understood the value of sitting down over a cup of coffee or over a meal, of talking to one another, of finding the things you agree on, and then working together.

And one thing I found here--and I think one of the ways I found it was watching what Johnny did--when a Democratic and Republican Senator find something to do together and get it done, invariably, they start looking for the next thing to do together. And their staffs start looking for the next thing their bosses can do together. And it is an infectious kind of thing that gets things done. And that was one of the great understandings of the legislative process that Johnny brought to the Senate.

I think when Johnny was in the Georgia House, there were a handful of Republicans in the Georgia House when he got there. He told me he got to be minority leader pretty quickly--maybe it was because he didn't show up in the room that day before they could choose who their leader was going to be. But he understood what it took to bring things together. He liked to help people. He liked to get things done. He especially liked to get things done for his fellow veterans.

Now, we are going to approach this veterans issue this week. And I am sure we are going to get it done. We just had a discussion about veterans and our commitments to veterans. But as chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Johnny really led efforts particularly to increase accountability at the VA. And there was an accountability problem at the VA that Johnny was intent on making sure we got to the bottom of it, to be sure that veterans received the care that they were entitled to and the benefits they had earned.

Under his leadership, Congress also passed a MISSION Act, legislation that gave veterans real and permanent choice in their healthcare. This is something that particularly younger veterans care about. They want to go to the doctor that they want to go to. They want to go to a doctor close to home, or they want to still have the option, as they would have, to go to a veterans facility or be referred from that facility to another place where their care would be more easily available to them.

But what veterans really want was the idea of having not just a pilot project on choice, which was the case

before Johnny Isakson as chairman decided, no, we are going to have a permanent process where veterans are going to have those choices in the future. And so here we have just passed legislation designed to designate the VA facility in Decatur, GA, the Senator Johnny Isakson Department of Veterans Affairs Atlanta Regional Office.

I am certainly proud to join my colleagues today as we sought and received unanimous consent for this legislation to pass. I really can't think of a more fitting way today, as we talk about veterans, to honor Johnny's legacy than to have his name associated with an issue he cared deeply about.

Another issue he and I cared about and worked closely on was health research and what was happening at the CDC. There will be a building-- the ground is being broken right now, as I understand it, for a building--at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta that will also be named for Johnny Isakson.

Those are two very fitting areas of focus for what he did for the people in Georgia, what he did for veterans in Georgia, what he did for healthcare in Georgia, and what he did for all of those things as it related to the entire U.S.A. I am glad to see this legislation pass.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize a giant of the great State of Georgia--which the Presiding Officer and I both have the distinct honor of serving--to recognize a true legend of the U.S. Senate, an extraordinary father, husband, and representative of our State, the late Senator Johnny Isakson.

Senator Isakson served Georgia all his life. Born in Atlanta, Senator Isakson attended the University of Georgia, then enlisted in the Georgia Air National Guard. He was a successful private businessman, growing his real estate enterprise to one of the largest in the State.

He served in both the Georgia House of Representatives and the State senate, and Governor Zell Miller, a Democrat, appointed him, a Republican, to chair the State Board of Education.

In 1999, Senator Isakson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he worked to improve American K-12 education.

And in 2004, he was elected to this body, where he would serve for almost 15 years with courtesy, dignity, and kindness, supporting and championing bipartisan efforts to better serve our Nation's veterans. And his service culminated in his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs and of the Senate Ethics Committee.

As we will hear from our distinguished colleagues who served alongside Senator Isakson--like Senator Blunt--Senator Isakson, through his uncommon decency, his generosity of spirit, his commitment to integrity and service of others over service of self, won universal respect in this body; won respect in the State of Georgia that crossed party lines and earned the reputation not just nationally but around the world for statesmanship, effectiveness, and hard work.

Even more than his work as a statesman, Senator Isakson was a father and a husband. And I want to recognize Senator Isakson's extraordinary family, including his wife of more than 50 years, Dianne; his sons, John and Kevin; his daughter Julie--all of whom I have had the pleasure of speaking or corresponding with in recent months and all of whom, in their lives, carry on the Senator's legacy.

Senator Isakson had a saying that there are just two kinds of people in this world: friends and future friends. I hope we can all be inspired by that aspiration and that outlook, by his resilient desire to see the good in everyone; to see the opportunity to work with anyone; to try to find where our interests align, where we can meet eye to eye, where we can get things done together.

Senator Isakson's courtesy, collegiality, and integrity will forever serve as an example to all of us who serve in this body today and in the future. And that is why, in recognition of Senator Isakson's tremendous contributions to American veterans, to the State of Georgia, and to the United States, it has been my privilege to introduce-- alongside my distinguished Republican colleague from Missouri, Senator Blunt, and the Presiding Officer, Senator Warnock--the Senator Johnny Isakson VA Regional Office Act to rename the VA's Atlanta Regional Office after Senator Isakson as part of our Nation's ongoing recognition of his service and as an example to those who follow in his footsteps of the virtues that his representation embodied.

I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their support of this legislation. We will hear from Senator Blunt and Senator Warnock, to share their experiences working alongside and knowing Senator Isakson, in just a moment.

But now, let's get this done and take this action to demonstrate our enduring respect and admiration for this extraordinary American statesman, Johnny Isakson. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 4359 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to honor a friend, our late Senator from Georgia, my predecessor, Senator Johnny Isakson, as we work across the aisle, just as he did, to rename the Department of Veterans Affairs Atlanta Regional Office in his honor.

I thank my brother and fellow Senator from Georgia for leading this effort.

Without a doubt, Senator Isakson loved Georgia, and he cared deeply for our country. He was a patriot, a public servant, and I am proud to say that there are members of my staff who used to work for Johnny Isakson. They will tell you that he never hesitated to show up.

In my other job as a pastor, I talk often about the ministry of presence. Sometimes, it is not about what you say, because there are some situations, quite frankly, for which there are no adequate words. When someone has lost a loved one, and you are standing there at graveside or standing in a hospital at bedside with a patient, sometimes the issue is really showing up--the ministry of presence.

Johnny Isakson had it. He knew how to show up. Whether it was paying a visit to an ill patient or seeing a disabled veteran, he was there. Senator Isakson, the consummate public servant, dedicated his years of service to our beloved Georgia, to veterans, to our families, and to our children.

He always made it a point to show up at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Every year in January, as we celebrate Georgia's greatest son, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Johnny Isakson, without fail, was always in the house. Now, to be sure, when the King holiday rolls around, politicians do tend to show up, but what was so impressive about Johnny Isakson is that, not only did he show up for the service, he stayed for the whole service--a service which, I will admit, is long, even by Baptist standards. He stayed there the whole time.

He was unafraid to work across ideological and political differences in our State, in our country. I shall never forget his example of public service.

We talked from time to time. In fact, it occurs to me that the first time I stood in this Chamber, I stood not as a Senator but as Chaplain of the day, and it was at Johnny Isakson's invitation. I remember his graciousness on that day and on so many occasions.

When he announced his retirement, he called me and said: Raphael, I am retiring, and I want to drop by Ebenezer and say goodbye.

When he came that Sunday, he asked the members of our church who are veterans to stand. As he looked across the audience and saw all the veterans who were in our church, he said: I want to leave a special offering for the veterans ministry in this church.

That was Johnny Isakson.

So I am thrilled that today, with great appreciation and admiration for Senator Johnny Isakson, our bipartisan legislation honors his life and his legacy by renaming the Department of Veterans Affairs Atlanta Regional Office in his honor, and I am thrilled that it has passed in the Senate in a bipartisan way with unanimous support.

Isn't that fitting? Johnny Isakson is doing now in death what he did in life--bringing us together. And in this moment in which we are in a debate about what to do for our veterans, isn't it appropriate that his spirit summons us to common ground--and the higher ground--so that we can do all we can for those who have our back in dangerous places all over the globe.

Senator Isakson cared deeply for Georgia's veterans and for veterans all across our country. He understood that there are some things bigger than politics. So we recognize his amazing service, his incredible legacy of life and self-sacrifice by renaming the Atlanta Regional Office of the Department of Veterans Affairs in his honor.

I am proud to sit in the seat where he sat, and it is my honor to help lead the passage of this bipartisan piece of legislation that will help preserve the legacy of our late and dear friend.

Long live the spirit of Johnny Isakson.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 4359, a bill to designate the VA regional office in Atlanta as the Senator Johnny Isakson Department of Veterans Affairs Atlanta Regional Office.

Senator Isakson served over 45 years as a public servant. He retired in 2019 as the longest-serving Republican Senator from the great State of Georgia.

Senator Isakson is remembered for his contributions to the veteran community and to his home State.

His successful career of public service began when he joined the Georgia Air National Guard. After separating from the National Guard, he brought this invaluable experience to the Georgia General Assembly and to the U.S. Congress.

Senator Isakson was a dedicated advocate for our Nation's veterans, serving as chairman for the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee for three Congresses.

Under his chairmanship, our friends on the Senate VA Committee spearheaded the enactment of critical legislation such as the VA Mission Act, the Forever GI Bill, the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act, and the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act.

Senator Isakson is remembered fondly by his colleagues as the embodiment of compassionate servant leadership. He had a reputation as a bipartisan Member who was willing to reach across the aisle for the good of his constituents. I can think of no better way to honor Senator Isakson's legacy to both the citizens of Georgia and the veteran community than by naming the Atlanta regional office after him.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers. I encourage my colleagues to support the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.