Mr. President, I rise with some sadness on my last time to speak on the Senate floor. It is a very bittersweet occasion for me because I have loved every minute of the last 6 years, and I will miss this body greatly. I am sure I will think about it every remaining day in my life hence forward. The past 6 years have been amongst the most thrilling in my life, and it has been a privilege and honor to serve here.

I rise really to thank my colleagues for their kindness to me over the years and to thank my staff and my family and the entire Senate staff and everyone who is part of this institution for the wonderful 6 years I have had here.

I was first elected to the Senate from Illinois in 1998. I was sworn in in 1999, and almost immediately thereafter, the first Presidential impeachment trial in 130 years began. For my first 35 days, I think it was, or 38 days, on the Senate floor, I was immersed in the impeachment trial of former President Clinton. Thereafter, we had times of war, war in Kosovo and Afghanistan and now Iraq. We had the events of 9/11. I have served in times of war and peace, in times of great prosperity, as well as in times of recession. I have seen a whole lot.

What I will remember most probably is the wonderful people who are part of the Senate. When I entered the Senate in 1999, I came in as the youngest Member. I was 38 at the time. I am older now, obviously, and have probably less hair and more gray hair. The oldest Member of the Senate at that time was Strom Thurmond. He was 96 years of age. I will never forget Strom Thurmond telling me, when he was 96, about how he used to work out 45 minutes every day, and I was thinking about whether I might be as active as Strom when I am 96, if I make it that long. Even at that age, I remember Strom giving me advice, telling me about how I could help the coal industry in southern Illinois. It was remarkable to meet someone like that.

There are many who have retired. There are others like Strom who have passed away. There are some giants who are still with us, such as Senator Robert Byrd. One of my first memories of meeting Senator Byrd is going in to talk to him after I first got elected and asking him to sign for me a copy of his book on the history of the Roman Republic. Early on in my term in the Senate, I actually read Senator Byrd's whole book on the history of the Roman Republic. I have to say it is a marvelous book, and any Member of the Senate who has not read that book should please go out and get it because it has bountiful lessons for every Member of the Senate. It traces the decline and fall of the Roman Republic. It traces the decline of the Republic to the Roman Senate giving up more and more of its powers to the Executive, finally to the point where the Senate became meaningless and Rome was just governed by Caesers, dictators, and kings. It is an outstanding book.

To meet the man who wrote this book and to realize that book was

taken from a series of speeches that he delivered on the Senate floor, without notes, as to the hundreds of thousands of names and dates in that book, is truly astonishing.

Senator Byrd has written a much larger four-volume history of the Senate, which when I retire from this body I hope to have time to tackle. But just to think of someone who could be so productive not only in the Senate for so long but accomplish so much in other areas writing such scholarly books, I will miss people like Senator Byrd and Senator Thurmond and all the others, the leaders with whom I have had the privilege to serve.

Senator Trent Lott was the majority leader when I entered. For a period of time, Tom Daschle was the majority leader. Now Senator Frist is the majority leader, and soon Senator Harry Reid will be the minority leader. Each one of those individuals is remarkable, in my judgment. They have always been gentlemen of the highest order, and they work very hard. They are very good at what they do in representing their perspectives. They are good and honorable people whom our country is lucky to have.

Our whips on the Republican side, Don Nickles and Mitch McConnell, Don Nickles has done such a good job for the taxpayers of this country. It has been an absolute pleasure to watch him fighting excessive spending and confiscatory taxation. I have been pleased to join him over and over again to hold the line on spending and to vote against tax increases and for tax relief, something that I view as very important.

I am retiring at the same time as Senator Nickles. I will miss him greatly as part of this body, but I hope to see him often in life outside of the Senate.

Other colleagues of mine are so important to me for reasons one might not think of. I did not know what I might have in common with Senator Bunning from Kentucky. He was elected at the same time I was in 1998. Senator Bunning is always so kind in giving me advice, as I advise my own son how to practice his pitching for his Little League games.

The other night, I saw Senator Bunning in his car, and I said: Jim, having been a Hall of Fame baseball pitcher--where else can you get that kind of advice for your son's pitching lessons--I am not going to be able to ask you for advice on how to coach my son on pitching.

He said: You know what. You can still call me afterwards. I will always be there.

It is comments like that and the friendships like that, where I have spent so much time with the other 99 Members of this body, so many late nights and long weekends and sometimes retreats together, all of us really have become almost kind of like a family. It is much more family like than I think the media in America recognizes because so often the differences between the parties or the personalities get emphasized by the media. But I will miss them all.

John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee on which I have been privileged to serve the last 4 of my 6 years, a man I admire greatly. Most Americans know about his heroism as a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, where he was in the Hanoi Hilton for 5 years and the enemy forces tortured him, crushed his bones and could never get him to buckle or back down. Few men have the kind of courage that John McCain has. It is not just physical courage but the courage he has had to always fight for what he believes is right. Sometimes I have not agreed with him, but when he believes he is right he is willing to stand up to some very powerful forces that often threaten him politically, but nothing scares this American hero, John McCain. I am so thankful to him for the opportunity he gave me to chair the Consumer Affairs Subcommittee on the Senate Commerce Committee where I have been able to work on child safety and booster seat safety and automobiles and also to play a very critical role in the corporate governance hearings that we had a few years back first with Enron, Adelphia, WorldCom and those other corporate scandals.

We have also worked on aviation and transportation, the Internet, telecommunications. There is never a dull moment with Senator McCain chairing the committee, and for the seven new Senators who are coming in who are thinking of what committees they might want to serve on, that is one I have always loved. With Senator McCain, there is never a dull moment.

Susan Collins, the chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee--what a great American, what a hard-working American. We all saw that recently with her hard work on putting together the Intelligence bill under very difficult circumstances with a very short time to work. I thank her for giving me the opportunity to chair the Financial Management, the Budget, and International Security Subcommittee of the Governmental Affairs Committee, together with my friend and colleague Danny Akaka, from Hawaii, who has been my ranking member on that subcommittee. Danny is such a gentleman. I tell you, I am going to miss him personally, and I am also going to miss the macadamia nuts that he regularly sent over to me. But I may have time to visit him on a beach in Hawaii, now that I think about it. Maybe that is where I will see him and Senator Inouye next.

But Senator Akaka and I were able to wake up what might normally be thought of as a very sleepy subcommittee of the Governmental Affairs Committee, where we dealt with improving accountability of Government financial reporting. We increased audit requirements on Federal agencies, we extended the Chief Financial Officers Act to the Homeland Security Department, and we put it in to apply to the new Intelligence Directorate. But, also, we have worked very hard in that subcommittee to spotlight some of the great challenges our country confronts.

I think in that regard, with the staff on that committee on both sides of the aisle being so able, we have been able to put together some of the best hearings the Senate has had on issues such as our defined benefit pension problem in this country. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation has a massive deficit with no end to increasing deficits on the horizon.

We have had hearings on the Government-sponsored entities such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Homeowner Bank Boards and other entities that are privately owned but have Government charters, and what risk they may or may not pose to the system.

We had a series of hearings on huge funds and the problem of high fees. Mr. President, I was honored to have your cosponsorship on a landmark bill to reform the mutual fund industry. While we were not successful in passing that legislation this year, the Securities and Exchange Commission has adopted many of the items in that bill, including requiring independent chairmen of the boards of mutual funds in America.

Just this week we did a hearing on the problems that we have seen in the insurance brokerage industry in which we heard from experts on all sides and got Washington's first perspective on the indictments that have come out of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office in New York. We had a hearing on the issue of the expensing for stock option compensation, which has been so actively debated amongst accountants in our country.

Finally, the Accounting Financial Standards Board is going to require publicly traded corporations to expense stock option compensation on their earnings statements.

On the Agriculture Committee, if I think of the word ``gentleman,'' I would think of Senator Lugar, who was the chairman of the Agriculture Committee when I first came in, and Senator Cochran, from Mississippi, who is the current chairman of the Agriculture Committee. It is regretful I will not be here a second term because I now have enough seniority on the Agriculture Committee to chair it in the second term, believe it or not.

But Senators Lugar and Cochran have been a pleasure to work with. We passed a number of measures to make life better for our Nation's farmers, some very simple but important allowing farmers to file all their USDA paperwork on the Internet.

We improved child nutrition and passed legislation to make it easier for people who depend on Government assistance for their nutrition and food needs, that those people through the Food Stamp Program can now get their benefits across State lines--somebody

who may live in St. Louis and goes back and forth to Illinois, or somebody living in northwest Indiana and goes back and forth to Chicago.

Also, a very important industry in my State, Mr. President, and in your State as well, is the commodity futures industry. In Chicago, we have the Board of Trade and the Chicago Merchantile Exchange. We also have the Chicago Board Options Exchange. I am told, directly and indirectly, in Chicago we employ some 200,000 people in the futures industry.

The Agriculture Committee has given me the opportunity to work on the rewrite of our commodity trading laws. I was pleased to be an active participant in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, where we first allowed the trading of futures on individual stocks in this country. That market is now developing. I hope to see it come back.

I want to say some words of thanks to the senior Senator from Illinois, Mr. Dick Durbin. He referred to us as the political odd couple--one conservative Republican, one liberal Democrat, from the land of Lincoln.

More often than not, we probably disagreed from a policy perspective on some of the key issues confronting our Nation, but it never prevented us from working well together. In fact, we jointly held 163 breakfasts, constituent breakfasts together. Every Thursday morning at 8:30 when the Senate was in session, Senator Durbin and I would host a breakfast, allow constituents who were visiting Washington from Illinois to ask us any question that was on their mind, whether it was political or policy related, and we paid for the breakfast. My understanding is, there are not many other examples of bipartisan breakfasts where you have one Republican and one Democrat who have such a weekly gathering for their constituents.

We worked well together on the selection of judges. We almost never had an open vacancy that we couldn't resolve on the district courts in the northern, central, or southern Illinois districts.

Senator Durbin was terrific in supporting me in my effort to clean up corruption in Illinois. One of the most important things I did in that regard was to bring in independent U.S. attorneys to the State of Illinois who were not beholden to the political class in the State. That was something new. When I went to appoint U.S. attorneys, I found everybody and their brother, particularly all the local politicians on both sides of the aisle, trying to influence the selection of my U.S. attorney.

I didn't want to lay awake at night wondering who was trying to influence my U.S. attorney, either to go after someone unjustly or to protect someone wrongly from prosecution. I, ultimately, decided for that reason to do a nationwide search for our U.S. attorneys, which yielded, I think, amongst the best U.S. attorneys anywhere in the country: Patrick Fitzgerald in the Northern District of Illinois, Jan Paul Miller in the Central District of Illinois, and Ron Tempas, in the Southern District of Illinois. They are doing a tremendous job and no one is asking whether they are influenced politically or what their motivation would be. I thank Senator Durbin for supporting that effort to bring independent U.S. attorneys to Illinois.

Senator Durbin is a man whose stamina, hard work, and intelligence I greatly admire. He is very devoted and hard working. He travels back to his hometown of Springfield every weekend. That is a harder commute than my commute. I travel back to Palatine, IL, which is only about 12 miles northwest of O'Hare. So I had a fairly easy commute; I just had an hour and a half plane flight and then a short drive and I was at my house. But Senator Durbin would go back to O'Hare every weekend and then catch another flight down to Springfield and he does that every weekend. He is constantly back in the State of Illinois.

I think we worked well on just about everything, except aviation. We had a disagreement over O'Hare Airport. I think I am right. He thinks he is right. But aside from that difference of opinion, it has been a pleasure to work with him.

I am sure Senator Durbin will be an effective spokesman for his side of the aisle as the whip for the incoming Democratic caucus in the 109th Congress. I do not necessarily wish Senator Durbin success in that role, but I do wish him well.

Barack Obama, my successor, I wish him well. It was a privilege to have lunch with him yesterday in the Senate dining room. I served with Barack Obama in the State senate for 2 years. He was coming in, in the legislature in Springfield, in my last 2 years of service there. He is an uncommonly bright and talented young man. He is 1 year younger than I. He is the first African-American president of the Harvard Law School. He is almost unequaled in his potential and promise. I am confident he will be a credit to the State of Illinois. I think he may surprise the political pundits by voting, crossing party lines at times that you don't expect him to. It may be a challenge for him with Senator Durbin as his whip. But I see Barack Obama as possibly being a fairly moderate voice, more moderate than many people suspect.

To my staff, many of whom are gathered in the Senate Chamber, I could not have been blessed with a more wonderful staff to have gotten me through the last 6 years. I first need to start by thanking former Senator Bob Dole and the current Senator Elizabeth Dole for recommending to me the man who is my chief of staff, Gregory Gross. Greg worked for Senator Bob Dole when he was the leader in the Senate and during his Presidential campaign in 1996. He worked for Mrs. Dole when she was at the American Red Cross. He is extremely bright, as Bob Dole told me when I first called for a reference on Greg Gross.

Bob Dole said to me: Greg is what you call a genius. And I thought, that is the kind of person I want, a genius on my staff. But he is more than just a brilliant and talented and knowledgeable chief of staff.

He is also incredibly devoted and incredibly loyal, and I thank him for that.

For the first 3 years, my chief of staff was Richard Hertling. He is now at the Justice Department. Richard did an outstanding job in getting us up and running. It is very hard when a new Senator is coming in and assembling a new staff, as some of the new Senators are finding out.

I have been blessed to have had an outstanding legislative director, Terry Van Doren from Macoupin County, IL, whose father owns a cattle operation in Macoupin County. Terry started out doing agriculture policy for me. Terry was just what the doctor ordered. He had straight A's from the University of Illinois in agriculture sciences. Then he got a master's in agriculture policy from Colorado State University. He had a 4.0 there. I was called by the dean of the University of Illinois Agriculture School. He told me what an outstanding young man Terry is. Terry has been instrumental in agricultural policy. He has been my legislative director.

Before him, Joe Watson was my legislative director, a brilliant young Harvard Law School graduate whom I pocketed out of the Sutter and Hopkins law firm. He is now at the Commerce Department serving under Secretary Evans.

My office manager, Sherri Hupart, has done such an outstanding job; always pleasant and kind and willing to help, and calm under pressure.

Her predecessor, Tina Tyrer, came to me from Senator Fred Thompson's office. She had some 20 years of experience in Washington running Senate offices.

My Chicago chief of staff, Maggie Hickey, is a one-woman army, entirely devoted, very hard working. I want to thank her.

My staff director for my Financial Management and Budget and International Security Subcommittee, Mike Russell, and the team he has put together, which I think enabled us to do the best hearings on some of the key issues confronting our financial markets in this country, I can't thank them enough.

I thank my schedulers and executive assistants, Lanae Denney, Julie Cate, Julie Crisolano, and Doris Gummino. Scheduler has to be the toughest job on Capitol Hill because you know how busy Senators' schedules get and how it is for them to hear when a Senator is tired, or frustrated, or thinks he is overscheduled. Senators hear about it. There is no question about that. I thank my schedulers for being there,

staying here working late into the evening. They have to be here even when the rest of the staff has gone home.

My campaign manager and first communications director, Mike Cys, is now in the private sector. He is brilliant and energetic and enthusiastic. I thank him for all his support.

I thank my communications, legislative assistants, legislative correspondents, receptionists, front office and back office, duty entry personnel, the interns, the kids we have had serve over the years.

My staff handled 6,000 to 10,000 letters a week for the past 6 years. The first year we came in, we were getting some 22,000 e-mails a day on the impeachment. My State office has handled over 22,000 individual constituent cases. They conducted traveling office hours all over the State, 1,574 traveling office hours in 675 towns. My State staff met individually with 831 mayors and village clerks telling them how to apply for Federal grants for sewer and water.

I thank the staff on the floor of the Senate: Dave Schiappa, the floor staff; Myron Fleming, the chief doorkeeper, the cloakroom staff, the Parliamentarians, leadership and Sergeant at Arms staff, and the pages who come and go every semester. I always look at them. They have to get up at 5 in the morning to do school work before they can come here. But they work so hard. I hope their experience has been as wonderful as we want it to be for them.

And, finally, I would be remiss if I didn't thank the most important people in my life, my family, my mother and father, who always supported me through my 12 years in public service, but through all the years of my life. It was always clear they would have been there to lay their lives down for their son.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Durbin for the kind words. I hope to come back to his breakfasts and get some of those free doughnuts myself. I might not have to pay for them. But I will miss it.

I thank Senator Durbin.

Finally, I thank my brothers and sisters, Gerry, my older brother, Jim, Tom, my sister Julie. A lot of people in public office worry that their siblings might embarrass them. I have never had to worry because they are wonderful, upstanding people, all of whom I think are probably worried about what I might do that they might worry about. They are wonderful people.

I thank my wife Nina. We met together in D.C. when we were interns back when we were 19 years old, and after college and law school we got married. I moved her, plucked her from her home State of Colorado. She came to Illinois. I want to thank her for her steadfast support through all my years in public office.

Finally, last but not least, I thank my 12-year-old son Jake. Jake missed his father at baseball and basketball games. I have been in public office for his entire 12 years. I am going to make it up to Jake now. I am pleased that he is doing so well as a baseball pitcher. I thank Jim Bunning and others for their advice.

And finally, the people of Illinois from one end of the State to the other, to the south, from Rockport to Freeport in the north, thank you for your kindness to me. I have loved every minute of it. You gave me your trust, and I worked hard every day to keep it safe.

Thank you all. God bless. I will miss you all.

Senate Floor·October 5, 2004·p. S10437-S10445

Statements On Introduced Bills And Joint Resolutions

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Program Assessment and Results Act, or ``PAR Act.'' This bill is a companion bill to H.R. 3826 that Congressman Todd Platts, Chairman of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Government…

The PAR Act builds upon the reforms adopted by Congress in the early 1990s, such as the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA). This bill would increase the effectiveness, and accountability of the Federal Government by requiring the review of Federal programs at least once every five years to evaluate their performance. Information obtained from these reviews would be incorporated in the President's budget requests and would assist Congress in its oversight and funding of Federal programs.

The PAR Act would strengthen the program evaluation requirements under the strategic planning requirements of GPRA, the one area that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recognized as a government- wide deficiency under GPRA. GAO found that most agencies were implementing the requirement for program evaluation merely by making lists of observations rather than presenting and analyzing performance data.

To build upon the framework of reforms established by GPRA, the PAR Act would require the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to work with Federral agencies to carefully and periodically assess the strengths and

weaknesses of all Federal programs. This legislation would enable policy makers to compare data from different agents to determine how different programs with similar goals are achieving their results.

The PAR Act would improve the accountability of Federal programs in a number of areas. Congress would be able to use this information to make more informed budget decisions and conduct more effective oversight. Federal managers would use the information to improve the way they manage programs. Moreover, taxpayers will be able to track the progress of these programs with more precision.

The ultimate result of the PAR Act will be a more effective and efficient government. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to support passage of this legislation.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill be printed in the Record following my remarks.

S. 2887 S. 2888 S. 2892 S. 2893

View all 55 floor statements