October 28, 2002

I join my colleagues, and all Americans, in mourning the very tragic and sudden loss of our dear friend and colleague, Senator Paul Wellstone, who will be forever remembered as a friend and patriot and true public servant, who fought each and every day of his public life--in fact, of his life--to the improve the lives of average Americans.

We got to know him here over the last 10 or 11 years as a Member of the U.S. Senate, but the people of Minnesota and the people of Carleton College, students who had him as a professor, people who knew him beforehand, they knew that Paul Wellstone didn't just become a fighter when he arrived in the Senate of the United States. He dedicated his life to it. It is what his parents taught him. It is what he believed in passionately as an American. We became witnesses to that sense of passion and outrage about wrongs in this country and around the world as we served with our colleague, Paul Wellstone, for the last decade.

So, like my colleagues, I was stunned and deeply saddened by the enormous scope and tragedy of this loss. Obviously, the entire Wellstone family has suffered an unfathomable loss, as have the families of other victims of this horrendous accident. His wife Sheila--I join my colleagues in expressing our deep sense of loss. Sometimes, although we get to know Members, we don't get to know the spouses of our colleagues very well, but Sheila Wellstone really became a member of the Senate family aside from being a spouse. She was an unpaid volunteer in her husband's office.

If there are women today who are suffering less because of domestic violence--and they are many who are not, but many who are--you can thank some colleagues here. But I suspect one of the reasons they became so motivated about the issue was because there was a person by the name of Sheila Wellstone who arrived here a decade ago and wanted to make this a matter of the business of the U.S. Senate.

So they became partners, not just over the almost 40 years of love and affection for each other, but partners in their sense of idealism, sense of values, and sense of purpose.

Marcia I did not know very well but certainly heard Paul and Sheila talk abut her with great admiration and affection. In the loss suffered by her family, with young children, it is just difficult to even come up with the words to express the sense of grief that I feel for her and her family. And obviously the staff: Will McLaughlin, Tom Lapic, and Mary McEvoy, along with the pilots who have been mentioned already: Richard Conry and Michael Guess, we didn't know, but I suspect on that flight up there they had gotten to know the Wellstone family and the staff. And so we want to express our deep sense of loss to their families.

Madam President, William Shakespeare once wrote, ``No legacy is so rich as honesty.'' I have never met, let alone worked with, a more honest or noble man than Paul Wellstone.

His rich, rich legacy will be that of an honest, passionate and tireless fighter on behalf of justice and fairness for all Americans, especially those less fortunate than himself.

Paul suffered a lot. He had this bad back. He would hobble around. He had this gait that if you didn't know he was hurting was almost an affectionate gait. He sort of limped around at various times; he would stand a lot at times in meetings because sitting would be so painful for him as a result of injuries he suffered. He had MS which he sort of shrugged off, as my colleague from California said.

He grew up in a situation where his family were immigrants who came from Russia. They grew up actually in Arlington, VA, a short distance from here. A former staff member of mine was a neighbor of theirs. He knew Paul as a child growing up. They had their own burdens to bear aside from being immigrants, problems of those newly arriving, with the language barriers. Trying to get acclimated to a new society such as ours is not easy. So Paul understood the issues of those who suffered more than in just an intellectual effort. This was something he deeply felt and had grown up with and appreciated immensely.

When he came to this body and we got to know him as someone who would fight tirelessly on behalf of those who did not have lawyers, lobbyists, and others to express their concerns, to bring their issues to the debate of the Senate, we found in this individual just a remarkable voice and a remarkable fight. Like many of my colleagues, I might be home or completed the evening and turned on the television and the Senate would still be in session, and there would be Paul Wellstone, standing at that desk in the rear of this Chamber, speaking to an empty place except for the millions of Americans tuned in to C-SPAN who would hear someone talking about subjects that were affecting their lives.

Single moms, working families, children without health care, the homeless, international victims of torture--these were among Senator Paul Wellstone's core constituencies, and they could not have had a better spokesperson.

A lot of times we spend days here talking about issues that might seem terribly arcane to the average citizen in this country, matters that don't seem terribly relevant to their daily lives, and yet Paul Wellstone never let a day go by that he didn't give voice to the concerns of average Americans or those who are, as Hubert Humphrey would talk about, in the shadows of life or the dawn of life or the dusk of life--Paul Wellstone giving voice, that great Minnesota voice to those who needed to have their concerns raised in chambers such as this.

And so for all of those people who are wondering today whether or not their concerns, their hopes, their fears will find expression, it is hard to find any silver lining with the passage of someone you care about so much, but I suspect as we reconvene here on November 12 and again with a new Congress coming in in January we will hear the words of Paul Wellstone repeated quite frequently. We will hear the passion that he brought to the issues raised maybe more frequently than they otherwise might be. That's because we will remember an individual we had the privilege and honor of serving with who reminded this institution of what its role ought to be, not just to those who are well heeled, those who can afford to acquire the access, but those who need to have their issues raised--that their concerns and their worries, their hopes, their dreams for this country and their own families will be once again a part of the mainstream of debate in the Senate.

Paul Wellstone fought some awfully tough battles. He fought a tough battle to get here, a man who was told he could not possibly get elected to the Senate, who was being outspent by overwhelming odds.

I rode with him in that bus--I am sure my colleague from Minnesota, maybe my colleagues from California and Vermont remember--that rattly old green bus, in the freezing cold, bitter cold, cold months of Minnesota.

I remember going with him to some big fair or festival that he was holding on behalf of poor farmers and family farmers in Minnesota. Just a few weeks ago, Madam President, I campaigned with him in Minnesota, with some of the medical device companies around Minneapolis and St. Paul. This was supposed to be about a 20-minute meeting we were going to have at one of these firms to talk about the medical devices that Paul played a major role in working to see to it that they were going to become a reality for people who would use them. We were supposed to leave in 15 or 20 minutes but the room was packed; the people wanted to talk about other things. And Paul Wellstone stayed for about 1 1/2 hours just engaging with the people in this room.

They went far beyond the medical device issues. The people in that room wanted to talk about health care; they wanted to talk about education; they wanted to talk about the environment; they wanted to talk about prescription drugs and the elderly; they wanted to talk about issues affecting Native Americans and minority groups; they wanted to talk about foreign policy. And he engaged, engaged and engaged for an hour and a half. He would have stayed longer. Staff had to almost drag him out of the room. But it was so reflective, standing in the back of the room watching Paul Wellstone with great passion and clarity expressing where he stood.

He didn't sit there and try to figure out where the question was coming from based on the tilt of their rhetoric. He answered them how he felt as their Senator, their representative, so they would know where he stood.

Madam President, I apologize for sort of meandering here, but it is how I feel. I have a great sense of loss and also a sense of joy. Paul Wellstone had a great sense of humor. He cared deeply about issues but he also had the wonderful ability to laugh at himself, to appreciate the humor that only this institution can provide in some of the more bizarre moments, a wonderful relationship with virtually everyone here. It didn't happen automatically or initially. Paul came here determined to change the world; if not the world, change the United States; if not that, maybe his Minnesota. Along the way and in the process he probably rubbed some people the wrong way, but those very people became the people who cared most about him in many ways in the final analysis because they realized that everything he said and everything he did was not about himself but about the people he wanted to represent.

And so I know there are Members who are not here today because of other obligations, but who, when the opportunity comes, will express their own thoughts and feelings, but don't be surprised--Madam President, I know you will not be, nor my colleagues from Minnesota or Vermont--that some of the heartfelt remarks about Paul will come from people who disagreed with him vehemently on substantive matters, but appreciated immensely his sense of conviction, something we can do a lot more of in politics in America today.

Frederick Douglass once said, ``The life of a nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.'' For 58 years, Paul Wellstone lived a life that was honest, truthful, and virtuous. For 12 years, he personally lent those characteristics to the heart of the United States government.

America, Minnesota, and this institution have suffered a terrible loss at the death of Paul Wellstone but there is a silver lining in all of this; that as a result of his service this country is a better place, there are people who are living better lives; this world with all of its difficulties has been a better world because Paul Wellstone was a part of it.

I am confident as I stand before you today, Madam President, that in the weeks, months, and years ahead, his memory and legacy will live on in the debates, the discussions, and actions we take in this body.

For that, Paul Wellstone, you ought to know that your service continues and your words and your actions will have a legacy borne out by those who come after you in the service of your State and the thousands of young people you motivated.

Madam President, if you could only see, as many have, the hundreds of young people throughout Minnesota who Paul Wellstone energized and brought to the public life of this country, people who otherwise would not have paid any attention. Paul Wellstone said: You ought to be involved; there is a reason to be involved.

His ability to attract people to come to a cause and to fight for the good cause will live on. I suspect one day this Chamber will have people who will serve in it who cut their teeth in politics working on a Wellstone campaign.

Paul, the campaign goes on. Your battles will go on, and we are going to miss you.