“During the 1990s, I got to know Ray Dusza very well from our work together for Erie County. For many years, I not only witnessed Ray’s incredible compassion and care for his fellow Western New Yorkers, but I also learned a great deal from him. Few elected officials possessed as strong a sense of the public’s will as did Ray, and he took the concerns of the general public – whether fighting for consumers’ rights in supermarkets to fighting to rebuild the roads in his district – right to the halls of power in Erie County.

There is another attribute that Ray Dusza possessed in amounts as substantial as any person I have known in this business: loyalty. Ray Dusza was a loyal American, a loyal Catholic, a loyal Democrat and a loyal Western New Yorker, and that loyalty rubbed off on all who came into contact with Ray. Members of my own Congressional staff – who are some of Ray’s former staff members – remained among Ray’s most trusted friends and admirers. We all are tremendously saddened by his passing.

One of the highest compliments I can pay Ray Dusza is to remind people that Ray Dusza was for his community, because he was from him community, and that he never forgot where he came from. To Ray’s wife Terry, and to his children and grandchildren, of whom he was so proud, we offer our most heartfelt sympathies.”