Date: 2012-12-12
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I rise today with my colleagues to pay special tribute to several members of the California Democratic delegation whose service in Congress is shortly coming to an end. These six members served this House and their constituents with distinction and dedication. and they deserve our admiration and gratitude for the hard work that they have done on behalf of California and our country: Representative JOE BACA. who was elected in 2002. served for 10 years from the 43rd Congressional District. Representative HOWARD BERMAN. who was elected in 1982. served for 30 years. most recently from the 28th District. Representative Bob Filner. sworn in this month as mayor of San Diego. was elected in 1992 and served for 20 years from the 51st District. Representative LAURA RICHARDSON was elected in 2007 and served for 5 years from the 37th District. Representative PETE STARK. the outgoing dean of our delegation. was elected in 1972. and served for more than 40 years from the 13th District. and Representative LYNN WOOLSEY. who was elected in 1992 and served for 20 years for the Sixth Congressional District. There is much that can be said about the distinguished careers of our departing colleagues. but Id like to offer a few remarks about the work that I have personally joined them in during their time here in the Congress. Representative HOWARD BERMAN has served in the House for 30 years. and I am honored to name him among my closest friends in this body. During his service. he has worked on a wide variety of issues. but he was especially known as the champion of human rights and for standing up for the middle class. for the working class. and for the poor in our country. As the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee from 2007 to 2010. Mr. BERMAN made great progress on behalf of the less fortunate. He was a leader in securing the reauthorization of our global HIV/AIDS program to help provide access and preventative services and treatment for millions around the globe. He also authored legislation removing Nelson Mandela and other members of the African National Congress from the U.S. terrorism list. on which they had been unjustly placed for many years. Finally. he was a leader in raising concerns about human rights abuses by autocratic governments around the world. Particularly. he was a key leader in bringing additional disclosure to the trade in conflict minerals that has financed the ongoing violence in the Congo. Mr. BERMAN will be remembered as a strong friend of Israel. He was passionate about the need to achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East. and through his work. he forged a broader coalition on behalf of Israel in the House of Representatives. Also. I want to recognize Mr. BERMANS work on behalf of immigration and the treatment of those who have immigrated to this country and his work on behalf of migrant workers and farm workers all across the United States. For that effort. he received the first annual Farmworker Justice Award by the Farmworker Justice Fund in 2000. Like Mr. BERMAN. our dean. Congressman PETE STARK. has spent his entire distinguished career in Congress advocating on behalf of those whose voices were often drowned out in Washington by the influence of the moneyed interests. Over the last 40 years. Congressman STARK has been one of the foremost advocates in the effort to ensure that all Americans are able to access quality. affordable health insurance. I am honored to have been one of the three principal coauthors in the House of the historic Affordable Care Act. which will provide access to quality insurance for nearly every single American. I can personally attest to the critical and key role that Mr. STARK played in drafting that law and making sure that the law provides needed relief for working families. This was a crucial accomplishment. yet it was far from Mr. STARKS only accomplishment in the field of health care. As the former chair and ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee for many years. he was a leader on health care reform. He was the lead author of the original COBRA insurance bill. which ensured that workers faced with losing their jobs would not also immediately lose access to needed health insurance. Those of us who have gone through this recent downturn and recession in this country know from the testimony of our constituents how vital the access to COBRA health insurance is to the health security of their families and to the financial security of their families. He also pioneered the efforts to make modern IT systems available and acquired within the health care systems of this country that will help us improve the outcomes of health care and that will. hopefully. drive down the cost of health care. allowing for the provision of better care for patients. He. I think along with Sam Gibbons from Florida. pioneered the idea that there should be Medicare for all. He beat on that drum for a very long time. and it was the right drum to beat on. It wasnt achieved. but it did lead to the improvement of health care and to the passage of the Affordable Care Act. He has also been. obviously. a fearless campaigner on behalf of fairness in our Tax Code. Its unfortunate that he is retiring from the Congress. Since 1986. weve addressed this issue. and maybe there will finally be a chance to get something done in the next Congress. but he paved the way on so many of these issues. Finally. in my remarks at this moment. I would like to highlight the work of an outstanding Democrat on the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections of the Education and the Workforce Committee. Congresswoman