Dianne Feinstein: “Mr. Presdient, 5 years have passed since we lost our distinguished colleague, Senator Paul Wellstone, in a tragic plane…”

“Mr. Presdient, 5 years have passed since we lost our distinguished colleague, Senator Paul Wellstone, in a tragic plane crash. That crash also took the lives of his wife Sheila, their daughter, Marcia, three loyal staffers, and two pilots. That sad day the Senate lost a passionate, gifted, and respected colleague and friend. Paul was a political science professor, with a sharply honed intellect. But his heart was as big as his mind, and he was a committed advocate for the less fortunate. He was elected in 1990 and quickly became a strong, crusading voice in the Senate. Paul fought for increased education funding, for improvements in the minimum wage, for affordable, accessible health care, for campaign finance reform, for legislation to protect small farmers, and for legislation to expand insurance coverage for the mentally ill. Paul helped lead the successful opposition to an energy bill in 1991 that would have opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. Paul was a champion of the dispossessed around the world--in Latin America, in Africa, and in Asia. In 1996, when I voiced concern over the treatment of women and girls by the Taliban, Paul was one of the few open to the idea that the United States should do something. In 1999, Paul and I introduced the International Trafficking of Women and Children Victims Protection Act to address these heinous crimes and to hold to account nations that fail to meet minimum international standards.…”