Tom Harkin: “we have a saying in my Senate office: Once a member of the Harkin family, always a member of the Harkin family. On…”

“we have a saying in my Senate office: Once a member of the Harkin family, always a member of the Harkin family. On Monday, with the passing of Donna Anthony, a longtime staffer in my Des Moines office, we lost a very valuable and dear member of our family. It seems like just yesterday that I was presenting Donna with a pin recognizing her 20 years of service to the people of Iowa as a Senate employee. In Donna's case, that wasn't 'service to the people of Iowa' in the abstract; it was service to thousands of individual Iowans whose lives she touched in very real, concrete ways. Donna was one of those people who give bleeding-heart liberals a good name. She was always on a personal mission to save the world, or at least as many people as she could. She was constantly taking up the cause of people who are down on their luck, whether it was a senior citizen getting stiffed by Medicare, an immigrant family who desperately needed a visa, a victim of domestic violence, you name it. Her title may have been 'caseworker supervisor,' but these were not just cases to her, they were people-- and she took each one to heart. She put the passion in compassion. I remember in Catholic school being taught that Saint Jude was the patron saint of lost causes. Well, I was blessed to know Saint Donna, the patron saint of people in dire need. Saint Jude intercedes with God. Saint Donna interceded with the Federal Government--which may be more challenging.”