Dick Durbin: “I have some tributes here for my colleagues who are retiring, leaving the Senate. It is a lengthy list of tributes. Tom…”

“I have some tributes here for my colleagues who are retiring, leaving the Senate. It is a lengthy list of tributes. Tom Harkin To Senator Tom Harkin, neighboring State of Iowa, whom I worked with over many years on so many important topics, I want to salute him for his service. The highlights of his service include the Americans With Disabilities Act and, of course, the Affordable Care Act. His work on education and medical research is legendary. There was a time when Tom Harkin and Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania at that time, set out to double the medical research budget at the National Institutes of Health and they did it. Lives have been saved, people have been spared suffering because they had the political determination and courage to achieve it. I am going to miss Tom Harkin. I have served in Congress for a number of years and I have heard an awful lot of speeches. One of the most powerful speeches I ever witnessed in this Senate was delivered by Tom Harkin in 1990. He gave his speech without uttering a single word. He delivered it entirely in American Sign Language--a language he knows from years of communicating with his brother Frank, who was deaf. In that historic speech in sign language--a first for this body--Tom Harkin was urging the United States Senate to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA is one of the great civil rights laws of the 20th century.…”