Janice Schakowsky: “it gives me such great honor and pleasure to join in support of this resolution in memory and to celebrate the life of…”

“it gives me such great honor and pleasure to join in support of this resolution in memory and to celebrate the life of former Senator Paul Simon who was my friend and my mentor and my Senator and my role model. Paul Simon was unique. He was the real thing, though. When we look at him with his bow tie and his suit, he was an authentic person. And those who might make the mistake of kind of relegating Paul Simon to the kind of politician of the past, that would be wrong. Paul Simon, although he had that kind of almost old-fashioned gentlemanly way about him, was someone who we can learn a lot from today. He had incredible courage. The thing that Paul Simon really understood was that it is not only important for your own personal integrity to stand up for your beliefs, but that it was also really good politics. Paul Simon his whole life was an opponent of the death penalty, not always a popular issue in the State of Illinois; and it is an issue that inspired a lot of hot feelings about that. And yet people who would disagree with him on that or, like me, who disagreed with him on the Balanced Budget Amendment pretty strongly, nonetheless often would come up to Senator Paul Simon and say, you know, Senator, I do not agree with you on this or that, or even, I do not agree with you on most things, but I trust you. I am going to vote for you. I admire the way that you stand up for the State of Illinois and for the things that you believe in.”