Political Quotes

“while we are waiting for authors of their amendments to come to the floor to speak on a point of personal business, I wanted to rise to eulogize one of my mentors in politics. State Representative Betty Lou Reed died this week. She was somebody many of us in northern Illinois looked up to. Betty Lou Reed served from her home community of Deerfield, IL. She knew Senator Everett Dirksen well and helped in his campaigns for reelection. She was someone who practiced the art of politics from the fiscally conservative side but the ideological center. She was someone who was a role model for many of us at the township, the State, and especially at the Federal level. I first met Betty Lou after she had retired from our State legislature in Springfield, IL, when she served as the district director for Congressman John Porter. I remember a long visit with her, as she was showing me the congressional district where I grew up, from a political point of view. As we passed by the Zion nuclear reactor, she said: Whatever your feelings from college, buddy boy, here we are pro nuclear power. And she began to introduce me to the politics, especially of Lake County, IL. Betty Lou Reed was someone who liked to drink her bourbon and branch water, as she called it, regularly in the evening, telling old war stories about how things were done in Springfield, IL.…”