Marcy Kaptur: “I rise with my colleagues to offer sympathy to the family of our great speaker, Thomas P. O'Neill, and to his wonderful…”

“I rise with my colleagues to offer sympathy to the family of our great speaker, Thomas P. O'Neill, and to his wonderful family, and to say to them, thank you. We keep you all in our prayers, and we keep him in our prayers. Learning from him was learning from a legend. And for me, it will always be a honor. His joviality and hard-nosed political advice became part of my early service in this Congress. He helped me personally progress through the painful greening that faces any new Member, standing up to the bashes that come your way now and then, the partisan rankling, the rather ugly side sometimes of what should be a rather lofty enterprise. He was the type of Speaker who took the time to shepherd the new members, including the women.”