John Spratt: “Ron, we go back 15 years. A long time. When I came here in 1983, you had just reached the first plateau of power in the…”

“Ron, we go back 15 years. A long time. When I came here in 1983, you had just reached the first plateau of power in the House. You had become a subcommittee chairman. It took you 12 years to rise up the seniority ladder, which tells us a lot about your doggedness, your determination and diligence. Even when you reached this point, you were not really at the pinnacle. You were the chairman of the Subcommittee on Facilities and Installations, better known as the MilCon subcommittee. There was some rumbling in those days among the barons on the committee, the upper tier, about letting this gadfly have the reins of power, even this subcommittee, which was a subordinate subcommittee, because you were not cut from the same bolt as the rest of the committee. You did not always vote, rarely voted for the defense authorization bill, much less supported it on the floor. And they worried you might take the subcommittee chair and use it to roll the committee. Of course, no one dared to breathe these concerns in the open. And it was a good thing, because in a few months time they were totally allayed. They were allayed because you took the chair of the subcommittee with the dignity that comes to you naturally, and you wielded that gavel with such civility that even your opponents came to praise you.”