{"database": "openregs", "table": "congressional_record", "rows": [["CREC-2004-12-20-pt1-PgS12093-3", "2004-12-20", 108, 2, null, null, "TRIBUTE TO SENATOR JOHN EDWARDS", "SENATE", "SENATE", "TRIBUTETO", "S12093", "S12094", "[{\"name\": \"Paul S. Sarbanes\", \"role\": \"speaking\"}]", null, "150 Cong. Rec. S12093", "Congressional Record, Volume 150 Issue 140 (Monday, December 20, 2004)\n\n[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 140 (Monday, December 20, 2004)]\n[Senate]\n[Pages S12093-S12094]\nFrom the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]\n\n                    TRIBUTE TO SENATOR JOHN EDWARDS\n\n  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, in 1998, John Edwards was elected to the\nU.S. Senate from his home State of North Carolina to fill the seat once\nheld by Senator Sam Ervin. He had never before run for, or served in,\npublic office. From the time he received his law degree in 1977 until\nhe entered the Senate, he was an attorney in private practice. For two\ndecades John represented in court North Carolinians who had been\ngrievously injured or disabled and had no one to speak up for them. He\nquickly made the transition from the courtroom to the Senate Chamber,\nhowever, because in both he has been guided by the same unwavering\nprinciple: putting to work his formidable talents and energy, along\nwith his training, on behalf of ``the people I grew up with.''\n  John Edwards grew up in Robbins, NC. Robbins was a mill town. John's\nfather spent nearly four decades working in textile mills; his mother\nworked in a number of jobs as well. As David Broder once put it, his\nparents and their friends and coworkers were people who ``earn their\nbread by the sweat of their brow.''\n  John was the first person in his family to go to college. For the\nmillions of Americans who were the first in the\n\n[[Page S12094]]\n\nfamily to receive a college education--and I count myself among them--\nthis has very special meaning. He worked his way through school in 3\nyears, finding summer jobs in the mills. He went on to study law at the\nUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of the Nation's\nranking law schools, and there he met, and soon married, a fellow\nstudent, Elizabeth Anania. In his book, ``Four Trials,'' which was\npublished just this year, John pays tribute to the men and women who\nhave played some part in his life, but none is more moving than his\nrichly deserved tribute to Elizabeth: ``I have spent many years trying\nto live up to what she believed I could be, and I am the better for\nit.''\n  In the 108th Congress, John served on the Health, Education, Labor,\nand Pensions Committee; the Judiciary Committee; the Small Business\nCommittee; and the Intelligence Committee--and also for a while on the\nBanking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, where we first had an\nopportunity to work together. These are formidable, wide-ranging\njurisdictions. In every assignment he undertook, John fought for\npolicies, as he has put it, that ``reward work--not just wealth, work--\nand (to) ensure that the American dream stays alive and available to\nevery single American, no matter where they live or who their family is\nor what the color of their skin.''\n  Together with the senior Senator from Massachusetts and the senior\nSenator from Arizona, John Edwards led the successful effort in the\nSenate to pass landmark patients' rights legislation, only to see the\nbill falter in the face of implacable opposition from the White House.\nJohn has been a forceful advocate for the thousands of North\nCarolinians, and indeed Americans, who ``did everything right,'' but\nwere still powerless to prevent their jobs from being swept overseas.\n  When the 109th Congress convenes in January, John Edwards will no\nlonger represent his beloved State of North Carolina in the U.S.\nSenate. He will be home in the State he loves--``the place that made me\nlove America to begin with''--with the family he loves so dearly.\nWhether in the Nation's Capital or in North Carolina, however, we know\nthat John will continue to do what he has always done so well, fighting\n``for those who do not have a voice, to make sure that ``no one--no\none--is lost in America, that that dream is everlasting.'' He will be\nsorely missed in this Chamber.\n\n                          ____________________"]], "columns": ["granule_id", "date", "congress", "session", "volume", "issue", "title", "chamber", "granule_class", "sub_granule_class", "page_start", "page_end", "speakers", "bills", "citation", "full_text"], "primary_keys": ["granule_id"], "primary_key_values": ["CREC-2004-12-20-pt1-PgS12093-3"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.6963079795241356, "source": "Federal Register API & Regulations.gov API", "source_url": "https://www.federalregister.gov/developers/api/v1", "license": "Public Domain (U.S. Government data)", "license_url": "https://www.regulations.gov/faq"}