Remebering Charles Carroll Smith

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments to say farewell to a friend and a public servant who served my State of Illinois and our Nation well. His name was Charles Carroll Smith, but his friends called him Charlie. He died on the day after Thanksgiving. Our paths crossed often over the years.

Charlie served as Illinois' deputy secretary of state under then- Secretary of State Alan Dixon. When Alan Dixon was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980, Charlie came to Washington with him. He was a key member of the Dixon staff, serving as both legislative director and senior national security adviser. When Alan Dixon left the Senate, Charlie joined the staff of Kentucky Senator Wendell Ford, then the Senate's Democratic whip. Charlie was Senator Ford's legislative staff director and a trusted adviser to Senator Ford on matters involving national security and foreign relations.

He helped craft and pass many important pieces of legislation, including the 1990 law establishing the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission in 1990. He went on to serve as executive director of the 1995 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission-a massive task to try to realign America's military bases with the realities of the post-Cold War world.

The work of the Base Closure Commission was necessary, complex, and historic, and Charlie's intricate understanding of both the Defense Department and the security needs of America and our allies was critical to the commission's success. Despite the gargantuan task, Charlie was never too busy to listen. I and all of the Members of the Illinois congressional delegation appreciated his willingness to always consider fairly our explanations about the national security importance of the military bases in our State. He never put his thumb on the scale for Illinois, but he made sure that we received a fair hearing. The day the commission announced its recommendations in 2005, Charlie called me to explain in layman's language just what the recommendations meant for Illinois and for America. I have never met anyone with a greater understanding of the workings of the Defense Department and the ability to translate that knowledge into plain English. He was a rare one.

Charlie came by his political and legislative skills the old- fashioned way. He inherited them. He grew up in an Irish Catholic Democratic family on the North Side of Chicago. His father was in politics; his mother was a professor. Charlie was the first-born and only son in the family of three children.

The Smith family took politics and democracy seriously. Charlie and his father were both named Charles Carroll Smith, senior and junior. Family legend has it that they were descended from Charles Carroll, one of the signers of America's Declaration of Independence and a member of the Continental Congress. Whether it was true or not-- this was before at-home DNA testing--the Smith family strove to live up to Charles Carroll's patriotic example.

When Charlie was about 11, his father decided that the Smith family home should be a laboratory of democracy. They would discuss important events at the dinner table, and once a week, they would have a meeting to vote on matters involving the family. After just one or two of these family meetings, Charlie had an epiphany. He told his sister Sheila: ``You know, if we three kids stick together, we can outvote Mom and Dad.'' He said: ``I want a bike. What do you want?'' Charlie figured out what both of his sisters wanted and how to deliver it. At the next family meeting, the girls supported Charlie's proposal to buy him a bike. The kids won, and Charlie got his bike. The Smith family never held another family vote, but Charlie would go on to use his coalition- building skills in the interest of public service for the rest of his life.

In 1968, Charlie joined the U.S. Army and served as an intelligence officer in Vietnam during the Tet offensive.

He left public service in 1999 and began his second career as a lobbyist. He was respected by members of Congress on both sides of the aisle as a straight shooter and a good man.

Besides his family, politics, and public service, Charlie loved the Chicago Bears and the Cubs and playing golf. Every Christmas season, Charlie hosted a party for his friends at the Army Navy Country Club in Arlington, VA. It was always a great, bipartisan celebration. This Friday, Charlie's friends will gather by Zoom to remember him on what would have been his 26th annual Christmas party. He will be missed there, and he will be missed in the halls of Congress, in his old neighborhood in Chicago, and many other places.

Loretta and I send our condolences to Charlie's wife Patti Turner; his sisters, Sheila Smith and Catherine Wilson; and his many, many friends.

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