Luke Letlow Post Office Building

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Kansas for yielding. Especially having Julia Letlow, our colleague, here, it is bittersweet for us in the Louisiana delegation, for all of us in Congress, those of us who knew Luke--I got to know him so well over so many years--and those who didn't know him but were getting ready to serve with him. He literally passed away days before getting sworn in after being elected as a Member of Congress.

It is Luke's journey. It is Luke's story that we are here to celebrate today and ultimately which will live on at the Luke Letlow Post Office in Rayville, his hometown. He was born in Start, Louisiana, in Richland Parish, and it is there in Richland Parish that this post office that we are dedicating is, hopefully, going to be enjoying a formal ceremony with all of us and the whole family.

When I think of how I first met Luke, it was when he was working for Bobby Jindal. As Julia said so eloquently, Luke's whole life was dedicated to public service. When he graduated, he immediately was an intern for Congressman Cooksey and came up here. I think that was when he probably got the bug a little bit.

He ultimately got the bug to serve other people. Luke did it so well. He served other people with joy in so many different roles. After he worked for Congressman Cooksey, he then worked for candidate Bobby Jindal. That is when I got to know him.

There was no harder worker than Luke Letlow, but also no happier person. He was always happy, always had a smile. He always just wanted to do the best he could. ``Win the day'' was Luke's term, and he would just work incredibly hard for whoever he worked for.

Bobby ultimately won that seat in Congress, and Luke became his district director. The district director is the person who covers the district, does so many of the unheralded things that those of us Members of Congress deal with and the people who call us. We just call our district director and say: Can you take care of this, and can you see if we can help that person out? That was really where Luke thrived the most.

Then, ultimately, he went into the private sector but was called back yet again when Ralph Abraham ran for Congress, and Luke served as his chief of staff. Ralph had set a term limit on himself, and when the term limit hit, Ralph stepped down from Congress. At that point, that is when Luke made the decision: Here is my moment. Do I do this? Ultimately, he decided to run.

I remember, he and I spoke when he chose to get into the race as a candidate. I knew he was going to do well. I could just tell because he was a natural. He was a natural with people. He actually cared about people. It is hard to be in this line of work without caring about people. He had done it in so many roles for so many other people. Finally, when it was time to run himself, he did it with the fervor that you would expect. He never slowed down. Every single day he worked so hard.

I know for those of us who have gotten to know Julia so well, the family is what always came first to Luke. He wanted to be known really first as a husband and a father, and he did both of those jobs incredibly well; exceeded, I am sure, what anybody would have expected.

The legacy that I think we all really remember of Luke here is that of a public servant. When you hear all of the things that he did in his life, he was somebody who just wanted to serve other people, and he did it so well.

I think the hardest part for me is after he had gotten elected, we talked a lot because he was so eager to get ready for this new role, this new career, to come up to Congress and do something that he had thought about doing for so long, a role he had played helping so many other people who served in Congress, but now this was the time where he was going to start his new career.

He was talking about what committees he wanted to get on. In fact, you know, in the days before he passed, the last conversation I had with him was about him talking to me about what committees he wanted to be on and how he wanted to best serve that district and all of the parishes. It was a very large, sprawling district, and yet he couldn't wait to serve in that capacity. That was the conversation that we had.

You never thought someone so young and so vibrant could leave us so early. I tell you, for Julia, we are all so proud of her and just the strength that she has shown in these years since. We call Julia our steel magnolia because she has represented the family incredibly well. She has represented Luke's legacy incredibly well because while he never got the opportunity to serve as a Member of Congress, he served. He served the State of Louisiana, and he served the United States of America in so many different roles.

I consider him a colleague because we talked about what that would be like so much, and I just think this is one way we can pay tribute to Luke's legacy of service, to name this post office so that people, when they are carrying out their daily chores and going to check their mail or send an important note to somebody, they can just look up and think about what Luke meant and what they meant to Luke because he really did care about the people that ultimately he worked for and that he was going to represent in Congress.

I say this on behalf of the whole delegation, and I know others are going to be speaking as well, the legacy of Luke Letlow will shine on for a long, long time.

It is what he represented and that spirit, that strong, positive energy every single day to win the day, is what I will always remember about Luke Letlow.

I urge all of my colleagues to pass this bill and look forward to that ceremony where we get to truly be in front of the whole family, paying tribute to a man who lived a life of public service.

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