Remembering Ann Richards

REMEMBERING ANN RICHARDS -- (Senate - September 14, 2006)

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I join my colleagues and many others across America to express our sadness over the loss of one great person: former Texas Governor Ann Richards. There she was, with her Dairy Queen hairdo, her thick Texas twang, and her lightning fast wit. She was beloved and recognized by everybody. When she would show up on Capitol Hill, people couldn't wait to come up and shake hands and see that beautiful smile. Several times she came by my office, and our visit always started with a laugh and ended with a laugh. She was just a great person to be around.

She was born Dorothy Ann Willis in 1933, in Lakeview, a farming community near Waco. She was the only child of Iona and Cecil Willis. They came from the tiny towns of Bugtussle and Hogjaw.

At Waco High School, she dropped her first name and became just Ann. She also became the Texas state debate champion.

During her senior year, she visited Washington as a delegate to Girls Nation and, on a trip to the White House, shook hands with President Truman, one of her all time heroes.

Despite her natural political talents, it never occurred to Ann Richards to run for political office herself until later in life.

In her 20s, she taught social studies in an Austin middle school for less than 2 years before she was required to resign because she was pregnant with her first child. She later described teaching as ``the hardest work I had ever done.''

In 1975, her husband, civil rights attorney David Richards, was approached about running for Travis County commissioner. He turned it down and said he wasn't interested, but Ann Richards was.

She won that race and went on to serve two terms as a Travis County commissioner, 8 years as Texas state treasurer, and 4 years as her State's governor.

Her 1990 election as Governor--a come-from-behind victory--made her the first woman elected governor in Texas in nearly 60 years, and the first woman to win that office without following her husband in.

As Governor, Ann Richards pursued a progressive agenda and appointed an unprecedented number of women and minorities to posts they never would have dreamed of in Texas Government.

Her family said that, as Governor, she was most proud of two actions that probably cost her re-election. She vetoed legislation that would have allowed people to carry concealed handguns. She also vetoed a bill that would have destroyed an aquifer that supplies water for much of south central Texas. She paid the political price.

Years later, when a reporter asked her what she might have done differently had she known she was going to serve only one term as Governor, Ann Richards grinned and replied: ``Oh, I would probably have raised more hell.''

She was not just a political hero. In speaking openly about her struggle with alcoholism, her decision, in 1980, to get sober, and the joy she discovered in sobriety, Ann Richards was also a source of inspiration as well to countless others who struggle with addiction.

Ann Richards rose to national prominence when she gave the keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention. People remember a lot of things she said in that address.

That address includes some immortal lines, including her famous description of gender inequality: ``Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.''

In other lines from that speech that are not as well remembered, Ann Richards talked about why she believed in government.

She said:

I was born during the Depression in a little community just outside Waco, and I grew up listening to Franklin Roosevelt on the radio. It was back then that I came to understand the small truths and the hardships that bind neighbors together. Those were real people with real problems, and they had real dreams about getting out of the Depression.

She said she could still hear the voices of those ``people who were living their lives as best they could.''

She said: ``They talked about war and Washington and what this country needed. They talked straight talk.''

In politics and in her life after politics, Ann Richards used her power to try to solve the real problems of real people and enable them to live and raise their families with dignity and hope.

I'll close with one more story from Wayne Slater. He recalls that, during a public appearance several years after leaving office, Ann Richards was asked about her legacy.

She replied:

In looking back on my life, I could of course say the predictable thing: that the greatest thing I've ever done is bear my children and have grandchildren, and all that kind of stuff. But the reality is that the greatest part of my life was the opportunity to be in public service--to make a difference for the community I live in, for the State that I love, to be able to try to make things better, whether they turned out in the fashion I expected them to or not.

Then she added:

Sometimes it's serendipitous. Good things happen accidentally. But they're not going to happen unless well-meaning people give of their time and their lives to do that.

Ann Richards earned that legacy and more. She made a difference not only for her community and her beloved State, but to our entire Nation. She touched so many lives and changed so many lives in her life. She will be greatly missed.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to her children: Cecile, Daniel, Clark and Ellen; their spouses; and Governor Richards' eight grandchildren.

There is good news in the Richards family. Cecile received an award last night from USA Action. Of course, she couldn't be there, she was at her mother's deathbed--and that is certainly understood. But a tribute was paid to her for her active work on behalf of women across America as a leader in Planned Parenthood. She is carrying on her mother's legacy, her commitment, her family's commitment to public service. I can't think of anything that would have made Ann Richards more proud.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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