Senator Paul Wellstone

SENATOR PAUL WELLSTONE -- (Senate - November 16, 2006)

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in a few moments there will be a number of resolutions offered on the floor of the Senate on a variety of different issues. Some of them have been spoken to. A resolution which I have offered is related to the fact that we are in the fourth year of an anniversary of the death of our colleague Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota.

I look back on a career of service in the House and Senate and remember a handful of very special people who passed on or left this institution. One of those was Paul Wellstone. What an extraordinary fellow. The most unlikely Senator you would ever see. He just didn't look the part at all. Maybe that is why he did so well in Minnesota and was so effective here. He was cut from a different mold. He used to sit back here in the last row, and he would stand and speak. He would stand in the middle of the aisle as he spoke and would kind of saunter around. He had a back injury from wrestling. He loved wrestling; not the kind you see on television but real collegiate wrestling. His involvement in wrestling cost him some back injuries that haunted him his entire life. So he would walk with a kind of a cantered gait as he went back and forth on the aisle and all around the Senate.

But people didn't remember that part. They remembered what he had to say and they remembered what was in his heart. Paul Wellstone used to say that he thought there were two necessary ingredients for success in public service.

One was hard work; the other was passion. He had both of them. Nobody worked harder for everything he believed in and for his State of Minnesota, and nobody came to these issues with more passion.

I can recall the last time I saw him. He was a few feet away from me here. It was the night we cast our vote on the Iraqi war. It was a vote that was a hard one. Nobody cared for Saddam Hussein. Nobody wanted to see him continue in power. We certainly wanted to protect our country. But there were genuine concerns felt by many of us as to whether we really understood what lie ahead in that war, the threat to the United States, and whether we were being told everything we needed to know.

Twenty-three of us voted against the war that night. I was one, Paul Wellstone was another. It was even later than now that night, and I came to the well on the floor to say goodbye to Paul because we were both off for the reelection campaigns of 4 years ago. I came over to wish him well, and I said, ``Paul, I hope that vote doesn't cost you the election.'' He said, ``You know, it is OK if it does because that is what I believe and that is who I am. The people of Minnesota would expect nothing less from me.'' It was the last time I ever saw him. He went home, and within 2 weeks he was killed in a plane crash with his wife and staff members.

I went up to the memorial service for Paul. There was an amazing turnout at the University of Minnesota in tribute to this small-in-stature but great-in-service Senator from Minnesota. The one thing that he returned to over and over again was the issue of fairness and equal treatment for those suffering from mental illness. Paul's family had been stricken with mental illness, and hardly any family in America has been spared. He knew firsthand what it meant to suffer from mental illness and not be able to afford a doctor's care or the medicine needed by people who are suffering from it. He worked with Senator Domenici from New Mexico, a Republican, on passage of legislation for equal treatment under health insurance for those suffering from mental illness.

The Surgeon General determined in a 1999 report that mental illness is largely biologically based and effective treatments exist. It is a disease that can be treated. In 1996, Senators Domenici and Wellstone championed a bill requiring insurers to offer mental health care and to offer comparable benefit caps for mental health and physical health. But there was a big loophole in the bill, and they knew it. The bill didn't require group health plans to include mental health coverage as a benefit. Even with the 1996 law in place and 22 States mandating full parity, mental health services continued to be subject to higher limitations than other health treatments.

The parity law in place that I referred to expires at the end of this year. I hoped 4 years ago, when we were caught up in the emotions of Paul's death, that we would come back and pass legislation that he called for and worked for with Senator Domenici. Four years have passed and it hasn't happened. Many people continue to suffer, continue to go without the basic care they need.

Resolutions come and go, and very few people pay much attention to them. I don't think this will be a lead line in any newspaper in America, but the purpose of this resolution is to put the Senate on notice that it has been the fourth anniversary of the death of a man we loved in the Senate, Paul Wellstone, and also to urge us to remember his mission in the Senate when it came to mental health. The purpose clause of this resolution reads:

Congress should act to end discrimination against citizens of the United States who live with a mental illness by enacting legislation to provide for the coverage of mental health benefits with respect to health insurance coverage.

I would like the language to be stronger, but I understand this was the best we could do this evening. We can prove that Paul Wellstone was right and that we care about his legacy by enacting this legislation when we return. I will be working with Senator Kennedy, Senator Enzi, and all of my colleagues to do our best to make sure that does occur.

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