Credit Cardholders' Bill Of Rights Act Of 2009
Floor Speech
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Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, today we celebrate the 75th birthday of Senator James Merrill Jeffords of Vermont, who was born in Rutland, VT, on May 11, 1934.
He is the son of Marion Hausman and Olin Jeffords. His father served as chief justice of the Vermont Supreme Court.
Jim Jeffords went to college at Yale University and thereafter got a law degree from Harvard Law School. He served 3 years of Active Duty in the U.S. Navy and was in the Naval Reserves until he retired as captain in 1990.
In 1966, he entered the political world and was elected to the Vermont State Senate. Two years later, he ran for Vermont attorney general and was elected to that position. In 1974, he ran for Vermont's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and served for 14 years. In 1988, Jim Jeffords was elected to the Senate of the United States. He was reelected in 1994 and 2000. In 2006, he retired from public life.
Jim Jeffords' mother was a music teacher. Her work had a profound impact on his life. While in Congress, he cofounded the Congressional Arts Caucus. He also began the Congressional High School Art Competition, a bipartisan program that celebrates the talents of local high school students in congressional districts all across America. That program still exists and flourishes.
Jim Jeffords' work in both the House and the Senate was centered on education, on job training, and on individuals with disabilities, culminating in his strong support for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. He will be long remembered as a champion of education, and especially for providing new and rich educational opportunities for those millions of Americans with disabilities who in too many instances were ignored by our schools.
Jim Jeffords continued a long Vermont tradition, in the footsteps of his predecessors Senator Robert Stafford and Senator George Aiken, of serving on the Environment and Public Works Committee. When he assumed the chair of that committee, he provided early and courageous leadership on an emergent problem, which today we recognize as the central environmental issue of our time: global warming.
Early on, Jim Jeffords recognized that the buildup of greenhouse gases would change the climate of our entire planet. He said about it:
The climate is warming, it is due to human activity, and only a change in human behavior will ensure that my grandson, Patton Henry Jeffords, will not suffer the consequences.
But he not only recognized the problem, he set about finding a solution, drafting far-reaching cap-and-trade legislation which even today represents the single most important Federal route to reducing greenhouse gases and to lessening and hopefully reversing global warming. As we consider cap-and-trade legislation in this session, we will be continuing the work Jim Jeffords helped begin and which his foresight set on the national agenda.
In 2001, Jim Jeffords, in a move of great courage, left the Republican Party and became an Independent. This action changed control of the Senate, won widespread support in Vermont, and thrust this normally reserved and quiet man into the national spotlight.
On October 1, 2002, Jim Jeffords was 1 of 23 Senators to vote against authorizing the use of military force in Iraq.
I, personally, have known Jim Jeffords for 37 years, and I can attest to the warmth and affection with which he is held to this day in the State of Vermont. Unassuming, straightforward, and honest, he is respected not only by those who agreed with his views but by those who disagreed. His service has been a beacon of Vermont independence and vision, and so I join the rest of my fellow citizens in Vermont and the Senators in this body in wishing Jim a very happy 75th birthday.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
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