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Remembering John Edward Porter
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, the name ``John Edward Porter'' may not be well known to many people now, but there was a time when he had a special impact on America.
I was proud to call him a colleague and my friend. John Porter was a Congressman from Illinois who served at the same time I was a Member of the House. He did some remarkable things in his life. In the famous 10th District, he was a real leader on many issues. He represented that district in Chicago's northern suburbs from 1980 until the year 2001 and for most of the time we served together in the House. I admired him. We always had a good, positive working relationship although we were of different political faiths. He was a leader and a voice for principled, bipartisan cooperation within our Illinois congressional delegation.
John Porter passed away last Friday. He was raised in a family where public service was a way of life. He took it to heart. He served in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1958 to 1964 and as an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice during the Kennedy administration.
He was elected to the House in 1980 when his predecessor, Abner Mikva, resigned to become a Federal judge. The two men were different in political faith, but in many regards, they were the same. Ab Mikva, you see, was a legendary liberal Democrat, the son of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine who relied on welfare to survive the Great Depression. John Porter was a fiscally conservative Republican whose father was a judge. But they shared many values. They believed that public service was a noble profession and that government could make life better and that America must remain a beacon of hope for the world.
John Porter supported efforts to protect the environment in the earliest days. He championed human rights efforts across the globe and efforts to protect the environment at home. He was the founder of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. He was a key supporter of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
John Porter was an independent thinker who defied the National Rifle Association to support a national ban on assault weapons in 1994. It took guts. John Porter did the right thing.
His greatest and most visionary contribution to America was in the field of biomedical research. He was chair of the powerful House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. He was a driving force in the House behind the successful effort to double the funding for the National Institutes of Health.
For those who may not know, the National Institutes of Health in Washington, DC, is the leading medical research agency in the world--in the world--and John Porter, this Congressman from Illinois, teamed up with two Senators to take on what seemed like an impossible assignment. He joined with Tom Harkin, a Senator from Iowa, a Democrat, and Arlen Specter, a Senator from Pennsylvania, a Republican. They set out to do the politically impossible--to double the budget for the National Institutes of Health.
The new funding came at a critical moment in history. It made possible discoveries that literally changed the world, including the famous Human Genome Project, which Dr. Francis Collins headed up at that time. It was one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century, and it happened because John Porter and the Senators I mentioned decided to make certain that the NIH had the resources when they needed it.
The mapping of the human genome continues to transform medicine on a daily basis and has provided lifesaving cures all around the world. It is the leadership of NIH Director Dr. Collins and the inspiring example of John Porter that convinced me to try to team up with Senators on the other side of the aisle and do the same in my time in the Senate. I admired John's success so much that I decided to try to make it my own. So I teamed up with Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri, and also, of course, with Patty Murray, a Democrat from the State of Washington, and we started our effort to see if we could increase dramatically the National Institutes of Health's budget. We did. We increased it by over 40 percent in the period of time that we have taken on this assignment and more to follow.
The NIH recognized Congressman John Porter's invaluable contributions in 2014 by naming its new Neuroscience Research Center in his honor.
Loretta and I send our condolences to his wife Amy, their children, stepchildren, and grandchildren, to John's friends and colleagues, and to all who were inspired by his example to make our world and our Nation a better, healthier, safer place.
SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 168, No. 96
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