Tribute to the Late Honorable Jo Ann Davis
Floor Speech
TRIBUTE TO THE LATE HONORABLE JO ANN DAVIS -- (House of Representatives - October 09, 2007)
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Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to pay tribute to our fallen colleague, the Honorable JO ANN DAVIS, Member of Congress from the Commonwealth of Virginia. Let me, first of all, offer my deepest sympathy to her family and to acknowledge the special role that Congresswoman Davis had in this body.
She was a veteran legislator, a business woman, and a Member of Congress from Virginia's First District. She was the first Virginia Republican woman elected to the House in her own right, and she was the second woman from Virginia to be elected in the United States Congress.
More importantly, she loved the work. She loved this House and loved America. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, Intelligence, and Foreign Affairs Committees, she was diligent in her work. I am reminded of her participation in the Women's Caucus. The caucus was bipartisan. We had many opportunities, as women Members of the United States House, to sit together to study issues, particularly health issues, the way a number of diseases impacted women. We were able to gather together to sponsor legislation that particularly focused on enhanced research on diseases that impacted women negatively.
I am reminded of the leadership of a former colleague also recently deceased, Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald, who organized the women's effort to lay a wreath at the Women's Memorial at Arlington Cemetery, and I have in my mind a memory of Congresswoman Davis joining us on those many occasions, uniting around our effort to pay tribute to women members of the armed services of the United States of America.
So this evening I simply say that we will miss her, thank her for her pioneering spirit and her leadership, and I would like to say simply to her husband, Chuck; her children; and to thousands of her friends around the Nation and in her district our prayers and condolences are to your family and certainly to your community. So many lives were touched by your service. So we say to you, farewell, our dear friend. May you rest in peace.
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