Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. today delivered the following eulogy in celebration of the life of Rep. Donald M. Payne, Jr., who died last week at age 65:
“When I got up this morning and really, all week in Washington, I’ve been grieving, and I’ve been grieving for several reasons. First of all, I have to say, some of you know that Donald Payne would refer to me as his Uncle Frank. And so now, I’ve lost my nephew. And so that’s hard. But I also want to explain to you why that grief, if you will, continued. You see, in the House of Representatives, we have an electronic board where your name appears when you vote yes or no or present, and the name Pallone– P-A — and Payne — P-A-Y — are next to each other. And there were many times over the years when I would go to the floor, and I would look to see how Donald Payne voted because, for me, he was the kind of conscience of the House of Representatives, or at least for the New Jersey delegation. You see. I’m from Jersey Shore, and although we have some similar problems, we don’t have the same situation as in Newark, New Jersey or Essex County. And when we’re voting on things like civil rights or urban issues or housing, the list goes on, a lot of times, I would feel that I had to vote the way Don voted, even if I didn’t know whether it was the right way, because it pertained to things that were important to our country, as a whole.
“But then the third thing that makes me grieve this week, as was already mentioned, at the end of the day, Don would always come down and do what we call special orders, which are speeches, one-minute speeches, or five-minute speeches on the floor. And as you can imagine, read the newspapers, it’s tough times in Washington. At the end of the day, you might have been fighting, you’ve been carrying on doing, you know, whatever, but he would always be there in that seat, ready to give his special order at the end of the day, and I would often sit down with him and commiserate because he always was an optimist. He always felt that things could be better. He always smiled. He always had kindness for me and for for all of us. And so he would lift you up at the end of a bad day. So I mentioned Buster Soaries because when I came here today, I was grieving. But I was so happy when you got up and you said, we have to be joyful. And when you made everybody stand and applaud, and make this into a celebration which everyone has done. So I’m not going to grieve anymore. I’m going to be optimistic. I’m going to be looking forward, and I’m going to leave here today knowing that we can do better in the name and the legacy of Donald Payne.
“Now, I’m going to say two more things. One is talking about his legacy. There was a real uncle, not uncle Frank, but Uncle Phil, that some of you know. And when Don Payne senior passed away, Uncle Phil was not really hot on the idea that Don Payne should go to Congress, because you see here in New Jersey, those some of my colleagues, of course, are not from New Jersey. Here in new Jersey, being a council president, being a county commissioner which he also was, was a very powerful thing. And you could get things done. And Uncle Phil did not think that going to Washington was necessarily a good place to get things done. But I sat down with Don one day and I said, you know, you should come down here and continue your father’s legacy because you can do a lot of things. But everything he did was always keeping his constituents in mind. So when he wanted to do a bill to replace lead pipes, which was done so effectively here with the mayor and others in Newark, that was something that was in his committee that he did nationally, but he was able to effectuate it here in the city of Newark. When he was in charge of transportation issues, railroads, mass transit, he not only passed a national bill, but it was something that was important for Newark, the Gateway Tunnel, for example.
“So, he always brought everything back because he thought that what happened locally was so important. But lastly, and I think this is an important part of his legacy, you know, New Jersey is a tough place. Essex County, New York, are tough places. And I remember a time when there was not the unity that I think hopefully we have today. We had riots in Newark when I was a kid. We had conflict between Italian Americans and African Americans sometimes. Don Payne, Sr. sometimes would speak a little Italian, because he grew up in the Italian neighborhood. I don’t even speak any Italian, but he spoke Italian. But the reason I mention that is because Donald Jr., from his experience, always felt that there had to be unity. It didn’t matter whether you were black or white, Christian or Jewish, rich or poor. He felt that we were all in this together as Americans, that we had to work together, united towards the goal of getting things done in Washington and working for the common good. And so to me, that’s the most important thing that I’m going to leave with, and I hope all of you leave with today, and particularly my colleagues, that we have a lot of work to do. Don’s job is done. He accomplished a lot, but there’s still a lot more that we can do in his name, and that’s his legacy to me. Thank you.”