City of Philadelphia - File #: 020694

• File #: 020694
• Version: 0
• Type: Privileged Resolution
• Status: ENACTED
• File created: 10/31/2002
• In control: CITY COUNCIL
• Final action: 10/31/2002
• Title: Mourning the death and celebrating the life of Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone.
• Sponsors: Councilmember Ortiz, Councilmember Ortiz, Councilmember Kenney, Councilmember Kenney, Council President Verna, Council President Verna, Councilmember Tasco, Councilmember Tasco, Councilmember Nutter, Councilmember Goode, Councilmember Reynolds Brown, Councilmember Reynolds Brown, Councilmember Blackwell, Councilmember Blackwell, Councilmember Mariano, Councilmember Mariano, Councilmember DiCicco, Councilmember DiCicco, Councilmember Cohen, Councilmember Cohen, Councilmember Miller, Councilmember Miller, Councilmember Rizzo, Councilmember Rizzo, Councilmember Krajewski, Councilmember Krajewski, Councilmember O'Neill, Councilmember O'Neill, Councilmember Clarke, Councilmember Clarke

Date	Ver.	Action By	Action	Result	Tally
10/31/2002	0	CITY COUNCIL	ADOPTED BY STANDING VOTE
10/31/2002	0	CITY COUNCIL	ADOPTED BY STANDING VOTE
10/31/2002	0	CITY COUNCIL	READ
10/31/2002	0	CITY COUNCIL	READ
10/31/2002	0	CITY COUNCIL	Introduced	Pass
10/31/2002	0	CITY COUNCIL	Introduced	Pass

Title
Mourning the death and celebrating the life of Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone.
Body
WHEREAS, On Friday morning, October 25, 2002 Senator Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila, his daughter Marcia, staffers Tom Lapic, Mary McEvoy and Will McLaughlin and co-pilots Captain Richard Conry and Michael Guess were all killed in a plane crash; and

WHEREAS, Senator Paul Wellstone was more than a senator from Minnesota, he was a champion of all the issues that affected ordinary people. Throughout his career, he championed universal health care, the rights of the mentally ill, organized labor, women's rights, the environment, full public financing of elections, equitable funding of public education, decent child care, the family farmer, and the poor. He was a staunch opponent of Bill Clinton's 1996 welfare reform law, and he virtually single-handedly stalled the pending bankruptcy legislation, which would impose onerous new burdens on the indigent; and

WHEREAS, Despite his liberal and left leanings, Wellstone made friends and forged bipartisan alliances. In what may be his proudest legacy, he and Republican Senator Pete Domenici joined ranks to author legislation to require health insurance plans to provide "parity" coverage for mental illnesses. While their bill was scaled back, President Bush recently endorsed the concept, and it is seen as a pioneering step toward helping a huge segment of sick, but often ignored, Americans; and

WHEREAS, Wellstone's first run for the Senate in 1990 defied all the odds. Never having won elected office and massively outspent, he managed to win, 51-to-49 percent, by running a grassroots campaign, traveling the state in a green school bus and using humor and never flinching from the liberal label; and

WHEREAS, Paul David Wellstone was born in Washington on July 21, 1944, and grew up in Arlington, VA. His father, Leon, left Russia as a child to escape the persecution of Jews, and worked as a writer for the United States ...