Full Text of SR2488 99th General Assembly
SR2488 99TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY |
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| 1 | | SENATE RESOLUTION
| 2 | | WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois Senate are saddened to | 3 | | learn of the death of Abner J. Mikva, who passed away on July | 4 | | 4, 2016 at the age of 90; and
| 5 | | WHEREAS, Abner Mikva was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; his | 6 | | parents were Ida and Henry Mikva; he married Zorita Wise on | 7 | | September 19, 1948; and
| 8 | | WHEREAS, In 1944, after graduating from Washington High | 9 | | School, Abner Mikva enrolled in the United States Army Air | 10 | | Corps; after the war, he enrolled at the University of | 11 | | Wisconsin in Madison, where he met his future wife, Zorita | 12 | | "Zoe", on a blind date; he later attended law school at the | 13 | | University of Chicago, where he served as editor-in-chief of | 14 | | the law review and finished near the top of his class; after | 15 | | graduating in 1951, he served as a law clerk for United States | 16 | | Supreme Court Justice, Sherman Minton; and
| 17 | | WHEREAS, Abner Mikva was long known in Chicago and | 18 | | Washington political and legal circles as a liberal reform | 19 | | leader and a man of unassailable integrity; in 1956, when he | 20 | | was living in Hyde Park and practicing law in the Chicago | 21 | | office of Goldberg and Devoe (later Goldberg, Devoe, Shadur, | 22 | | and Mikva), he was persuaded by his friends, Victor deGrazia |
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| 1 | | and Lou Silverman, leaders in the grassroots Independent Voters | 2 | | of Illinois, to run for a seat in the Illinois House of | 3 | | Representatives in the newly drawn 23rd District; he won the | 4 | | primary and became the first independent Democrat from Chicago | 5 | | in modern times to have been elected to the General Assembly; | 6 | | as a Representative, he was a prominent supporter of handgun | 7 | | control, fair housing, and election and civil service reforms; | 8 | | and
| 9 | | WHEREAS, In 1966, Abner Mikva lost a close Democratic | 10 | | congressional primary election in the Second Congressional | 11 | | District on Chicago's South Side; in 1968, he was elected to | 12 | | serve in the United States House of Representatives, where he | 13 | | served on the Judiciary Committee among other assignments; he | 14 | | was known for his pro-civil rights and civil liberties views | 15 | | and as an opponent of the Vietnam War; in 1971, he served as a | 16 | | floor manager when the House passed the 26th Amendment which | 17 | | lowered the voting age to 18; after reapportionment in 1970, he | 18 | | moved to Evanston and ran in the open, newly created 10th | 19 | | Congressional District in Chicago's northern suburbs; after a | 20 | | loss in 1972, he won three consecutive elections, each by a | 21 | | margin of less than one percent of the vote; his hard-earned | 22 | | victories were widely attributed to the legions of enthusiastic | 23 | | doorbell-ringing volunteers he inspired, including many high | 24 | | school and college students; when he returned to Washington | 25 | | after the 1974 election, he exercised an influential voice in |
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| 1 | | the post-Watergate House of Representatives, serving as | 2 | | chairman of the liberal House Democratic Study Group and as a | 3 | | tax reform leader on the powerful Ways and Means Committee; and
| 4 | | WHEREAS, In 1979, Abner Mikva was confirmed to the United | 5 | | States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by a vote of 58 to | 6 | | 31 in the Senate; he served on the court until 1994, the last | 7 | | four years as Chief Judge; of his many judicial opinions, the | 8 | | one of which he was most proud was the one he wrote in a 1993 | 9 | | case for a unanimous three-judge panel rejecting the Navy's | 10 | | dismissal of a homosexual Naval Academy midshipman, one of the | 11 | | early rulings by a federal court defending LGBT rights; the | 12 | | following year, he left the court to become White House | 13 | | Counsel; and
| 14 | | WHEREAS, Upon returning to Chicago in 1997, Abner Mikva and | 15 | | his wife started the Mikva Challenge, a non-partisan | 16 | | organization that promotes civic and political engagement | 17 | | among high-school students; through the program, thousands of | 18 | | Chicago students, with support from Mikva Challenge staff and | 19 | | their teachers, have volunteered in local and national election | 20 | | campaigns, served as election judges, and worked on | 21 | | neighborhood and citywide issues that the students identify as | 22 | | important to them; the Mikva Challenge model is now being | 23 | | implemented by teachers and school districts in other cities, | 24 | | most recently in Washington, D.C.; and
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| 1 | | WHEREAS, Abner Mikva was awarded the Presidential Medal of | 2 | | Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2014; and | 3 | | WHEREAS, Abner Mikva is survived by his wife, Zoe; his | 4 | | daughters, Mary, Laurie, and Rachel; his sons-in-law, Steven | 5 | | Cohen, James Pfander, and Mark Rosenberg; and his | 6 | | grandchildren, Rebecca and Jordan Cohen, Sarah, Samantha, and | 7 | | Benjamin Pfander and Jacob and Keren Mikva Rosenberg; | 8 | | therefore, be it
| 9 | | RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-NINTH GENERAL | 10 | | ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we, along with his | 11 | | family and friends, mourn the passing of Abner J. Mikva; and be | 12 | | it further
| 13 | | RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be | 14 | | presented to the family of Abner Mikva as an expression of our | 15 | | sympathy.
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