The House of Representatives today passed House Resolution 401, “Honoring the life and recognizing the far-reaching accomplishments of the Honorable Jack Kemp, Jr.”

            The following are excerpts from Rep. Chris Smith’s floor remarks about the passing of the former House Member and political leader:

            The country lost a great and extraordinary American on Saturday.

            Jack Kemp, was a man of deep faith in Christ, husband to the equally remarkable Joanne, father of four and grandfather of seventeen. And he was, for those of us who knew him so well, above all, a family man. He was also, a former star quarterback, HUD Secretary and Congressman, and he will be deeply missed by all of us who knew, respected and admired and loved this special person.

            I first met Jack when he campaigned for me in Trenton in 1978 in my first bid for Congress. A decade later as HUD Secretary Jack Kemp actually helped us get the first demonstration project for Trenton’s Weed and Seed, one of only four in the country. Twenty years later, Weed and Seed continues to positively help hundreds of disadvantaged youth in Trenton. Such was his legacy times a million.

            By his contagious enthusiasm, boundless energy, personal integrity, dedication to high moral principles and sheer determination, he changed America and in the process the world.

            Jack Kemp believed in the politics of inclusion and worked tirelessly to extend hope and opportunity to all regardless of race, gender, creed, age, disability, or dependence, including and especially unborn children.

            In a 1993 speech Jack said ‘Every single year, there is a tragic silence of a million newborn cries that will never be heard. Talents that will never be developed. Potential that we will never see. Books never authored. Inventions never made.’

            ‘The right to life is a gift of God,’ he went on to say, ‘not a gift of the State.’ He was proudly prolife.

            In the early 80s Jack Kemp wrote the Kemp-Kasten Anti Coercion law—to protect women everywhere, especially in China from the horrific crime of coerced abortion and involuntary sterilization. He always cared for the weak, disenfranchised, and the vulnerable.

            Jack’s speech on Martin Luther King Holiday in 1983 was amongst his most remarkable and enduring.  He eloquently spoke of Dr. King’s legacy and the necessity of healing and reconciliation.  He said that the King Holiday, like the Civil Rights struggle was the necessary continuation of the American Revolution.  In part, Jack also said,

‘The Martin Luther King Holiday is not just a holiday for a civil right leader. It is more importantly…a holiday to commemorate that idea, that dream that all people have all over this country and indeed the world, to live in freedom, justice, dignity, to be able to know that those rights are guaranteed by Government through our Constitution but are given to us by God, that inalienable source.’

Jack Kemp not only wrote landmark laws but was the quintessential ideas man as well, and his often outside-the-box thinking became the inspiration for innovative reforms including Urban Enterprise Zones, the Reagan tax cuts and realization of home ownership.

            Jack Kemp was truly one of a kind—one of the all time greats.

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