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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2     WHEREAS, On October 20, 1960, Peter Gosselin Fitzgerald was
3 born in Inverness, a suburb northwest of Chicago, where he grew
4 up and has lived all his life; he went to St. Theresa's
5 elementary school in Palatine and Portsmouth Abbey, a secondary
6 school in Portsmouth, Rhode Island; he then attended Dartmouth
7 College, where he majored in Latin and Greek; he graduated from
8 Dartmouth Cum Laude and with "highest distinction"; in 1982 and
9 1983, he studied at the Aristotelian University in Salonica,
10 Greece as a Rotary Foundation International Graduate Scholar;
11 he earned his J.D. from the University of Michigan School of
12 Law; he practiced corporate law for ten years in Chicago, first
13 in private firms and later as general counsel for a publicly
14 traded bank holding company; and
 
15     WHEREAS, From 1993 until his election to the U.S. Senate in
16 1998, Peter Fitzgerald was an Illinois State Senator,
17 representing the northwest suburbs of Chicago, and serving as
18 the chair of the State Government Operations Committee; during
19 his time as an Illinois State Senator, his many initiatives
20 included the community notification law for child sex
21 offenders, PA 89-462 (HB 3670: Klingler/Fitzgerald); a law
22 requiring teachers to teach habits of discipline and respect
23 for others, PA 90-620 (HB 3793: Madigan/Fitzgerald); and a bill
24 banning insurers from using domestic battery as a reason to
25 increase charges upon any customer for property or casualty
26 insurance, PA 90-700 (HB 2860: Parke/Fitzgerald); and
 
27     WHEREAS, On November 3, 1998, Peter G. Fitzgerald was
28 elected to the United States Senate at age 38; he was the first
29 Republican in Illinois to win a Senate race in 20 years and for
30 several years he was the youngest member of the U.S. Senate;
31 while in the U.S. Senate, he served on the Commerce,
32 Governmental Affairs, Agriculture, Small Business, and Aging
33 committees; he chairs the Governmental Affairs subcommittee on

 

 

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1 Financial Management, the Budget, and International Security;
2 the Commerce subcommittee on Consumer Affairs and Product
3 Safety; and the Agriculture subcommittee on Research,
4 Nutrition, and General Legislation; and
 
5     WHEREAS, Having experience as a former commercial banking
6 director and general counsel, Senator Fitzgerald has chaired or
7 played a leading role in investigations of Enron and corporate
8 accounting fraud, mutual fund industry abuses, chronic
9 under-funding of employee pensions, the deteriorating
10 condition of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation,
11 conflicts of interest in the insurance brokerage industry, high
12 fees in 529 college savings programs, and waste, fraud, and
13 mismanagement in various federal agencies; he has enacted
14 several measures to improve the financial accountability of
15 government agencies and departments by expanding audit
16 requirements and extending the reach of the Chief Financial
17 Officers Act; and
 
18     WHEREAS, In 2004, Senator Fitzgerald proposed
19 comprehensive, bi-partisan mutual fund reform legislation to
20 protect the household, college, and retirement savings of the
21 91,000,000 Americans who invest in mutual funds; endorsed by
22 consumer groups and termed the "gold standard" of industry
23 reform, Senator Fitzgerald's legislation helped prompt the
24 Securities Exchange Commission to undertake a vigorous review
25 of mutual fund oversight and regulation; by mid-November 2004,
26 the SEC had promulgated final rules addressing 16 of the
27 provisions laid out in his legislation, including provisions on
28 director independence, fund governance, fee and compensation
29 disclosure, and a prohibition of directed brokerage; and
 
30     WHEREAS, During his tenure in the U.S. Senate, Senator
31 Peter Fitzgerald has built a reputation as an independent voice
32 for Illinois; he has consistently backed efforts to control
33 spending and reduce taxes, but at the same time voted for

 

 

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1 environmental and consumer protections; in early 2003, he
2 passed legislation temporarily extending federal unemployment
3 insurance benefits; furthermore, he has vigorously promoted
4 competitive bidding in government contracts and has opposed
5 taxpayer giveaways to politically connected interests; in
6 2000, he sought to impose federal competitive bidding
7 guidelines on a large government-funded project in his own
8 State; for two days, in a Senate speech the Champaign News
9 Gazette called "a wake up call for Illinois taxpayers," he
10 brought national attention to numerous instances of cronyism
11 and corruption in Illinois State government; throughout his
12 service in the U.S. Senate, he has steadfastly fought political
13 corruption in both political parties; in 2001, with support
14 from President Bush, the Senator succeeded in installing
15 professional U.S. Attorneys, in each of Illinois' three
16 judicial districts, who were completely independent of the
17 State's politics; and
 
18     WHEREAS, From his perch on the Commerce Committee, Senator
19 Fitzgerald has been active on aviation issues, with efforts to
20 address the nation's air capacity shortage and promote greater
21 competition in the airline industry; Senator Fitzgerald has
22 helped lead the effort to build a south suburban Chicago
23 airport, as first recommended by the Federal Aviation
24 Administration in 1984; in addition, he stopped legislation
25 which would have impeded the south suburban airport and which
26 would have instead dictated the approval of a cost-inefficient
27 plan to tear up and re-build O'Hare; furthermore, in 2001, he
28 co-authored an amendment which made it difficult and
29 unattractive for air carriers to seek the federal loan
30 guarantees offered in the airline bailout bill; as a result of
31 his language, few airlines applied for the loan guarantees and
32 taxpayers saved billions of dollars; and
 
33     WHEREAS, As the first Illinois senator since 1986 to serve
34 on the Agriculture Committee, Senator Fitzgerald has worked

 

 

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1 closely with the futures industry in Chicago to modernize the
2 commodity trading laws and to allow the sale of futures on
3 individual stocks; he has also worked with Illinois farm groups
4 to open markets for Illinois commodities in the U.S. and
5 overseas, promote renewable fuels, and to provide tax relief
6 for family farmers; he has enacted legislation to better enable
7 low income citizens to access their food stamp benefits, as
8 well as legislation to require the U.S. Department of
9 Agriculture to make its program benefits available over the
10 Internet; the Senator has also called for reform of the federal
11 farm payment system to ensure that federal aid goes to family
12 farmers who most need assistance, and has helped pass
13 legislation to study potential improvements to farm aid
14 programs; and
 
15     WHEREAS, During his term in the U.S. Senate, Senator
16 Fitzgerald has also focused on consumer safety issues; in 2000,
17 he led a successful drive to modernize outdated federal testing
18 and safety standards for child car seats; in 2002, he drafted,
19 and President Bush signed into law, a follow-up measure, known
20 as Anton's Law, to upgrade federal testing and standards for
21 child booster seats and to require automakers to improve car
22 safety features; therefore, be it
 
23     RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
24 NINETY-FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
25 Senator Fitzgerald be honored for his distinguished record of
26 public service for the State of Illinois and all of its
27 citizens; as a true example of a public servant, Senator
28 Fitzgerald is recognized for fervently fighting for what is
29 right for the taxpayers and citizens of both the great State of
30 Illinois as well as each and every individual within this
31 nation; furthermore, Senator Fitzgerald's honesty and
32 integrity as a public servant were evident from his first day
33 in the U.S. Senate, and have become the standard to which every
34 public servant of Illinois should strive to achieve, and even

 

 

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1 though Senator Fitzgerald has removed his name from the U.S.
2 Senate, the U.S. Senate will never be able to replace his
3 knowledge, skill, tenacity, integrity, and the love he had for
4 all persons in this nation, and especially for the citizens of
5 Illinois he loyally and honorably represented; and be it
6 further
 
7     RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
8 presented to U.S. Senator Peter G. Fitzgerald and his family.