Senate Bill sb2690

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    Florida Senate - 2005        (NP)                      SR 2690

    By Senator Wise





    5-1712A-05

  1                    Senate Resolution No. ____

  2         A resolution commemorating the life and public

  3         service of Congresswoman Tillie Kidd Fowler.

  4  

  5         WHEREAS, Tillie Kidd Fowler was born in Milledgeville,

  6  Georgia, the daughter of Georgia State Senator Culver Kidd,

  7  who served for 42 years in the Georgia General Assembly, and

  8         WHEREAS, among the things she learned from her father

  9  were the importance of working for women as well as for men

10  and the importance of doing the right thing while in public

11  office, and

12         WHEREAS, on her father's advice, Tillie Kidd entered

13  the Emory University School of Law, one of five women in a

14  class of 106, and, after graduation finding her job

15  possibilities restricted as a woman attorney, went to

16  Washington as an aide to U.S. Representative Robert Stephens

17  and later joined the Nixon White House in 1969 as General

18  Counsel in the Office of Consumer Affairs, and

19         WHEREAS, several years later she and her husband,

20  attorney Buck Fowler moved to Jacksonville and began raising a

21  family, but Tillie Fowler soon realized that she had energy to

22  spare and in 1985 she won a seat on the Jacksonville City

23  Council against the advice of local politicians who advised

24  her that, as a woman, her chances of political success were

25  slim, and

26         WHEREAS, Tillie Fowler's next step was to win the City

27  Council presidency in 1989, becoming the first woman to hold

28  that office, and 3 years later, she won the Congressional seat

29  that had been held by Charles E. Bennett for 44 years, and

30         WHEREAS, in Washington, Congresswoman Tillie Fowler

31  made a name for herself as an expert on defense issues,

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    Florida Senate - 2005        (NP)                      SR 2690
    5-1712A-05




 1  working vigorously to advance the interests of Jacksonville

 2  and Mayport during the base closings, serving on the House

 3  Armed Services Committee, and becoming an ardent champion of

 4  the Navy, and

 5         WHEREAS, serving for 6 of her 8 years in Congress as

 6  Deputy Majority Whip, Congresswoman Fowler was chosen vice

 7  chairwoman of the Republican Conference, making her the

 8  highest-ranking woman in Congress, and

 9         WHEREAS, while Congresswoman Fowler could have run for

10  a fifth term in Congress, her own position on the value of

11  term limits led her to leave Congress in 2000, and

12         WHEREAS, she then went to work for the firm of Holland

13  & Knight and in 2003 was named chairwoman of the Defense

14  Policy Board Advisory Committee, served on the Chief of Naval

15  Operations Executive Panel, was chairwoman of the panel that

16  reviewed sexual-misconduct allegations at the U.S. Air Force

17  Academy, and was named to a panel that included two former

18  Secretaries of Defense to advise Secretary of Defense Donald

19  Rumsfeld on issues relating to the allegations of prisoner

20  mistreatment in Iraq, and

21         WHEREAS, in the midst of maintaining an intensely busy

22  schedule and commuting each week from Jacksonville to

23  Washington, former Congresswoman Tillie Fowler suffered a

24  cerebral hemorrhage on Monday, March 1st, and died at St.

25  Vincent's Medical Center in Jacksonville on Wednesday, March

26  3rd, NOW, THEREFORE,

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28  Be It Resolved by the Senate of the State of Florida:

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30         That the Senate pauses in its deliberations to pay

31  tribute to the memory of an outstanding Floridian and

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    Florida Senate - 2005        (NP)                      SR 2690
    5-1712A-05




 1  American, and to extend its condolences to her family and to

 2  her husband Buck Fowler and her daughters Tillie Anne and

 3  Elizabeth Fowler.

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