Senate Bill sb2690
CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.
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,
1
CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.
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,
27
28 Be It Resolved by the Senate of the State of Florida:
29
30 That the Senate pauses in its deliberations to pay
31 tribute to the memory of an outstanding Floridian and
2
CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.
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.
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
3
CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.