Illinois Lawmakers Hail Retiring US Sen. Dick Durbin at Joint Session in Capitol

“My life has been genuinely enriched by helping people from our great state and nation. I hope that yours will be as well.”

That was one of the messages from long-serving U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin at a joint session of the Illinois House and Senate on Wednesday, where he was warmly received by fellow Democratic lawmakers who celebrated his lengthy career and repeatedly lauded his accomplishments.

“He has not survived in public life by becoming smaller, louder, or meaner,” state Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago) said, recalling his time working in Durbin’s office. “He’s endured because he has a compass.”

Durbin, who’s set to leave office in January after three decades in the U.S. Senate, ticked off some of his proudest accomplishments along with a warning about the political divisions currently facing the country, citing Abraham Lincoln’s famed “House Divided” speech delivered at the State Capitol.

“The challenges we face in the days ahead could be just as serious,” Durbin said. “I hope that those of us blessed to live in this Land of Lincoln will remember his warnings in 1858 and his counsel for those who lead this nation in our time.”

The 81-year-old announced in April of last year he would not seek another term, touching off a race to succeed the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat. 

Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton emerged victorious in the race for the Democratic nomination over Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly and is set to face Republican Don Tracy, former chair of the Illinois GOP.

At the time he announced his retirement, Durbin said that while he currently feels up to the job he couldn’t guarantee the same would be true at the end of another term.

Lawmakers saluted Durbin as a committed public servant who took on an array of projects, from battling smoking on airplanes to championing the long-debated DREAM Act that would provide a legal pathway to citizenship for people brought to the country without documentation as children – advocacy that state Rep. Dagmara Avelar said helped lead to the DACA program.

“Meaningful changes require persistence, and Sen. Durbin, you have embodied that persistence,” Avelar said.

Durbin extolled the contribution of immigrants to the United States, citing the example of his own mother who came to the country speaking no English at the age of 2 — and telling lawmakers he keeps a framed copy of her naturalization document on the credenza behind the desk of his Senate office.

Recalling one of the moments that helped spur his support for the DREAM Act, Durbin told lawmakers of receiving a call about a gifted teenage musician who discovered she didn’t have legal status when it came time to apply for college. When a staffer in his office told Durbin her only option was to leave the country for ten years to apply for a return, he told her in disbelief that the law needed to change.

Durbin also proudly related his fight against big tobacco, spurred on by a last-minute flight where he found himself in a middle seat of the smoking section “between two chain-smoking sumo wrestlers.” After he asked an airline employee if there was anything she could do, Durbin recalled that she replied “no – but Congressman, there’s something you can do.”

Ahead of the joint session, state Sen. Andrew Chesney (R-Freeport) said in a news release he would not attend and called on others to boycott.

“The man is a textbook example of everything wrong with Illinois politics. He is ineffective and completely disconnected from the real struggles of our people,” Chesney said in a statement. “The only good news is that this career politician is finally retiring. It is long overdue. Every legislator who actually cares about fixing this state should skip today’s political theater and get back to work.”

The state Democratic Party wasted little time in responding to Chesney’s broadside.

“The Democratic Party of Illinois condemns the Illinois Freedom Caucus’s boycott and demands that Illinois Republican leadership denounce the far-right wing of their own party … Senator Durbin’s career of public service deserves more than cheap political stunts.”

---