New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg Remembered for Tenacious Rise

The Democrat was the oldest member of the Senate and its last remaining World War II veteran

Tenacity marked New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg's journey from a childhood so poor his family couldn't afford his bar mitzvah to his life as a multimillionaire businessman who served for decades in the Senate, relatives and dignitaries said Wednesday at his funeral at a New York City synagogue.

"He never quit anything. He never gave up. He never gave in," Vice President Joe Biden told mourners, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, several former governors and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Lautenberg, a liberal Democrat from New Jersey, died Monday after suffering complications from viral pneumonia. At 89, he was the oldest member of the Senate and the last of 115 World War II veterans to serve there.

"Frank would always be a man of the people and for the people, never forgetting his humble start," Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove said after he began the service with a Hebrew blessing while Lautenberg's wife and children stood near the senator's flag-draped casket.

Reflecting on such signature Lautenberg accomplishments as the laws that banned smoking on most U.S. flights and made 21 the drinking age in all 50 states, Cosgrove said it seems difficult now to imagine "that those matters which were undoubtedly fierce debates of their time, and for which Senator Lautenberg withstood withering criticism, now, in retrospect, appear as inevitable and obvious as they seem necessary."

Not everyone was a fan of the increase in the drinking age, of course. Lautenberg's daughter Lisa Lautenberg Birer, who lost her voice and had her speech read by her own daughter, joked that she lost 300 friends in college because "Dad raised the drinking age."

She also noted that his toughness and persistence weren't limited to Senate negotiations. Her father once fell 1,000 feet down a ski slope, sat up with a broken collarbone and refused to wait for the ski patrol, she said.

"Frank was the most positive person I know," said his wife, Bonnie Englebardt Lautenberg.

Lautenberg was "the living definition of what it means to be a successful man," Biden said. He described the two of them first meeting in 1975, when Biden was a young senator and Lautenberg was a leader of the United Jewish Appeal. Biden later counted Lautenberg as one of his closest friends in the Senate. He said the two discussed several times whether Lautenberg should run again for office next year before Lautenberg ultimately decided he would not.

"Frank always had to be in the game — that's what I loved about your father," Biden told his family and the others at the synagogue. "Too much left to be done ... too many injustices left to right. Too many people needing help. ... He saw (the Senate) as the place he could do more than all the financial successes that he had."

Sen. Robert Menendez called Lautenberg the most tenacious man he'd ever met. Lautenberg's story "was an American story, but in his heart and in his lifetime, he was a man from New Jersey, a kid from Paterson," Menendez said.

Lautenberg was also steadfast in standing with families who keep children safe from toxic chemicals, smoking, drunk drivers and with gun violence victims, veterans seeking higher education and New Jerseyans trying to build businesses, Clinton said.

"He stood with the riders of Amtrak," Clinton said, "and most of all, he stood, as we have seen so beautifully today, with his beloved family."

A color guard ceremony was also scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at the Frank Lautenberg Rail Station in Secaucus, N.J., outside New York City. In Secaucus, his casket was to be put on an Amtrak train to Washington.

It was set to arrive at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday and lie in repose in the Senate chamber, on the Lincoln Catafalque, a bier that was built for the coffin of Abraham Lincoln.

Lautenberg, who served in the Army Signal Corps during World War II, will be buried Friday at Arlington National Cemetery.

A multimillionaire businessman, Lautenberg was first elected to the Senate in 1982 and went on to serve nearly 30 years there in two stints.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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