Floor SpeechUrgent2026-09-08

HONORING THE HONORABLE ED HARBISON, DEAN OF THE GEORGIA STATE SENATE, FOR THIRTY-FOUR YEARS OF FAITHFUL SERVICE

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On 2026-09-08, Representative Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. (D-GA-2) delivered a floor speech titled "HONORING THE HONORABLE ED HARBISON, DEAN OF THE GEORGIA STATE SENATE, FOR THIRTY-FOUR YEARS OF FAITHFUL SERVICE" in the House.

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HONORING THE HONORABLE ED HARBISON, DEAN OF THE GEORGIA STATE SENATE, FOR THIRTY-FOUR YEARS OF FAITHFUL SERVICE

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 142 (Tuesday, September 8, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 142 (Tuesday, September 8, 2026)] [Extensions of Remarks] [Page E877] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] HONORING THE HONORABLE ED HARBISON, DEAN OF THE GEORGIA STATE SENATE, FOR THIRTY-FOUR YEARS OF FAITHFUL SERVICE ______ HON. SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR. of georgia in the house of representatives Tuesday, September 8, 2026 Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a man I have known, admired, and leaned upon for the better part of my life in public service--the Honorable Ed Harbison, Dean of the Georgia State Senate, who gave thirty-four years to the people of the Fifteenth Senate District. The community he served for a lifetime gathers once more to say thank you Mr. Speaker, some men are handed a title. A rare few are handed a trust. Ed Harbison was handed a trust, and he never once set it down. Long before he ever rose to speak beneath the Gold Dome, Ed Harbison wore the uniform of the United States Marine Corps. He went to Vietnam. He came home with a Purple Heart and with wounds that no ceremony can undo. I begin there, Mr. Speaker, because everything that followed makes sense only in that light. A young man who was willing to lay down his life for strangers came home and spent the lest of his days giving his hours, his patience, and his heart to his neighbors. For Ed Harbison, service was never a campaign word It was a scar he carried and a promise he kept. Mr. Speaker, I know the seat Ed Harbison held, because I sat in it before him. When the people of Georgia sent me to this House in 1993, I left that Fifteenth District seat behind--and I did not leave it to chance. I left it to Ed. For thirty-four years, West Central Georgia has been better for that decision than for almost any I ever made. He became the longest-serving member of that chamber and its Dean, the senator other senators went to when a room needed wisdom, steadiness, and a conscience. And what he built will outlive all of us. It was Ed Harbison who carried the legislation making Georgia a Purple Heart State, so that no veteran's sacrifice would pass unmarked. It was Ed Harbison who established a separate Veterans Court, so that men and women who had served would be met with understanding rather than indifference. It was Ed Harbison who founded the Georgia Military Veterans Hall of Fame, of which he is himself a proud member. He won a contracting preference for businesses owned by disabled veterans. He fought to see that veterans received fair academic credit for the training and sacrifice of their service. He chaired the Senate Committee on State Institutions and Property, served as Vice-Chairman of the Veterans, Military, and Homeland Security Committee, and led the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus. And before any of it, he served his community as a broadcast Journalist, as second vice-president of the Muscogee County School Board, and on the Columbus Charter Review Commission. Mr. Speaker, if you want the true measure of Ed Harbison, do not look at the headlines. Look at the quiet bills--the ones that never made the evening news. In 2008 he sponsored a law to cut through the red tape that was punishing the children of military families, boys and girls uprooted from state to state through no fault of their own and made to start over again and again. Nobody was marching for those children. Ed Harbison simply saw them, and he wrote a law so that the moving would not cost them their education. He authored the legislation consolidating Chattahoochee County and Cusseta, strengthening the very ground his people stand on. And he fought for the emergency call boxes along Interstate 185 from LaGrange to Columbus--a small thing, Mr. Speaker, until it is your mother stranded on the shoulder of that highway after dark, and then it is the whole world. That was always his instinct: the traveler in the dark, the soldier far from home, the child who needed one grown person in his corner. The people of Chattahoochee, Macon, Marion, Schley, Talbot, Taylor, and Muscogee Counties did not merely have a senator who represented them. They had a senator who belonged to them. Ed has said the rule he lived by came from his mother, who taught him to do unto others as he would have them do unto him. For thirty-four years he did exactly that-- quietly, faithfully, and without ever needing the credit. Mr. Speaker, no honest account of this good man is complete without the love that carried him. Ed shared his life and his calling with his beloved late wife, Cecilia, who sustained him through every long session and every hard campaign, and who paid the private price that public service always exacts at home. Though she is no longer with us, I have no doubt she is present in every room where his name is called, and that she looks on him with pride. And anyone who knows Ed Harbison knows what his son, Edward, means to him. Above every title he has earned, every gavel he has held, and every honor he has received, Ed Harbison is a devoted father. The same tenderness he wrote into the law for a stranger's child, he has lived out every single day for his own. A man may give thirty-four years to his state, but the truest accounting of him is the love he gives his family--and by that reckoning, Ed Harbison is a wealthy man. Mr. Speaker, there comes a moment in every life of service when a man must lay the work down and trust others to carry it forward. Ed Harbison has come to that moment, and he comes to it with his head high and his hands clean. He has called his years in the Senate the greatest honor of his life. Mr. Speaker, the honor was ours. It belonged to every family made stronger, every veteran finally seen, every neighbor who knew that somewhere under the Gold Dome there was a man who would do right by them when nobody was watching. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues in the United States House of Representatives to join my wife, Vivian, and me, along with the more than 765,000 people of Georgia's Second Congressional District, in honoring the extraordinary life and service of State Senator Ed Harbison. We thank Ed, for the wounds he carries and the country he served. We thank him for the seat he tended and the trust he kept. We thank him for thirty-four years of doing unto others. May God bless him, may God bless the State of Georgia, and may He grant his every good and peaceful day he has so richly earned. Well done, my friend. Well done. ____________________

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HONORING THE HONORABLE ED HARBISON, DEAN OF THE GEORGIA STATE SENATE, FOR THIRTY-FOUR YEARS OF FAITHFUL SERVICE Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 142 (Tuesday, September 8, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 142 (Tuesday, September 8, 2026)] [Extensions of Remarks] [Page E877] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] HONORING THE HONORABLE ED HARBISON, DEAN OF THE GEORGIA STATE SENATE, FOR THIRTY-FOUR YEARS OF FAITHFUL SERVICE ______ HON. SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR. of georgia in the house of representatives Tuesday, September 8, 2026 Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a man I have known, admired, and leaned upon for the better part of my life in public service--the Honorable Ed Harbison, Dean of the Georgia State Senate, who gave thirty-four years to the people of the Fifteenth Senate District. The community he served for a lifetime gathers once more to say thank you Mr. Speaker, some men are handed a title. A rare few are handed a trust. Ed Harbison was handed a trust, and he never once set it down. Long before he ever rose to speak beneath the Gold Dome, Ed Harbison wore the uniform of the United States Marine Corps. He went to Vietnam. He came home with a Purple Heart and with wounds that no ceremony can undo. I begin there, Mr. Speaker, because everything that followed makes sense only in that light. A young man who was willing to lay down his life for strangers came home and spent the lest of his days giving his hours, his patience, and his heart to his neighbors. For Ed Harbison, service was never a campaign word It was a scar he carried and a promise he kept. Mr. Speaker, I know the seat Ed Harbison held, because I sat in it before him. When the people of Georgia sent me to this House in 1993, I left that Fifteenth District seat behind--and I did not leave it to chance. I left it to Ed. For thirty-four years, West Central Georgia has been better for that decision than for almost any I ever made. He became the longest-serving member of that chamber and its Dean, the senator other senators went to when a room needed wisdom, steadiness, and a conscience. And what he built will outlive all of us. It was Ed Harbison who carried the legislation making Georgia a Purple Heart State, so that no veteran's sacrifice would pass unmarked. It was Ed Harbison who established a separate Veterans Court, so that men and women who had served would be met with understanding rather than indifference. It was Ed Harbison who founded the Georgia Military Veterans Hall of Fame, of which he is himself a proud member. He won a contracting preference for businesses owned by disabled veterans. He fought to see that veterans received fair academic credit for the training and sacrifice of their service. He chaired the Senate Committee on State Institutions and Property, served as Vice-Chairman of the Veterans, Military, and Homeland Security Committee, and led the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus. And before any of it, he served his community as a broadcast Journalist, as second vice-president of the Muscogee County School Board, and on the Columbus Charter Review Commission. Mr. Speaker, if you want the true measure of Ed Harbison, do not look at the headlines. Look at the quiet bills--the ones that never made the evening news. In 2008 he sponsored a law to cut through the red tape that was punishing the children of military families, boys and girls uprooted from state to state through no fault of their own and made to start over again and again. Nobody was marching for those children. Ed Harbison simply saw them, and he wrote a law so that the moving would not cost them their education. He authored the legislation consolidating Chattahoochee County and Cusseta, strengthening the very ground his people stand on. And he fought for the emergency call boxes along Interstate 185 from LaGrange to Columbus--a small thing, Mr. Speaker, until it is your mother stranded on the shoulder of that highway after dark, and then it is the whole world. That was always his instinct: the traveler in the dark, the soldier far from home, the child who needed one grown person in his corner. The people of Chattahoochee, Macon, Marion, Schley, Talbot, Taylor, and Muscogee Counties did not merely have a senator who represented them. They had a senator who belonged to them. Ed has said the rule he lived by came from his mother, who taught him to do unto others as he would have them do unto him. For thirty-four years he did exactly that-- quietly, faithfully, and without ever needing the credit. Mr. Speaker, no honest account of this good man is complete without the love that carried him. Ed shared his life and his calling with his beloved late wife, Cecilia, who sustained him through every long session and every hard campaign, and who paid the private price that public service always exacts at home. Though she is no longer with us, I have no doubt she is present in every room where his name is called, and that she looks on him with pride. And anyone who knows Ed Harbison knows what his son, Edward, means to him. Above every title he has earned, every gavel he has held, and every honor he has received, Ed Harbison is a devoted father. The same tenderness he wrote into the law for a stranger's child, he has lived out every single day for his own. A man may give thirty-four years to his state, but the truest accounting of him is the love he gives his family--and by that reckoning, Ed Harbison is a wealthy man. Mr. Speaker, there comes a moment in every life of service when a man must lay the work down and trust others to carry it forward. Ed Harbison has come to that moment, and he comes to it with his head high and his hands clean. He has called his years in the Senate the greatest honor of his life. Mr. Speaker, the honor was ours. It belonged to every family made stronger, every veteran finally seen, every neighbor who knew that somewhere under the Gold Dome there was a man who would do right by them when nobody was watching. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues in the United States House of Representatives to join my wife, Vivian, and me, along with the more than 765,000 people of Georgia's Second Congressional District, in honoring the extraordinary life and service of State Senator Ed Harbison. We thank Ed, for the wounds he carries and the country he served. We thank him for the seat he tended and the trust he kept. We thank him for thirty-four years of doing unto others. May God bless him, may God bless the State of Georgia, and may He grant his every good and peaceful day he has so richly earned. Well done, my friend. Well done. ____________________