HONORING THE HONORABLE ED HARBISON, DEAN OF THE GEORGIA STATE SENATE, ON THE OCCASION OF HIS RETIREMENT

On 2026-06-04, Representative Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. (D-GA-2) delivered a floor speech titled "HONORING THE HONORABLE ED HARBISON, DEAN OF THE GEORGIA STATE SENATE, ON THE OCCASION OF HIS RETIREMENT" in the House.

HONORING THE HONORABLE ED HARBISON, DEAN OF THE GEORGIA STATE SENATE, ON THE OCCASION OF HIS RETIREMENT

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 95 (Thursday, June 4, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 95 (Thursday, June 4, 2026)] [Extensions of Remarks] [Pages E528-E529] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] HONORING THE HONORABLE ED HARBISON, DEAN OF THE GEORGIA STATE SENATE, ON THE OCCASION OF HIS RETIREMENT ______ HON. SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR. of georgia in the house of representatives Thursday, June 4, 2026 Mr. BISHOP. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a Marine, a public servant, a friend, and a man who has carried a sacred trust for more than three decades--the Honorable Ed Harbison, the Dean of the Georgia State Senate, who is retiring after thirty-four years of faithful service to the people of the 15th Senate District. This evening, at the Columbus Museum in Columbus, Georgia, the people he has served for a lifetime will gather to thank him. Mr. Speaker, before Ed Harbison ever cast a vote beneath the Gold Dome, he wore the uniform of the United States Marine Corps. He went to Vietnam. He bled for this country and came home with the Purple Heart. I say this first because it explains everything that came after. The young man who was willing to give his life for strangers would spend the rest of it giving his days for his neighbors. Service was never a slogan to Ed Harbison. It was a wound he carried and a vow he kept. I know this seat that Ed has held, Mr. Speaker, because I once held it myself. When the people of Georgia sent me to this House in 1993, I left behind the 15th District seat in the Georgia Senate. I did not leave it to chance. I left it to Ed Harbison--and for thirty-four years, the people of West Central Georgia have been the better for it. He took the work and he never put it down. He became the longest- serving member of that chamber, its Dean, the man other senators turned to when they needed wisdom, steadiness, and a conscience in the room. And what he built will outlast us all. It was Ed Harbison who carried the legislation making Georgia a Purple Heart State, so that no veteran's sacrifice would go unmarked. It was Ed Harbison who established a separate Veterans Court, so that the men and women who served would be met with understanding instead of indifference. It was Ed Harbison who founded the Georgia Military Veterans Hall of Fame, an institution of which he is himself a proud member. He championed a preference in state contracting for businesses owned by disabled veterans, and he fought to see that veterans received fair academic credit for the training and sacrifice of their military service. As Chairman of the Senate Committee on State Institutions and Property, as Vice-Chairman of the Veterans, Military, and Homeland Security Committee, and as a former Chairman of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, he was a careful steward of the public trust and a steady voice for those too often unheard. And before he ever reached the Gold Dome, he gave his community his service as a broadcast journalist, as second vice-president of the Muscogee County School Board, and on the Columbus Charter Review Commission. But perhaps the truest measure of Ed Harbison is found not in the grand bills but in the quiet ones. In 2008, he sponsored a law to cut through the red tape that punished the children of militaIy families, boys and girls who, through no fault of their own, were uprooted from state to state and made to start over again and again. Ed Harbison saw those children, and he wrote a law so moving would not cost them their education He authored the legislation consolidating Chattahoochee County and Cusseta, strengthening the very ground his people stand on. He fought for the emergency call boxes installed along Interstate 85 from LaGrange to Columbus--a small thing, until it is your family stranded on the side of the road, and then it is everything. That was Ed Harbison: always thinking of the traveler in the dark, the soldier far from home, the child who needed someone in his corner. Mr. Speaker, the people of Chattahoochee, Macon, Marion, Schley, Talbot, Taylor, and Muscogee Counties did not have a senator who simply represented them; they had one who belonged to them. Ed once said the lesson he lived by came from his mother, who told him to do unto others as he would have them do unto him. For thirty-four years, he did exactly that--quietly, faithfully, without ever needing the credit. Mr. Speaker, no account of this good man would be complete without the family he built and the love that has held him. Ed shared his life and his calling with his beloved late wife, Cecilia, whose love and steadfastness sustained him through every long session and every hard- fought campaign. Though she is no longer with us, her spirit has walked beside him in all of it, and I have no doubt she looks upon him with pride today. And anyone who knows Ed Harbison knows the love he carries for his son, Edward. Above every title he has earned 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 measure of him is the love he gives his family and by that measure, Ed Harbison is a rich man indeed. There is a moment that comes to every man who has given his life to service, when he must finally lay the work down and trust others to carry it forward, Ed Harbison has reached that moment, and he reaches it with his head high. He has called his time in the Senate the greatest honor of his life. Mr. Speaker, the honor was ours. The honor belonged to every child whose family was made stronger, every veteran who was finally seen, every neighbor who knew that somewhere under the Gold Dome there was a man who would do right by them when no one was watching. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues in the United States House of Representative to join my wife Vivian and me, along with the more than 765,000 people of Georgia's 2nd Congressional District in honoring the remarkable service of State Senator Ed Harbison. I thank Ed for the wounds he carried and the country he served, I thank him for the seat he tended and the trust he kept. I thank him for thirty-four years of doing unto others. May God bless him, may God bless Georgia, and may He grant him the long, peaceful rest he has so richly earned. Ed Harbison completed his service well done. Well done. [[Page E529]] ____________________