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"I JUST WISH I HAD A LITTLE MORE TIME" -- A decade-long battle

with Parkinson's Disease has taken its toll and

"Veterans' Friend," Rep. Lane Evans,

says goodbye to Congress.

 

 

Rep. Lane Evans (D-IL), was the Ranking Democratic Member of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs.  (When Evans decided not to run again, Rep. Bob Filner of California became Acting Ranking Democratic Member.)

Had he stayed in Congress and been re-elected (a given), Evans would be the new Chairman of the House Committee.  (That position now goes to Filner.)

Evans stands alone as a "friend to veterans" over his years of service in the House.

He will be missed.

Story here... http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/
chi-0701010137jan01,1,5857703.story?track=rss&ctrack=1&cset=true

Story below:

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`I just wish I had a little more time'

Just as his issues reach the forefront, a veteran congressman steps down because of Parkinson's

By Christi Parsons
Tribune national correspondent

MOLINE, Ill. -- If desire and experience were the only requirements, Rep. Lane Evans would be preparing to join fellow Democrats in their January takeover of Congress, where he would likely serve as a committee chairman and a seasoned advocate for military personnel.

But a decade of fighting Parkinson's disease has taken its toll on the 55-year-old congressman from Rock Island, and he is instead spending the holidays shutting down his offices and attending going-away parties. His health means he can't continue his 24-year congressional career, in which the former Marine has been an outspoken opponent of the war in Iraq and a spokesman for fellow veterans.

"I think it's too bad that I couldn't do more," Evans said in an interview. "If I only had a little more time, I could do more than I've been able to. I just wish I had a little more time."

Evans surely would have been a key spokesman in favor of stem cell research, as funding and other support are increasingly the focus of public debate. The issue played an important role in the recent midterm elections, in which actor Michael J. Fox used the spotlight on his struggle with Parkinson's to advocate for increased research.

It's a sadly ironic turn for the Vietnam-era veteran and legal aid lawyer first elected to Congress in 1982. At a time when friends say he would have been a unique voice among ascendant congressional Democrats, his disease has made it difficult for him to speak at all.

His voice is steady but soft, strongest in the mornings and weaker as the day wears on. He was absent when Congress was in session for most of the last year.

"It breaks my heart that his public career ended because of this illness," said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a close friend of Evans' who was elected to the House with him two dozen years ago. "This is one of the cruelest diseases, particularly for a young man with Lane's values and potential. At this moment in time, he should be writing new chapters on the issues he cares about."

`Window is now closing'

Instead, Evans is turning over his seat to his longtime aide and friend, Phil Hare, a Democrat who won in November and will take office later this month.

Evans announced his retirement in March, eight years after he made public that he had Parkinson's disease. His doctor had told him then that his condition would not interfere with his work for many years, but last spring Evans announced that the "window is now closing."

"It's bittersweet, because we still have work to do and I won't be part of it as I have been," Evans said. "I'm worried that what's going on in the war is going to hurt those veterans more than anything they've been through in their lives. The president is saying we should add new troops, but we'll be working with grass-roots-level activists in trying to get out of this war."

Evans was a volunteer Marine during Vietnam, enlisting less than two weeks after graduating from Alleman High School in Rock Island. He served from 1969 to 1971 and was based stateside and in Okinawa, Japan. He later attended college and law school at Georgetown University, then worked as a legal aid lawyer before launching his political career.

No one thought his campaign for Congress would succeed, but he staged an upset after Rep. Tom Railsback, a moderate Republican instrumental in the resignation of President Richard Nixon, lost in the GOP primary to a conservative.

During his time in the House, Evans was a champion of veterans, serving as chairman of the Vietnam-era veterans' congressional caucus and working to get compensation for Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange. He was one of the first members of Congress to push for more information about maladies suffered by veterans of the Persian Gulf war.

Recently, he teamed with the Republican chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee to pump up economic and other assistance for homeless veterans, to increase worker training for former military personnel and to expand home loans from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Evans also made his name in recent years as an early opponent of the war in Iraq. He displayed a portrait of singer John Lennon in his Washington office because, he said, he found Lennon's commitment to progressive ideals inspiring.

Personal causes

Sometimes his personal causes angered constituents. When Evans stepped down from the House Agriculture Committee for a chance to join the Armed Services Committee, for instance, local agribusiness leaders were unhappy. Evans says that the other committee was "where my heart was."

Despite the moderate to conservative social views of many of his constituents, Evans staunchly supported gun control legislation, opposed a change in the Constitution to ban flag burning and defended the rights of gays and women in the military.

Hare recalls that some friends advised him not to be so upfront on some of those issues. But he said, "Lane never backed away from people if he believed in their merits."

Evans' status as a veteran gave him a lot of credibility with voters, local political leaders say. For a while in the 1980s, Evans was one of the members of Congress who consistently voted against the agenda of President Ronald Reagan, who was born in northwestern Illinois.

If some locals disliked that, others applauded it.

"I'm proud of that," Evans said. "My mother couldn't get over that I would vote with Ronald Reagan 8 percent of the time."

Evans won re-election time and again despite difficult races. But at a Labor Day parade in the mid-1990s, Evans realized he couldn't raise his hand to wave. In 1998, he announced he had Parkinson's, which made it difficult for him to stand without pain or to smile easily.

"But he could still fight," Durbin recalled.

The disease slowed him down bit by bit, and last February Evans stopped appearing for votes on the House floor. He is the ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, and likely would have become chairman if he had stayed in office.

"The timing is unfortunate," said Hare, "but he doesn't complain about it."

In fact, said Hare, Evans is so routinely upbeat about his health that, after a piece of bad news from a doctor about his condition, Evans barely paused before asking what was for lunch.

"`Do you understand what I just told you?' the doctor said," recounted Hare. "Lane said, `Yes. But I still get to have lunch, right?'"

Local Democrats predict Evans will still be influential in the district.

"He made a lot of friends, by going to events and staying until he had answered every single question," said state Sen. Mike Jacobs (D-East Moline). "He'd go to a party for 10 people, and talk to that group of 10 like it was a group of a thousand. ... They're not going to name a building after him; he's not that kind of politician. His legacy is something more inspiring."

cparsons@tribune.com

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Larry Scott

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