EDITORIAL: Stephanie Tubbs Jones

Fierce, intense, boisterous and imposing would all be great descriptions for Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones - who was also warm, kind, bright and caring. But none of those adjectives defined her as well as “first.”

In her home city of Cleveland in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Mrs. Tubbs Jones was the first woman and black person elected to serve as prosecutor, and the first black woman elected to serve on the Court Common Pleas, and the first to be elected to Congress from Ohio in 1998, and the first to serve on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Mrs. Tubbs Jones was a Democrat, and she was plenty liberal on spending, taxes and just about every issue there is, save one: free trade. Although she represented a working-class union town in a state where free trade is considered a four-letter word, she was one of the leaders who fought for passage of the Peru Trade Promotion Agreement. In fact, she generally supported free-trade agreements as long as they met the International Labor Organizations Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Right to Work.

Regardless of her political leanings, she was respected by her colleagues and hailed for both her accomplishments, her professional work ethic and her passion. “Stephanie and I forged a friendship out of our shared belief that one person can make a difference. We were friends who, through the years, shared many laughs even as we engaged in legislative battles from opposite sides of the political aisle,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner, a fellow Ohioan.

However distasteful her efforts were to draw attention to infringements on voting rights by leading the charge against certifying President Bush’s re-election, she was a formidable and tireless advocate for issues of fair and open elections. Mr. Bush recognized her as “an effective legislator who was dedicated to helping small businesses, improving local schools, expanding job opportunities for Ohioans, and ensuring that more of them have access to health care.”

Mrs. Tubbs Jones, 58, was Cleveland through and through, having been born and reared in the city, graduating from its public schools and the local colleges of Flora Stone Mather College before getting her law degree at Case Western Reserve University.

Her death Wednesday from a brain aneurysm was a tragedy for Cleveland, the state of Ohio and the hallowed halls of Congress, as she represented the best and brightest of what they had to offer. May Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones rest in peace.