Washington leaders remembered former President Jimmy Carter’s life during a short ceremony on Tuesday at the Capitol.
The body of the 39th president traveled earlier in the day from Atlanta’s Carter Center to Washington and the Capitol Rotunda, where it will lie in state Wednesday until the state funeral on Thursday morning.
Carter died Dec. 29. He was 100.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he was just 4 years old when Carter took office. He praised Carter as a member of the Greatest Generation, a term referenced for those born between 1901 and 1927.
“He lived through the Great Depression. He did that on a farm in rural Georgia,” Johnson said. “He knew the value of a dollar and he modeled thrift his entire life. As long as he was in office, he hated government waste.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., cited Carter’s work after leaving office with the Carter Center and Habitat for Humanity.
“For the remainder of his life, the longest postpresidency of any American president ever, he focused on making the lives of his fellow man better,” Thune said.
Vice President Kamala Harris praised Carter’s establishment of the Departments of Energy and Education and the creation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“Jimmy Carter was that all too rare example of a gifted man who also walks with humility, modesty and grace,” Harris said. “I recall the stories from 1976 about how he slept in the homes of his supporters to share a meal with them at their table and to listen to what was on their minds.”
Harris recounted one trip that Carter and his wife Rosalynn took with Habitat for Humanity, where they rode the bus with other volunteers. The Carters gave up a private suite to a recently married couple who had put off their honeymoon for the trip and slept on the floor of the basement with others, she said.
“James Earl Carter Junior loved our country,” Harris said. “He lived his faith. He served the people. And he left the world better than he found it. And in the end, Jimmy Carter’s work, and those works, speak for him louder than any tribute we can offer.”
