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U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who served for nearly four decades in Congress between both chambers, kept two items hanging on his office wall that he looked at each time he left to cast a vote, attend a committee hearing, or work on a bill.

One was a framed drawing of the house in Slovenia that his mother, Frances Valentine, was born in and where she lived until the age of 25. The house had a dirt floor and no running water.

The other was his father鈥檚 Works Progress Administration card from 1939, which asked him to report to work as soon as possible, for $40.30 a month. His father, Patrick Francis Harkin, who had worked in the coal mines of southern Iowa, was unemployed at the time, and his mother was pregnant with Mr. Harkin, the youngest of six children, who was born four months, to the day, after his father received that WPA card.

鈥淭here were no jobs, and life looked pretty bleak,鈥� explained Sen. Harkin during his farewell address Dec. 12 on the floor of the U.S. Senate. 鈥淭hings looked hopeless, and then my father, who only had a 6th grade education, got that letter from Franklin Roosevelt and got a job. It was important for a lot of reasons, not only for money and the dignity of work, but it gave my father hope.鈥�

The story is the backdrop to Sen. Harkin鈥檚 entire legislating philosophy, which was guided by the need to ensure a ladder of opportunity exists for those who want and need it.

The progressive Democrat, who championed education equality and the rights of people with disabilities, cast his last vote on the evening of Dec. 16, closing the curtain on both the 113th Congress and a storied career on Capitol Hill.

Headed East

Sen. Harkin grew up in Cumming, Iowa, population 350.

After working his way through the University of Iowa in Iowa City with help from a Navy ROTC scholarship, and after that five years spent as a Navy pilot, Mr. Harkin first came to Washington in 1969 as staff member for Rep. Neal Smith, D-Iowa, who was investigating the military鈥檚 progress in Vietnam.

During a tour of South Vietnam, Mr. Harkin discovered and photographed 鈥渢iger cages,鈥� hidden prisons where prisoners of the United States鈥� South Vietnamese allies were abused and tortured. Over the objections of his superiors, he provided the photos to Life magazine, which simultaneously exposed gross violations of human rights on the part of South Vietnam and further energized the anti-war movement in the United States.

The decision cost Mr. Harkin his job, but he didn鈥檛 stay away for long. He earned his law degree from Catholic University in Washington and in 1974 was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and a decade later to the Senate.

Advancing the rights of students and people with disabilities was one of Sen. Harkin鈥檚 signature issues. He was a leading author of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was enacted in 1990. The landmark law required buildings and public transportation to be wheelchair-accessible, and called for accommodations for people with disabilities in the workplace.

鈥淭his is really going to change American society in a very significant way,鈥� Sen. Harkin said in 1989, just months before the bill was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush.

And he was right. Since the enactment of the law, and its subsequent expansion in 2008, 54 million people with disabilities in the United States have greater access to employment and educational opportunities.

His efforts on the issue have been inspired in part by his late brother, Frank Harkin, who was deaf. During the passage of the ADA, Sen. Harkin gave an entire speech on the floor of the Senate using only sign language.

As the chairman or ranking member, since 1990, of the appropriations subcommittee that oversees education funding, Sen. Harkin sought to provide full federal funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which helps cover the cost of students in special education. The law authorizes Congress to contribute up to 40 percent of the average per pupil expenditure, but it鈥檚 never been fully funded. In fiscal 2014, for example, federal funds covered 16 percent of the estimated excess cost of educating children with disabilities.

He also pushed generally for increased education aid. In 1990, during one of his first budget battles, he argued with then-U.S. Secretary of Education Lauro F. Cavazos that because states and local school systems are financially squeezed and unable to raise the revenue they need to improve their programs, the federal government should play a greater role.

鈥淚 have looked in vain for years now [to find] where it is written in stone that education should be primarily funded from property taxes,鈥� he said in a committee hearing. That year, he helped secure an additional $3 billion in federal aid for education.

Taking the Chair

Sen. Harkin became one of the most important players in education policy in 2009, when he took the helm of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee after the death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the liberal lion from Massachusetts. The position made Sen. Harkin the only senator in recent history to oversee both education legislation and the purse strings attached to it.

That year, Sen. Harkin also became a major player in the Affordable Care Act and was largely responsible for including the $12 billion preventive-care fund in the law.

When he became chairman, Sen. Harkin launched a sprawling investigation into the for-profit college industry, which unearthed unsavory marketing and recruiting practices by some institutions that often loaded students with unmanageable amounts of loan debt for relatively worthless degrees or certificates. Though Congress never passed legislation to more tightly regulate the for-profit sector, his committee鈥檚 investigation was the basis for the Obama administration鈥檚 recently released 鈥済ainful employment鈥� regulations.

His colleagues on Capitol Hill, however, didn鈥檛 always share his policy agenda.

In the thick of his investigation into the for-profit college industry, for example, Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., then-ranking member of the education panel, called the effort a 鈥渨itch hunt鈥� that dismissed the value of the higher education sector for working parents, single parents, veterans, and other non-traditional degree-seekers.

During the recent adjustment of federal student loan interest rates in 2013, as Sen. Harkin鈥檚 proposal to lower rates became stymied by an acceptable way to pay for it, he was all but steamrolled by those in his own party. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, brokered with Republicans a scaled-back proposal that included higher interest rates than Sen. Harkin cared for.

Some in Congress鈥攁nd some outside observers鈥攖ook issue with what they saw as Sen. Harkin鈥檚 inability to move legislation, most notably an update to the No Child Left Behind Act. 鈥淗arkin can鈥檛 manage his way out of a paper bag,鈥� said one education policymaker in an August 2013 report from the Washington-based policy-consulting firm Whiteboard Advisors, on prospects for updating the law.

Still, even as the 113th Congress was widely seen as the least productive in U.S. history, it was Mr. Harkin鈥檚 most productive as chairman of the HELP Committee.

In the past two years, Mr. Harkin helped steer 26 bills out of his committee that were signed into law by the president. Among them: an update to the Child Care Development Block Grant program, and an overhaul of the federal workforce law, which included new provisions aimed at career preparation for high school students with disabilities.

Leaving a Void

Sen. Harkin鈥檚 retirement in January鈥攁nd that of Rep. George Miller, the California Democrat who spent 40 years advocating education equality鈥攍eaves a void in Congress among lawmakers concerned with protecting the rights of individuals with disabilities and shoring up special education.

鈥淗e had a vision for the potential for independence that he knew people with disabilities could have, and should have, in our society,鈥� said Laura Kaloi, a vice president of the lobbying firm Washington Partners, where she works on special education policy, among other education and civil-rights-focused issues. 鈥淗e took that vision and found so many ways to touch federal policy so that opportunities could be opened and barriers could be broken down.鈥�

Ms. Kaloi added: 鈥淗e was a visionary. There is a void now. It鈥檚 there and it鈥檚 real.鈥�

Among the hefty to-do list Sen. Harkin left for his colleagues was a plea to pass legislation that would allow people with disabilities to live more independently and be more economically self-sufficient.

鈥淎lmost two out of every three Americans with a disability who want to work and who can work cannot find a job,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat is a blot on our national character.鈥�

He pushed his colleagues to look at new hiring practices of Walgreens, Best Buy, Loews, Home Depot, and Marriott, all major corporations that have increased their hiring of people with disabilities.

鈥淚 dwell on this because perhaps I feel I haven鈥檛 done enough on this issue of employment for people with disabilities, and we just have to do better,鈥� he said in his farewell address. He added that his saddest moment in Congress was the failure of the Senate to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a United Nations convention that has been ratified by 150 other nations.

Two major pieces of legislation that Sen. Harkin was unable to push through in his last period of congressional leadership were a reauthorization of the NCLB law and an update to the Higher Education Act.

The legislative accomplishments he did make, however, bolstered the course he had aimed for many years earlier.

鈥淵ou might say that my career in Congress is the story of a poor kid from Cumming, Iowa,鈥� he said, 鈥渢rying his best to pay it forward, saying thank you for the opportunities I was given, by leaving that ladder and ramp of opportunity stronger for those who follow.鈥�