Top lawmakers and Vice President Kamala Harris paid tribute to the late President Jimmy Carter during a ceremony at the Capitol on Tuesday, praising his character and public service legacy that lasted well beyond his one-term presidency.
The late president’s casket arrived at the Capitol on a horse-drawn caisson and was carried by an honor guard up the east front steps nearly 44 years after Carter left the nation’s capital after his defeat. Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Jon Ossoff (D-GA), from Carter’s home state of Georgia, led the bipartisan procession of senators into the Rotunda, where he will lie in state for a day and a half.
Harris, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) delivered eulogies at a service honoring the man who lived longer than any other U.S. president. The three leaders were still coming of age during Carter’s presidency. Harris was 12 when Carter became president, while Thune was 16 and Johnson was 4.
“I was in middle school when Jimmy Carter was elected president, and I vividly recall how my mother admired him, how much she admired his strength of character, his honesty, his integrity, his work ethic and determination, his intelligence and his generosity of spirit,” Harris recalled.
Carter died on Dec. 29 at the age of 100. His final journey began on Tuesday in Atlanta at the Carter Center, a nonprofit group he formed that defined his post-presidential legacy.
The vice president reflected on his work for peace in the Middle East and his dedication to ethics following the Watergate scandal. She also said priority on environmental issues was far ahead of his time.
“He was the first president of the United States to have a comprehensive energy policy, including providing some of the first federal support for clean energy,” Harris said. “He also passed over a dozen major pieces of legislation regarding environmental protection and more than doubled the size of America’s national parks, including protecting our beloved Redwoods in my home state of California.”
Harris said Carter “established a new model for what it means to be a former president,” pointing to his work with the housing nonprofit organization Habitat for Humanity, and called Carter a “rare example of a gifted man who also walks with humility, modesty, and grace.”
“Recall the stories from the 1976 campaign 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 said.
“On their first trip for Habitat for Humanity, Jimmy and Rosalynn rode the bus with the other volunteers, and when the group stopped for the night to stay at a local church, Jimmy and Rosalynn gave their private room to a young couple who had put off their honeymoon to join the trip. With the other volunteers, they then slept on the floor of the church basement,” she added.
Newly sworn-in members of the 119th Congress gathered to pay their respects to Carter along with Supreme Court justices, Cabinet secretaries, and congressional leaders.
Thune focused his speech on Carter’s actions following his time as president, “making the lives of his fellow man better.”
“That meant things like the Carter Center, which, among other things, works for the eradication of disease in some of the poorest areas of the globe. And it meant things like his work with Habitat for Humanity to provide affordable housing for those in need,” Thune said.
“Well into his 90s. He could be found with his hard hat and tools on construction sites, doing the practical work required to get families into homes,” he added.
Johnson honored the 39th president’s life, recalling his humble Georgia roots as a peanut farmer who was an outsider when he became president. Johnson, a Republican who has vowed to cut federal funding, found similarities between his views and those of the late Democratic president.
“He lived through the Great Depression. They did that on a farm in rural Georgia. He knew the value of a dollar, and he modeled thrift his entire life,” Johnson said. “As long as he was in office, he hated government waste.”
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As Carter’s arrival ceremony at the Capitol concluded, the U.S. Army band played Ray Charles’s “Georgia on My Mind.” Thousands are expected to gather at the Capitol to honor the 39th president. His casket has now been placed on the same catafalque as Abraham Lincoln after his assassination in 1865. The public will be able to pay their respects from 7 p.m. to midnight Tuesday and all day on Wednesday.
After Carter’s body lies in state, there will be two funerals on Thursday, one for the nation and one for his family. President Joe Biden will deliver Carter’s eulogy at the funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral. His body will return to Georgia and he will be buried in his hometown of Plains next to his wife, Rosalynn.
