Judge Gerald Heaney 1918-2010 (of the first ashore at Normandy, “should have been a SCOTUS justice")

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4536

By Larry Sillanpa
23 June 2010

DULUTH - We've learned of the death Tuesday morning of Judge Gerald Heaney, a truly great American and an important friend to the Duluth labor movement. The son of a Goodhue, MN butcher and farmer, Heaney became a decorated World War II veteran, one of the first ashore at Normandy, a Duluth labor attorney for 20 years, and had a stellar 40-year career as a judge on the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. His friend Walter Mondale said of Heaney, “He should have been a Supreme Court justice.”

Heaney quietly, but forcefully, directed Democratic politics in Minnesota for decades, beginning with the founding of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party with his friends Hubert Humphrey and Orville Freeman.

He crafted the union contracts that established the first self-funded health and welfare packages in Minnesota. He also wrote the first contract that gave female Duluth school teachers equal pay to their male counterparts. He was awarded a life membership in the Duluth AFL-CIO Central Labor Body, the only one ever given, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, for his efforts. He attended every Labor Day Picnic in Duluth from 1948 through 2009. The finest room in the Duluth Labor Temple is the Judge Heaney Chambers. Until just very recently, he hosted a Friday noon lunch at Porter’s Restaurant that always had labor leaders as its largest contingent.



During his career on the bench Judge Heaney was instrumental in making sure public education served everyone, and that women were given equal opportunities in all their endeavors. Those issues are hallmarks of the labor movement. Among his 3,000 opinions from the bench were those that desegregated schools in Little Rock, Kansas City, St. Louis and Omaha. When those rulings were ignored by some school districts, he made sure they were enforced. Even in his dissenting opinions he laid the groundwork for improving the lives and opportunities for every American citizen.

FULL story at link.

But what excellent use he made of it. RIP, Judge Heaney. We're glad you made it.