U.S. senator, sobbing for son, pleas for suicide bill

Oregon Republican Gordon Smith took the floor to introduce a youth suicide prevention bill named after his own dead son.

"He saw only despair ahead and felt only pain in his present. Pain and despair so potent that he sought suicide as a release. As a release," Smith said, recalling his son Garrett, who killed himself in his college apartment last September, one day before his 22nd birthday.

Smith recalled a "beautiful child, a handsome baby boy" that he and his wife Sharon adopted a few days after birth. He had vast intellectual gifts but struggled with learning disabilities, dyslexia, and bipolar disorder, sometimes called manic depression, Smith said.

The chamber was almost empty as Smith began to speak, as he lamented that there is "no owner's manual to help you bury a child, especially when the cause is suicide."

But by the time he had finished, several colleagues had lined up to embrace him. And two rose to tell of the suicides of their own fathers.

Nevada Democrat Harry Reid recalled attending Garrett's funeral, and hearing everyone speak so openly about the suicide. After his own father shot himself, Reid said, he was too ashamed to discuss it for years.

If a bill like Smith's had been in effect when his father was a young man, Reid said, "my dad may not have had all the problems that he had as he proceeded through life."

Oklahoma Republican Don Nickles also rose to say his father too had killed himself. "I'm not going to go into the details," he said. "But it's a lot of pain."

Endorsing Smith's $60 million bill, Nickles said, "I have no doubt as a result of us passing this legislation, we'll end up saving a lot of lives, maybe thousands of lives." The bill would help states develop prevention strategies and fund more mental health services on college campuses.

More than 30,000 Americans kill themselves each year and suicide is the third-leading cause of death for people aged 10-24.

New Mexico Republican Pete Domenici, who has been very public about his daughter's struggle with schizophrenia, had gone home early, but threw on a suit and dashed back to the Senate to sympathize with Smith.

Domenici said he would make another push for the bill he's advocated for years that would require health insurers to treat serious mental illness the same way they treat physical illness and lashed out at fellow Republicans who had anonymously used a procedural move to block it. "I don't know who you are yet," said Domenici, "but I'll find out."