Sarbanes: ‘This wasn’t going to be the last thing I did’; hopes to pass ethics reform before leaving Congress

As Paul Sarbanes ended a 40-year political career in 2007 that included five U.S. Senate terms, his son, John was sworn into his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives. Paul Sarbanes came to the House chamber to watch his son take office. The Sarbanes-to-Sarbanes handoff — Paul was 73 and John 44 — felt “like a passing of a torch. It was very emotional, it was very poignant,” said former U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, who has known the younger Sarbanes since he was a boy.