Jimmy Carter funeral updates: Congress, Supreme Court gather for ceremony in DC

Former President Jimmy Carter was a president “ahead of his time,” from passing over a dozen major pieces of legislation for environmental protection to establishing the Departments of Energy and Education, Vice President Kamala Harris said in her eulogy.

From 1977 to 1981, Carter appointed more Black Americans to the federal bench than all his predecessors combined, and he appointed five times as many women, Harris highlighted.

Carter also “established a new model for what it means to be a former president and leave an extraordinary post-presidential legacy,” she said.

From founding The Carter Center to his public health work to his “tireless advocacy for peace and democracy,” Harris said his “works will echo for generations to come.”

Carter was the “all too rare example of a gifted man who also walks with humility, modesty and grace,” she said, noting how when he campaigned he slept at his supporters’ homes and shared a meal with them.

Carter “loved our country. He lived his faith. He served the people. And he left the world better than he found it,” Harris said.

Carter had said he wanted to live long enough to cast his vote for Harris in the 2024 presidential election. The 100-year-old lifelong Democrat cast his absentee ballot in October.