[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 151 (Wednesday, November 20, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11670-S11672]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EXEMPLARY LEADERSHIP OF THE MAJORITY LEADER
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 364 submitted earlier
today by the Republican leader.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A resolution (S. Res. 364) to commend the exemplary
leadership of the Majority Leader.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
resolution.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution
be agreed, and that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table,
without intervening action.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The resolution (S. Res. 364) was agreed to.
The resolution reads as follows:
S. Res. 364
Resolved, that the thanks of the Senate are hereby tendered
to the distinguished Majority Leader, the Senator from South
Dakota, the Honorable Thomas A. Daschle, for his exemplary
leadership and the cooperative and dedicated manner in which
he has performed his leadership responsibilities in the
conduct of Senate business during the second session of the
107th Congress.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, if I could inquire of the majority leader,
would it be appropriate at this point for me to perhaps respond to some
of the resolutions and have a few remarks before I yield the floor back
to him to do whatever he would like to do in terms of concluding his
remarks today?
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Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, by all means. I will probably be coming
back to the floor because I have an engagement at 11:30. But I will be
happy to defer to the Republican leader for whatever remarks he would
make at this time.
Mr. LOTT. Just briefly, Mr. President, with regard to the resolutions
we have just passed, I want to add my specific expression of
appreciation for our Vice President, Vice President Cheney. He is a
long-time friend. He understands the institution of Congress. He has
proven to be a very active Vice President and, obviously, a good and
valued adviser to our President. But we all actually have a special
affinity for this Vice President because we think he does understand
the Congress as an institution, and I think he has been very positive
in the way he has dealt with us. I just wanted that to be on the
Record.
I thank Senator Byrd for his performance as our President pro
tempore, for his making us think about the history and the traditions
of this institution, for his sometimes unbelievable speeches about
history, and for his great quotes from memory of poetry and famous
statements by statesmen and politicians. It is a very interesting thing
to watch and listen to him.
Of course, the one and the only centenarian, Senator Strom Thurmond,
has done so much for his State and for his country.
I just want to put on the Record at this point also that in his
service in the Senate he has cast 16,348 votes. He was here last night
until the last vote was cast.
We are going to celebrate his 100th birthday with several events
December 1.
He will be one of the legends that will be long remembered in this
institution and by our country.
Let me say to Senator Daschle, I have enjoyed working beside him
throughout this historic Congress and over the years. Sometimes we sit
down and visit more often than a lot of people would think or realize.
We certainly have a very strong personal relationship--one the media
seems to miss. And that is just as well, probably, because if people
really knew the kind of friendship we have and what we talk about, it
would either hurt him or me--or both of us, or our colleagues. But that
is as it should be. This is the Senate. We must find a way to work
together.
As I said on the floor yesterday, how we produce legislation is quite
often messy and not pretty, but our forefathers designed this to be a
body that could be moved only by unanimous consent or consensus.
Sometimes it takes days, sometimes it takes weeks, and sometimes it
takes months--just like last night. After all the fussing, the
fighting, the squabbling, the amending, and positioning and all that
went into it, when we voted on the Homeland Security Department Bill,
the vote was 90 to 9. We actually scratch our heads and say, Why all
that thunder and lightning and then that result?
Well, that is a part of the process. Quite often that happens in the
Senate, because along the way you have made changes. You have
reconsidered other people's positions. But in the end it is quite often
that a bill will pass by a wide margin.
We have been through changes in leadership positions. The process to
consider the removal of President of the United States who had been
impeached by the other body, and now this historic 107th Congress.
We should not go off quietly into the night without giving some
recognition and some credit to what we have done in this Congress.
We started over with a 50-50 split--somewhat historic in its own
right. There had been 50-50 splits before, or even splits before. I
have gone back and studied how those things were handled. They were
handled not too well a lot of times. In fact, in one Congress I think
it took them 4 or 5 months before they ever agreed on the rules to
proceed.
There was some criticism of me and our caucus, and probably of
Senator Daschle and his caucus, with the agreement we came up with for
this 50-50 split. If we had to do it over again, we probably would do
it somewhat differently, or we would have done a few more things than
we were actually able to agree on. But we did come to an agreement. We
did move the session forward, and we produced some historic results
during that period when we were evenly divided.
At the beginning of the year, Senator Daschle actually was the
majority leader for 17 days. He could have tried to take advantage of
it. He could have tried some things that would have been infuriating to
my side, or that wouldn't have been good for the Senate or the country.
But he didn't do that. He did do some things, but they weren't done in
a way that was taken advantage of in that interim period. Then I became
majority leader again in the 107th Congress for about 5 months or so.
Then I was back in the minority; Senator Daschle is back as majority
leader.
We were sort of getting used to our sea legs under this new
arrangement in the latter part of June and July. We probably had not
gotten our sea legs yet, and then came September 11. We had not planned
on that, and we were stunned by it, the institution, as individuals,
our staffs. Not only did America come under attack in New York and the
Pentagon, and with plans to attack other places, we had the anthrax
situation that put Senator Daschle's staff in a very difficult,
dangerous position. All of us were affected by that.
A lot of Senators rose to the occasion. The leadership, our officers
rose to the occasion. I will talk more later about the service of our
Sergeant at Arms, General Lenhardt, and the Secretary of the Senate,
Jeri Thomson. They were under enormous pressure, and they were dealing
with a totally different situation than we had ever experienced. We
were the pilot project. We did not want to be, but we were.
How did we clean the Hart Building? How did Senators get their work
done? Well, they wound up in other Senators' offices. They wound up in
my office upstairs. They were all over the place. We did what we had to
do.
Also, I believe those events united this body in a way that was very
positive, and this country in ways that we are still experiencing. But
we did find a way to speak with one voice, to pull up our courage, to
continue to do our job.
Those ugly, tragic events of that day gave us a period of unity and
production that I have not seen since I have been in Congress. We
passed bill after bill after bill to deal with the tragedy--from
aviation security, to make sure our airlines did not go out of
business; the PATRIOT Act--I will not enumerate all the things we did
do. We did it working together across the aisle, across the Capitol,
and with the administration in many instances.
I have said here on the floor before, an interesting thing happened:
The American people's approval of our conduct went to the highest in
history. I don't know what the highest level was, but at least in the
high seventies. Why was that? Because they saw us working together in a
nonpartisan way to do what was right for our country. And when we got
back closer to doing business as usual, those numbers sort of drifted
back down.
I think maybe during this period we are going to be out we ought to
meditate and think a little bit about how we did in September and
October and November of 2001, what we did not do sometimes in 2002, and
see if there is a way we can, once again, come together and work
together more often.
So there have been bumps and potholes and there have been
disagreements and there have been huge battles over prescription drugs
and energy legislation and homeland security and a lot of others, but
more often than not, we did get a result. We found a way to get it
done.
It takes an interminable amount of patience to be majority leader.
Senator Daschle exhibited that patience, sometimes to the
consternation, I know, perhaps, of his own colleagues in his own
caucus. But that is the way it has to be done.
So now we close out this historic period. We have had an election. We
will be coming back in January with 11 new faces in the Senate and new
leadership in the majority. I will have that opportunity again, God be
willing, that we have of swearing in on January 7. We will need to find
a way to work together again. I believe we will.
Senator Daschle, when he became majority leader, stood in that place
and pledged to me, and to the Senate, that he would work with us, and
he
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would be fair in his dealings. I think he has kept that commitment. I
make the same pledge to him. I have learned some lessons being in the
minority and being in the majority and being back and forth. It is a
humbling experience. I think you learn that you have to do some things
differently. I hope I will do them better. And I will need his help. So
I believe we will find a way to work together for the best interests of
this institution and for our country.
I thank the many people associated with this Chamber, too.
As I said to Senator Smith, it is far too often we forget to thank
the people who make this place work: the people who turn on the lights,
the policemen who work to keep us and our constituents and our staffs
safe, the elevator operators, the custodians, the pages. All of these
people who work in this Chamber and in this building are an important
part of getting our job done. So to you all, I express my appreciation
on behalf of myself and the Senate because you do a great job.
With that, I would just like to conclude by wishing everyone a safe,
happy holiday season. We need this respite. In the end, faith and
family are more important even than what happens here.
Now we will have a chance to spend some time thinking about those
things and being with the ones we love the most. I look forward to
returning in January. I look forward to seeing all of my colleagues as
we begin the work that needs to be done for a stronger and freer
America and peace in the world.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I indicated I will return to the floor in
a short while. But while he is here, let me thank the distinguished
Republican leader for his generous words. He spoke for both of us in
recounting what we have experienced over the course of the last 2
years.
This has been an extraordinarily eventful 107th Congress. He did not
mention, but I know he could have gone on to include the war in
Afghanistan, extraordinary challenges on Wall Street, amazing things on
the war on terror that we have confronted, breakfasts with the
President as we attempted to confront these challenges one by one in a
bipartisan way.
So this has been extraordinarily eventful. You have to go back a long
ways--a half a century--to find a time when power shifted within one
Congress from one party to the other. I told him at the time--and I
have since reiterated to him--how impressed I was in the way with which
in our relationship he accepted that transfer of power. I hope I can be
equally as magnanimous, and I hope to demonstrate that that will be the
case beginning in January.
He and I have developed a relationship that is built on a great deal
of experience. And from that experience comes trust and affection.
He also did not mention a great moment in both of our lives: when we
became grandfathers. That has been a special treasure for both of us.
And we have shared those moments about family and about grandchildren,
as we have experienced them for the first time.
So I look forward to working again very closely with him in yet
another role. I hope that it can be even more productive. I hope that
we both can learn lessons from this experience. I hope that we both can
send a message to the American people that we mean to govern well, and,
as I tell people sometimes, it is difficult to legislate, recognizing
that with 240 million people in the same room, we have to reach a
consensus about issues as challenging as homeland security. We will
continue to do that with our colleagues, and with the best intentions,
recognizing the expectations of the American people.
So I thank him again for his courtesies, his friendship, and the
leadership he has shown, and express to him, in the most heartfelt way,
how much I look forward to working with him again.
Mr. President, I have one final resolution, and that is the
adjournment resolution.
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