[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 129 (Tuesday, September 4, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11038-S11042]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY ON CASTING HIS 15,000TH VOTE
Mr. REID. Mr. President, earlier this morning, I made a very brief
statement indicating that in the rush of business when we went home for
the summer work period, the last vote cast that day was Senator
Kennedy's 15,000th vote. There was a lot going on here at that time,
and no one said anything. But I think it certainly is noteworthy--and
that is an understatement--to recognize that this good man has passed
everyone, except Senator Byrd, in the number of votes cast. Senator
Byrd has cast over 18,000 votes, but there is no close second other
than Senator Kennedy.
We all recognize the tremendous work this man has done. As I said
this morning, what a family. They have done so much for our country.
Two of his brothers were assassinated. One of his other brothers was
killed in the line of duty during World War II. Senator Kennedy has
done so much to leave a legacy in the Kennedy name that is remarkable.
We all admire the work he has done. As I said this morning, one of my
pleasures in life is being able to come to the Senate and work with
this great man. Working with him is such a pleasure because he can get
on this floor and speak very loudly, and we all listen. But when you
are working with him on legislation, he has so much humility, never
wanting to take the limelight, always willing to step back and let
those who are his junior move forward, and I include myself in that
lot.
So congratulations to Senator Kennedy.
(Applause, Senators rising.)
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, more than half a century ago, a right
end--this is in the days before a tight end was invented--on the
Harvard football team caught the eye of the head coach of the Green Bay
Packers. The coach wrote the young man to ask if he might consider a
pro career. But Edward Moore Kennedy had other ideas. He responded that
he was flattered by the attention, but that he had already decided to
go to law school and then go into another contact sport--politics.
I rise this afternoon in tribute to a man who is known to most people
for his famous name but who is famous among his colleagues in the
Senate for his warmth, good humor, and his simply astonishing ability
and will to get things done.
Senator Kennedy, as the majority leader just indicated, cast his
15,000th vote just before we broke for recess, solidifying his place as
the third most prolific voter in the history of this body.
It was just the latest milestone in a storied 45-year career marked
by countless others. And it surprised no one who has ever witnessed him
speaking on the floor or off on the issues he cares about. The Senate
has been his arena for more than four decades, and in the course of
pushing thousands of pieces of legislation, he has worn out hundreds of
staffers, committee members, and stenographers. He ignites
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every debate and issue he ever decided to touch. Let no one ever accuse
this man of simply punching the clock.
Thousands of visitors to the Capitol have instantly known that this
is a place of momentous deeds when they have seen Senator Kennedy
jabbing the air or wheeling around, voice rising, even in an empty
Chamber, to make a point. He is not a man who ever depended on a
microphone to get his point across.
His reputation as an aisle-crosser is also well known. Less well
known is his graciousness off the floor, as when he accepted an
invitation of mine to speak to the students at the McConnell Center at
the University of Louisville last year, or when he insisted that
Senator McCain accept an award in Boston despite the fact it was his
son's 11th birthday, assuring him he would make that day special for
him and for his son, which he did, with a personal Coast Guard tour
around Boston Harbor and, according to Senator McCain, at least two
birthday cakes.
Senator Kennedy is one of the most visible men of our time. He has
every reason to let people come to him. Yet when we had a reception
earlier this year for our most recent Republican member, Senator
Barrasso, it was Senator Kennedy who approached Senator Barrasso and
sat with him and his family, talking, sharing stories, and welcoming
them with all the warmth and affection of a grandfather long after the
other Senators had cleared the room.
Senator Kennedy, as we all know, is a famous story teller. But one of
the greatest stories in American politics is his own. We honor him
today for reaching yet another milestone along the way, and we wish him
many more.
One of my own personal political heroes, Ronald Reagan, was for 8
years a great political nemesis of Senator Kennedy's. Yet Senator
Kennedy said he always admired our 40th President because, as he once
put it, ``Ronald Reagan stood for a set of ideas, and he had something
to communicate.''
Senator Kennedy's friends on the other side admire the same quality
in him. We may disagree with his policies, and we do, but we respect
him for his remarkable commitment and persistence in pursuit of those
ideas, those principles. And we honor him today for this particularly
impressive achievement. Congratulations.
(Applause, Senators rising.)
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, it is my privilege to join in saying a few
words about my senior colleague, the Senator from Massachusetts. The
special words that have been spoken about Ted Kennedy are obviously
more than appropriate. But let me say, if I may, it is interesting that
when we take a measure of Ted Kennedy's work here, which is an
unparalleled record of achievement, and we look at the public record,
that public record is actually full of comparisons to the greatest
Senators who have ever served in the United States Senate or even some
of the greatest who have served in Washington.
The Boston Globe wrote of our senior Senator:
In actual measurable impact on the lives of tens of
millions of working families, the elderly, the needy, Ted
belongs in the same sentence with Franklin Roosevelt.
Time magazine said:
Ted Kennedy has amassed a titanic record of legislation
affecting the lives of virtually every man, woman, and child
in the country.
And in his comprehensive book just a couple of years ago, Adam Clymer
wrote that Ted Kennedy is a lawmaker of skill, experience, and purpose
rarely surpassed since 1789. He has been compared to Henry Clay for his
skill as a legislator and to Lyndon Johnson for his efforts in creating
a more egalitarian, more inclusive America that leaves no one behind.
Mr. President, 15,000 votes is a remarkable number. No one knows that
more than the Senator sitting in front of me, the Senator from West
Virginia, Mr. Byrd, who is the only other member of that exclusive
club. He knows, as we all know, that 15,000 is not just a statistic
representing those votes. It represents and encapsulates countless
legislative battles in the trenches, in the committee rooms, in
offices, tough negotiations, thankless committee hearings, inspired
ideas, setbacks and, to a greater degree than almost any other lawmaker
alive, laws that improve the lives of everyday Americans.
From his maiden speech in the Senate demanding an end to the
filibuster of the original Civil Rights Act, there has not been a
significant policy accomplishment in Washington over four decades that
has not borne his fingerprints and benefited from his legislative skill
and leadership. His is the record of progressive politics in our era.
In all of the great fights that call us to stand up and be counted,
from the minimum wage year in and year out, to Robert Bork and Sam
Alito, Ted Kennedy did not just hear the call, he led the charge. You
can run down the list. The rights of the disabled who for far too long
were left in the shadows or left to fend for themselves, Ted Kennedy
wrote every single landmark piece of legislation that today prohibits
discrimination against those with a disability.
AIDS--when a whole lot of politicians were even afraid to say the
word, Ted Kennedy passed a bill providing emergency relief to the 13
cities hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic.
Mr. President, 300,000 young people today have jobs every single
summer because of Ted Kennedy. Guaranteed access to health coverage for
25 million Americans who move from one job to another or who have a
preexisting medical condition--they wouldn't have gotten that coverage
without Ted Kennedy.
Without Ted Kennedy, there wouldn't have been bilingual education in
the United States for the 5 million students who today have a brighter
future because they are learning English in our schools.
Without Ted Kennedy, we wouldn't have lowered the voting age to 18
and ended the hypocrisy that 18-year-olds were old enough to die for
our country in Vietnam but not old enough to vote for the leadership.
Without Ted Kennedy, we wouldn't be the world's leader in cancer
research and prevention.
Without Ted Kennedy, we wouldn't have had title IX, which opened the
doors of competition and opportunity for a generation of women athletes
all across our country.
The list goes on, and I am not going to go through the whole list.
But ever since he entered this body at the age of 30, he has stood up
again and again to be counted in support of his beliefs. He stood up to
be counted. He stood up to lead again and again. He has already secured
his place as one of the great legislators in the history of our
country.
And then after casting that 15,000th vote before we went away, he
celebrated by doing the same thing that made him a legend in the first
place. He rolled up his sleeves and he went back to work. That is why a
lot of us look forward to seeing these next years with him and watch as
he continues to help write the history of the Senate and the history of
our progressive politics and the history of our country.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am happy to join in this chorus of
praise for the senior Senator from Massachusetts on the occasion of the
15,000th vote he has cast--a historic milestone in this historic body
and a milestone reached by only two other Senators, only one of whom
continues to serve with great distinction, the man from West Virginia,
Senator Robert C. Byrd. Senator Edward Moore Kennedy has now added his
name to this roster of distinction.
He is the ninth child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy, born on February
22, 1932--200 years to the day after George Washington. In a family
such as the Kennedys, I am sure that coincidence did not go unnoticed.
Years ago, Ted Kennedy made the Senate the focus of his public life.
Some say that decision has helped him to become one of the best
Senators ever to serve this body. His dedication to principle and his
willingness to delve deeply into tough issues really have been the
hallmarks of his public service.
In his biography of Senator Ted Kennedy, former New York Times
reporter Adam Clymer recalls a hearing in the 1960s in the Senate Labor
and Public Welfare Committee on which both Ted and his brother, Bobby
Kennedy, then Senator from New York, served. Clymer describes how the
two Kennedys had to wait 2 hours to question a
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witness because they were both junior members of the Senate at the
time. Bobby Kennedy seemed almost pained by the tedium of sitting there
hour after hour waiting his turn. Ted was more patient.
Exasperated, Bobby Kennedy leaned over and asked his brother: Is this
the way I become a good Senator, sitting here and waiting my turn?
Ted Kennedy replied to his brother: Yes.
Bobby shot back: How many hours do I have to sit here to be a good
Senator?
And Teddy said: As long as necessary.
Well, when it comes to 15,000 votes, I am sure that will be a record
which will be hard to match. But when it comes down to it, it is not
about the quantity of Ted Kennedy's votes, it is about the quality of
his politics. He really cares. He cares about people. He cares about
the people who can't afford a lobbyist to stand out in the hallway and
beg for a vote. He cares about the people who get up every morning and
worry that nobody has noticed their lives, lives of sacrifice and lives
of difficulty. He cares about those people. They won't be holding big
fundraisers with political action committees, but they are the people
who have energized him in his public career.
He also cares about the people with whom he works. I can't think of
another colleague with whom I have ever served in the House or Senate
who really reaches out in so many different ways to each of us on a
personal level to show that he cares. If you have a child in the
hospital, an illness in the family, the loss of a loved one, you can
count on a telephone call from Ted Kennedy. If no one else remembers,
he will.
He also works every single day. I think that is the thing which
surprised me my 10 years in the Senate, was just the energy level of
Senator Ted Kennedy. He never stops. And now, in his majority position
as chairman of the HELP Committee, he has an agenda he has been waiting
on for way too long, an agenda which included increasing the minimum
wage in America for the first time in 10 years, an agenda which is
going to lead us into the kind of help for students across America to
go to college that we haven't seen since the passage of the GI bill
after World War II. Time and again, this Senator has used his
commitment and combined it with an energy that has produced dramatic
results.
I have had the honor of serving on the Judiciary Committee with him,
and I know that from time to time he has stood up and taken a lonely
and sometimes difficult political position for what he believed was
right. It is that kind of courage and dedication to principle which
leads me to believe he is one of the finest colleagues with whom I have
ever had the honor to serve.
Finally, he knows that life here in the Senate is a privilege. It is
a privilege for each of us. Although he has been here longer than
most--perhaps only one other Senator has been here longer--he
understands that for each of us this is a great privilege, to represent
great States in a great nation. It is a source of great pride for me to
have once sat in that gallery as a college student and looked down on
Senator Ted Kennedy on the floor, wondering if I would ever meet him,
and to be able to stand here today on the occasion of his 15,000th vote
and to count him as a friend and an inspiration.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, this is a great pleasure--a great pleasure--
that I congratulate my very highly esteemed colleague and dearest
friend, Senator Edward Kennedy, upon the casting of his 15,000th vote.
Senator Kennedy has now become a member, an illustrious member, of one
of the most exclusive clubs in the whole wide world. Throughout the
entire history of the Senate, only 2 other Senators have cast 15,000
votes--I and the late Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. As a
charter member of this exclusive club, I welcome Senator Kennedy
aboard.
This latest achievement is only one of many for this fine son of
Massachusetts. He has spent more than half his life in the Senate, and
he is the third longest serving Senator in U.S. history. As I have said
before on this floor, history will be kind to Senator Kennedy. I have
no doubt that history will not only regard Senator Ted Kennedy as one
of the most effective national legislators of the 20th and now the 21st
century but also as one of the great Senators ever to have graced this
illustrious Chamber.
Although born to a life of privilege, Senator Kennedy has dedicated
his life to serving others. Senator Kennedy represents the heart and
the conscience of American liberalism. Senator Kennedy is responsible
for much, indeed much of the progressive legislation of the last four
decades. He is always a powerful and eloquent voice for the poor and
the oppressed, expressing his views in soaring speeches and passionate
struggles for the rights of labor, for health care reform, and for
strengthening the social safety net for America's less fortunate.
In the Senate, he has demonstrated that it is through public
service--to paraphrase his late brother, President John F. Kennedy--
that Americans can stop asking what their country can do for them and
actually do something for their country.
Senator Ted Kennedy gave me unstinting support during the years when
it was my privilege to serve as the Senate Democratic majority leader
and minority leader at different times. When times got tough, I knew
that I could always count on Ted Kennedy's advice and his support. It
may have been a needed vote; it may not have been. It may have been
assistance in building approval for legislative proposals. But whatever
was needed, Ted Kennedy was always there, and I was always grateful.
Thank you, Ted.
I shall always value Ted Kennedy's friendship not only to me but to
the great people of the great State--E Pluribus Unum--of West Virginia.
And I am quite pleased and I am proud--proud, Ted--to have had the
pleasure and the honor and the great privilege of serving with this
extraordinarily great Senator in the Senate.
Congratulations, congratulations, congratulations, Senator Ted
Kennedy, on casting your 15,000th vote. But even more importantly,
congratulations on being such a needed advocate for the powerless in
our great and powerful country. Americans are a compassionate people,
and the senior Senator from Massachusetts has no intention of ever,
ever, letting the Senate forget that. Amen.
Thank you, sir.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, it is such an honor for me to be here and
hear the Senator who has served the longest and cast the greatest
number of votes heap high praise on the Senator who is No. 3 in that
category. It is such an honor for every one of us, the other 98 who are
here, to serve with both of them.
I will be brief because so much has been said, but Ted Kennedy has
been a beacon, he has been a mentor, he has been almost a father figure
to so many of us in the Senate. He is so committed to the things he
believes in, and you hear it in his speeches and you see it even more
so in the great craft with which he yields the legislative pen. But
unlike some who may love mankind in the abstract, Ted Kennedy also has
a quintessential kindness and decency to the individuals of this body
and to individuals he just meets. We all see it in him as he walks the
halls. Ted Kennedy is a special human being. He would be a special
human being in any craft or vocation because of who he is, what he
knows, where he comes from. But I think every one of us--from Senator
Byrd, No. 1 in seniority in the Senate, to Senator Barrasso, No. 100--
count our lucky stars that we are able to serve with and know a great
man such as Ted Kennedy.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I would not want all the accolades to
Senator Kennedy to come from that side of the aisle. Forty years ago,
in 1967, I came to this body as a very young legislative aide to
Senator Howard Baker, and Ted Kennedy was a very young Senator but
already in his second term. All the talk for the first few months--and
I imagine Senator Byrd can remember this--was about how long would it
take for Senator Baker, a new Republican Senator, to
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break on some important issue with father-in-law, the Republican
leader, Senator Everett Dirksen and after a few months we knew because
Senator Baker walked across the aisle and joined with Senator Ted
Kennedy and they fought against Senator Dirksen, Baker's father-in-law,
and Sam Ervin, the most respected constitutional lawyer in the Senate,
on the issue of one man one vote.
I remember working with Jim Fluge, Senator Kennedy's friend who came
back to work in the Senate 3 or 4 years ago. The upstarts won that
debate; Baker and Kennedy beat Dirksen and Ervin on the one man one
vote issue. That was my first exposure to working with Senator Kennedy.
Several years passed and President Bush the first asked me to be the
Education Secretary, and I came to Washington and what did I discover?
I have to be confirmed by a committee chaired by Senator Ted Kennedy.
That was 1991. That was 16 years ago. I was eventually confirmed and
then we worked together for nearly 2 years on educational issues.
Then, 4 years ago I came back and I am in the Senate and today I am
serving on the committee that once confirmed me, and who is the
chairman 40 years later? Senator Ted Kennedy. So I have had a very
special privilege of working with Senator Kennedy and admiring him,
both as a legislative aide and a Cabinet member and now as a colleague
in the Senate.
I can say as a practicing Republican what every Senator in this body
already knows: Nothing will bring a Republican audience to its feet
faster than a speech against high taxes, against Federal control, and
against Ted Kennedy. But those outside the Senate might wonder, then,
how could the Republican leader and others here hold him in such
affection? I can give you one example. We have a tradition in the
Senate still called the maiden speech. We think about what we might say
when we first come here and make it a special occasion. My first speech
was about what it means to be an American, how could we put the
teaching of American history and civics back in its rightful place in
our classrooms so our children could grow up learning what it means to
be an American. This is the subject the Senator from West Virginia has
worked on, spoken about, and legislated on many times.
But after I made that remark and introduced a piece of legislation,
who was the first Senator to come over and volunteer to go around among
his Democratic colleagues and round up enough cosponsors so the
legislation could pass and eventually funds be appropriated? It was
Senator Kennedy. Who is the Senator who at least once a year takes his
entire family to some part of American history and helps them all
understand that? I remember his coming back and telling me how excited
he was when the family went to Richmond and were in the church, I
believe it was, where Patrick Henry was down on his knees and gave his
speech about American liberty.
That is a part of Ted Kennedy that those of us in the Senate, on both
sides of the aisle, know. It is a part we respect and a part we
appreciate. He cares about what it means to be an American because he
and his family are such an important part of American history.
It is a great privilege to serve in this body with Senator Kennedy.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to express appreciation to all my
colleagues for their generous comments this evening, in particular to
the two leaders, Senator Reid and Senator McConnell, for their
kindnesses tonight and other times where they have been generous of
spirit and thought.
I want the people of Massachusetts to know this is not an ending;
15,000 votes is not an ending. No one could demonstrate that better
than my friend and colleague from West Virginia who still speaks with
such eloquence and such passion and does such an extraordinary job in
preserving this institution the way our Founding Fathers wanted it to
be. He has no peer--certainly in my lifetime and I think probably in
the history of this body.
The greatest public honor of my life has been representing the people
of Massachusetts. I love the State. I love the people. I have been
greatly honored by their confidence and their support over the many
years--joyous years, sad years. They have been extraordinary in terms
of their support of a voice in the Senate and a vote to try to
recognize that America is not just a land, it is a promise. It is a
never-ending promise about strengthening our families and about
strengthening our country and about being a fair country and creating
greater opportunity and leading the world when we basically reflect our
greatest values.
I have been greatly honored in working in the Senate with
extraordinary men and women over the period of years. I include so many
who are here now, so many of those who have worked with me over the
period of years, men and women of great integrity and strong commitment
and caring about this Nation. They have demonstrated extraordinary
courage, extraordinary leadership, and have helped to make the country
a much better and fairer land; many on our side, many on the other
side--many on the other side.
When we think back on the great battles and challenges we have had
over the period of years, we made progress when we came together. That
has been true.
I am very grateful to my friend, and he is my friend, John Kerry, my
colleague. I thank him for his friendship and support over many years.
He has pointed out he has helped me in my first campaign. I tried to
help him on his last campaign. We are friends and colleagues and have a
good deal of respect for each other. I have a great deal of affection
and respect for John.
I thank the Senator from West Virginia, Senator Byrd. As we know, he
is not only the President of the Senate, but he has devoted his life to
this institution. On so many different occasions and on so many
different times--I know many in this body can remember it--when this
institution was teetering on whether we were going to maintain our
position as the Founding Fathers wanted it and tried to devise it or
whether we were going to move off track, he has reminded us,
particularly in the great debate we had on the Iraq war, about that
role of this institution and its role in American life and its role in
the world. We are all mindful of that.
He has been a friend. We have a time where we go back and remind each
other of the times we differed, but what we also, I think, have valued
is the fact that our friendship I believe is stronger because of the
times that we did differ. We have great affection for each other,
respect for each other. I thank him for his extremely kind and generous
remarks.
Mr. BYRD. And I thank you, Ted.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, finally, I could not take this moment
without thinking back about, personally, the service in this Chamber.
When I first arrived in this Chamber, I was fortunate to have two
brothers, one a President and another an Attorney General. I had the
opportunity to work with them on those responsibilities in that regard.
Then, to have a brother who served in the Senate was a golden time for
me during that period of time.
I have been enormously proud of the work my nephew, Congressman
Kennedy, serving in the House of Representatives, and now Patrick, my
son, who serves in the House of Representatives and is a leading voice
in terms of the mental health issues for our country--I am so proud of
all his good work.
We grew up in a family that believed in public service, that elective
office can make a difference but also understood that other people make
extraordinary differences in advancing the cause of fairness and
decency in the Nation. I think of the work of my sisters in that
undertaking, all of whom have been involved--whether Special Olympics
or Very Special Arts or other programs in which they have all been
involved.
We still believe in the importance of public service and the honor,
the high honor that one has in elective office. There are many of those
who dismiss that concept as an old-fashioned viewpoint, but I think any
of us who have read the history of this Nation and who understood its
history know there is no higher personal honor than to have that
opportunity.
Finally, I welcomed the opportunity to come back to serve as a
Senator
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from Massachusetts, to try to be a voice of what I call the march for
progress in this country. Thomas Jefferson used to say every 25 years a
nation redefines itself. He talked about the continuing expansion of
the real cause of liberty in this Nation--not in ways that so
frequently are overused and overstate that word but in its core,
principal meaning.
As I mentioned, this Nation is a country that is a continuing
process. That is why each day that I wake up, I think of a new
opportunity to try to have some constructive impact. People will agree,
and some will differ, on the directions. Sure, programs change--and
that is understandable--but basic, fundamental values about what this
Nation is all about and what so many of us who have the great honor of
service in this body understand is that America is a continuing
discovery and a continuing promise and a continuing opportunity for
each and every one of us to make some contribution.
I thank the Senator from Tennessee for his comments. I remember that
debate very well. It was a rather basic and fundamental issue about one
person one vote. The question at that time was, is that going to be
continued or whether there was going to be such flexibility that we
were going to continue the gerrymandering of different districts.
Senator Baker, with the very strong assistance of Senator Alexander,
reminded this body and helped maintain and insist about what the
Supreme Court had said about that issue. I thank him for his comments
and also for his continued work in the areas of education and so many
other areas.
I have been fortunate to have a number of my colleagues here from
Massachusetts, a number of members of the delegation.
There were some former colleagues here as well. Senator Riegle was
here, and Senator Culver. I was reminded actually over the August
recess that I had cast the 15,000th vote. I was talking with Senator
Culver, and we were reminiscing. He was here when I cast my first vote,
which goes back over a very long, considerable period of time. I am
grateful for his presence as well as my other colleagues, Bill
Delahunt, Jim McGovern. We saw many of those who were here earlier from
our Massachusetts delegation. I thank them very much.
People ask me how long I will continue to serve in the Senate. I give
the same response, that is, I am going to stay here until I get the
hang of it.
I look forward to that. I would never get the hang of it if I did not
have the wonderful love, affection, and warmth my wife Vicky, the joy
of my life, gives to me every single day.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________