[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 140 (Tuesday, September 20, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5733-S5736]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                STEPPING DOWN FROM REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I thank my friend of 40 years, the 
Republican leader, for being here for these remarks I am about to make. 
I thank my colleague, Senator Corker, and several other of my 
Republican colleagues for, on very short notice, coming to the Senate 
floor for these brief remarks.
  Next January, following the annual retreat of Republican Senators, I 
will step down from the Senate Republican leadership. My colleagues 
have elected me as Republican conference chairman three times, and I 
will have completed 4 years or the equivalent of two 2-year terms at 
that time. My reason for doing that is this, stepping down from the 
Republican leadership will liberate me to spend more time trying to 
work for results on issues I care the most about. That means stopping 
runaway regulations, runaway spending, but it also means confronting 
the timidity that allows health care spending to squeeze out support 
for roads, support for research, support for scholarships, and other 
government functions that make it easier and cheaper to create private 
sector jobs.
  I wish to do more to make the Senate a more effective place to 
address serious issues. For 4 years in our caucus, my leadership job 
has been this: to help the leader succeed, to help individual 
Republicans succeed, to look for a consensus within our caucus, and to 
suggest a message. I have enjoyed that. However, there are different 
ways to offer leadership in the Senate, and I have concluded, after 9 
years, this is now the best way for me to make a contribution.
  It boils down to this: Serving in this body, as each one of us knows, 
is a rare privilege. I am trying to make the best use of that time 
while I am here. For the same reason, I plan to step down in January 
from the leadership, I will not be a candidate for leadership in the 
next Congress. However, I do intend to be more, not less, in the thick 
of resolving issues, and I do plan to run for reelection in the Senate 
in 2014.
  These are serious times. Every American's job is on the line. The 
United

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States still produces about 23 percent of the world's wealth, even 
though we only have about 5 percent of the world's people. All around 
the world people are realizing there is nothing different about their 
brains and our brains and their using their brain power to try to 
achieve the same kind of standard of living we have enjoyed in the 
United States.
  As a result of this, some have predicted that within a decade, for 
the first time since the 1870s, the United States will not be the 
world's largest economy. They say China will be. My goal is to help 
keep the United States of America the world's strongest economy.
  There are two other matters that are relevant to the decision I am 
making that I would like to address. The first is this: When I first 
ran for the Senate in 2002, I said to the people of Tennessee--and they 
were not surprised by this--that I will serve with conservative 
principles and an independent attitude. I intend to continue to serve 
in the very same way.
  I am a very Republican Republican. I grew up in the mountains of 
Tennessee and still live there in a congressional district that has 
never elected a Democrat to Congress since Abraham Lincoln was 
President of the United States. My great-grandfather was once asked 
about his politics. He said: I am a Republican. I fought for the Union, 
and I vote like I shot.
  I have been voted five times by Tennessee Republicans to serve in 
public office. I have been elected three times by Senate Republicans as 
conference chair. If I could get a 100-percent Republican solution of 
any of our legislative issues, I would do it in a minute. I know the 
Senate usually requires 60 votes for a solution on serious issues, and 
we simply cannot get that with only Republican votes or only Democratic 
votes.
  Second, by stepping down from the leadership, I expect to be more, 
not less, aggressive on the issues. I look forward to that. The Senate 
was created to be the place where the biggest issues producing the 
biggest disagreements are argued out. I don't buy for 1 minute that 
these disagreements create some sort of unhealthy lack of civility in 
the Senate. I think those who believe the debates in our Senate are 
more fractious than the debates in our political history simply have 
forgotten American history. They have forgotten what Adams and 
Jefferson said of one another. They have forgotten that Vice President 
Burr killed former Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton. They have 
forgotten that Congressman Houston was walking down the streets of 
Washington one day, came across a Congressman from Ohio who had opposed 
Andrew Jackson's Indian policy and started caning him, for which he was 
censured. They have forgotten there was a South Carolina Congressman 
who came to the floor of the Senate and nearly killed, by hitting him 
with a stick, a Senator from Massachusetts. They have forgotten that 
another Senator from Massachusetts, named Henry Cabot Lodge, stood on 
the floor and said of the President of the United States, Woodrow 
Wilson: I hate that man. They forgot about Henry Clay's compromises and 
the debates that were held during the Army-McCarthy days. What of the 
Watergate debates? What of the Vietnam debates?
  The main difference today between the debates in Washington and the 
debates in history are that, today, because we have so much media, 
everybody hears everything instantly. If one would notice, most of the 
people who are shouting at each other on television or the radio or the 
Internet have never been elected to anything.
  It would help if we in the Senate knew each other better across party 
lines. To suggest we should be more timid in debating the biggest 
issues before the American people would ignore the function of the 
Senate and would ignore our history. The truth is, the Senators debate 
divisive issues with excessive civility.
  I have enjoyed my 4 years in the Republican leadership. I thank my 
colleagues for that privilege. I now look forward to spending more time 
working with all Senators to achieve results on the issues I care about 
the most--issues that I believe will help determine for our next 
generation what kind of economy we will have, what our standard of 
living will be for our families, and what our national security will 
be.

  I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I would say to my friend of 40 years 
that even though there are a number of colleagues on the Senate floor, 
I am confident we all agree this is not a eulogy in which we are about 
to engage. Really, I have a great sense of relief that my friend is 
going to run again in 2014 and continue to make an extraordinary 
contribution to the Senate and to America.
  When I first met Lamar he was at the White House. I had just come 
here as a legislative assistant to a newly elected Senator. He had 
already accomplished a lot. He had been elected Phi Beta Kappa at 
Vanderbilt and graduated from New York University Law School. He had 
clerked for a well-known circuit judge, been involved in Howard Baker's 
first campaign, had helped him set up his first office, and that was 
before I met him.
  Since I have met him, as many of my colleagues are already aware, it 
is hard to think of anybody--it is hard to think of anybody--who has 
done more things well. He went home in 1970 and ran a successful 
campaign for, I think, the first Republican Governor of Tennessee 
elected, certainly, since the Civil War. He ran for Governor himself in 
a very bad year in 1974. It didn't work out too well. But one of the 
things we know about our colleague Lamar is that he is pretty 
persistent. So he tried it again in 1978. He was elected Governor, 
reelected Governor in 1982--a spectacular record.
  Then he did something very unusual. I remember knowing about it at 
the time. I kept up with him since we had met years before when we were 
in Washington. He took his entire family and went to Australia for 6 
months. He put the kids in school there and actually wrote a book 
called ``Six Months Off,'' which I read then. I don't know how many 
books Senator Alexander sold, but it was a fascinating review of 
basically just taking a break, going somewhere else, doing something 
entirely new before getting back on the career treadmill that we, of 
course, knew he would do.
  So once the Australian experience was over, this extraordinarily 
accomplished and diverse individual became president of the University 
of Tennessee. That was back when they used to play football, and then-
President Bush 1 asked him to become Secretary of Education. So he was 
a Cabinet member.
  Oh, by the way, I think I left out that at his mother's insistence he 
became quite proficient at piano. He is a fabulous piano player and 
musician. My mother let me quit. That was the only mistake she made in 
an otherwise perfect job of raising me. But Senator Alexander's mother, 
by insisting that he continue to take piano, gave him that dimension as 
well.
  So here we have a guy who has been Governor, president of his 
university, a member of the Cabinet and, as if that were not enough, he 
went into the private sector and started an extraordinarily successful 
business, which did very well. I expect our colleague from Tennessee 
thought his public career was over, but then Fred Thompson decided he 
wanted to go do something else. All of a sudden he was in the Senate--
not just in the Senate but then became a leader in the Senate in a very 
short period of time.
  We have had an opportunity to get to know our colleague. It is hard 
to think of anybody more intelligent, more accomplished, as well as 
more likeable than Lamar Alexander.
  So I must say to my good friend from Tennessee, I am relieved he is 
not leaving the Senate. This is not a eulogy, but it is an opportunity 
for those of us who have known and admired the Senator from Tennessee 
for a long time to just recount his extraordinary accomplishment during 
a lifetime of public service. It has been my honor to be his friend, 
and I will continue to be his friend, and I am glad he will continue to 
be our colleague.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I thank the Republican leader. I am 
deeply grateful for his comments, with one single exception. I have 
great confidence in Derek Dooley. He is a fine

[[Page S5735]]

football coach at the University of Tennessee. They are playing very 
good football, and I intend to be at my usual seats at the Georgia game 
in 2 weeks.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. CORKER. Madam President, I wish to say to my colleague I 
certainly have enjoyed his comments, and I am excited for him. I sit 
very close to him in the Senate, and I am with him a great deal. I do 
plan on keeping a cane out of the reach of my colleague for a few days.
  I very much appreciate his service and leadership to the Republican 
Party in the Senate. I think in his position he has brought out the 
best in all of us in the best way he could. I am excited for him. I 
look at this as a great day for the Senate. It is a great day for our 
country. This is a great day for the State of Tennessee.
  I can tell my colleague, based on the conversations we have had and 
the way I know my colleague, the Senate is going to become very quickly 
a more interesting place to serve. For all of us who have been 
concerned about our lack of ability to solve our Nation's greatest 
problems, I look at what the Senator has done today as a step in the 
direction toward us being able as a body to more responsibly deal with 
the pressing issues he outlined in his talk.
  So I thank my colleague for having the courage to step down from a 
position that many Republican Senators would love to have. I thank my 
colleague for the way he serves our country. I thank him for the 
example he has been to so many in his public service in our State and 
in our country, and I thank the Senator for being my friend.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mr. BURR. Madam President, I rise today to echo the comments of 
colleagues earlier about the contribution of Lamar Alexander, our 
friend and colleague, as well as somebody who has had an impact not 
just on the State of Tennessee but on the United States of America. I 
think one of the toughest things a Member of the Congress can do is to, 
No. 1, step down from leadership, or, No. 2, voluntarily leave the 
body.
  I think it says more about Lamar Alexander than any comments that can 
be made; that he understands where he is going, and I think he stated 
it very well. His contribution to the future of this country is what he 
is most concerned with, and that is why this country is blessed to have 
leaders such as he. We welcome him back into the ranks of the normal, 
the general population of what has been the asylum of late. I hope 
Lamar will be a great influence in our ability to get the body of 
deliberative debate and participation back, and that is certainly his 
quest.
  One of his passions, though, is education. I was shocked he didn't 
mention that in his litany of areas he would delve into. But I know 
earlier last week he and I and others introduced five reforms to K-12 
education.
  When we talk about the future, whether it is Senator Alexander or 
myself or others, we say the future of this country is conditional upon 
how well we educate the next generation and how we make sure the next 
generation has the foundational knowledge they need to compete in a 
21st-century economy.
  I think it is safe to say today our record is not good. Just 70 
percent of our high school seniors graduate on time. Let me say that 
again: 70 percent of our high school seniors will graduate on time. 
Many of those will never go back. They will not cross the goal line. In 
today's economy, their likelihood of being invited for a job interview 
is slim to zero.
  We have Federal laws that require an employer to accept an 
application from whoever walks in the door. However, when it gets down 
to the interview process, I can assure my colleagues that when 
employers look at that resume and it doesn't have high school 
graduation on it, they will certainly invite others who at least have 
that threshold of education, if not further degrees. So I think we owe 
it to the next generation to be candid with them and tell them that 
this is a minimum to have an opportunity for unlimited success.
  If we ever get to a point that this is not about an opportunity of 
unlimited success, America will have changed greatly, and I think that 
is one of the passions Senator Alexander has. That is why he is so 
involved in issues such as education and why he is willing to sacrifice 
leadership for greater involvement in the policies.
  In the bills we introduced last week, there were two that Lamar and I 
did together. Let me share with my colleagues what those bills do.
  Today, we have 97 authorized programs and 59 of them are funded. They 
are all funded individually. That means we make money available to a 
State and consequently to a school district. But their requirement to 
access that money is they have to do exactly what we structured in the 
program. Many schools do not need that program, and they forego that 
money. Yet on the Senate floor we have debated frequently the need to 
get more resources into especially at-risk school districts to bolster 
that foundational education.

  We simply leave title I alone--it is targeted at a specific 
population--but we take all these other 59 programs that were funded 
last year and meld them into two pots of money: One pot is designed for 
improvement in teaching and learning; the other pot is designed for 
safe and healthy student block grants.
  You might say: Well, what if a school system does not need a fund for 
improvement of teaching and learning, but they do need more money for 
safe and healthy students? We allow 100 percent transferability between 
those two areas. So if a school system purely needs teaching and 
learning, and they want to focus on all of that, they will take that 
safe and healthy student block grant money and put it over into 
teaching and learning. By the same token, for school systems that might 
not see the benefits there, but they have a growing title I population, 
we allow 100 percent transferability up to the title I program.
  What are we trying to accomplish? We are trying to do what school 
systems have told us year after year, decade after decade: Give us more 
flexibility. Let us decide what it is we need for our students to 
learn. This is not about input. This is about output. This is about 
focusing on how we improve education to where every child crosses that 
goal line of success; that then the foundational knowledge base is so 
great that they are marketable in whatever direction our economy 
decides to go.
  The challenge for us--a lot like what Senator Alexander did today; he 
gave up power, a position in leadership--it means the Congress has to 
give up the power of deciding exactly how every school system is going 
to implement programs. We have to be big enough to realize that the 
one-size-fits-all structure from Washington does not work; that every 
school system in America is a little bit unique; and, yes, we recognize 
the fact that not every State is necessarily the best fiduciary of the 
funds. This legislation only requires the States to siphon off 1.5 
percent of the money. We are not going to build a palace or create a 
bureaucracy in State capitals in education off of these programs 
anymore. The intent is to take this money and put it into the 
classroom; make sure the skills of the teacher are better; make sure, 
in fact, we are teaching teachers the right way to teach today.
  I know we are not allowed to have electronics on the Senate floor. We 
hide them in our pockets real well. Kids are not allowed to have 
electronics in school. They hide them in their pockets real well. When 
we all leave where it is prohibited, this is the first thing we pull 
out of our pockets. We check our messages. We check sports scores. We 
check the news. Some of us old people make phone calls. But we have a 
generation that does nothing but text.
  They are different than I am. I am a little bit different than Lamar. 
Every generation is going to be different. But walk in a classroom 
today, and the first thing a teacher says is, Open your book to page 
44. Yet in between the covers of a book we have a generation that has 
never delved into it. They have gone between the covers of their iPad, 
their Kindle, their PDA in their pockets. They read books, they play 
games, but they do it in a different way.
  It is time for us to recognize the fact that they learn differently 
because they communicate differently. Our ability is to take somebody 
my age who still has a passion for the classroom and to change the way 
they teach

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through how we take them through continuous education. You see, 
effectiveness is, in part, connecting with the people we are trying to 
teach. If we do that in the right way, we are going to be successful.
  I am not trying to create the model in Washington and to say to the 
States and localities: Here is the only way you can do it. We are 
trying to give them the flexibility of the money, and let them design 
the programs they think will work. Again, with that, though, it 
requires us to let go of that power of accountability. There is no 
reason for Washington to be accountable for every K-12 system in this 
country. We can be a partner, and I think the appropriate role is a 
financial partner. But as to accountability, I do not want to be in 
Washington determining whether a school is a pass or a fail or whether 
a teacher is highly qualified. At best, it is arbitrary that we would 
come up with something.
  I want to empower communities, I want to empower parents, I want to 
empower the business community to say: You determine success and 
failure. I want to empower principals and administrators: You determine 
whether teachers are qualified.
  I do not want to sit in Washington and define how pharmacists who 
have lost their passion to work in a drugstore cannot shift over and 
become chemistry teachers in a high school because I have determined 
they are not qualified to do it. Yet, day in and day out, I would go 
into the pharmacy, and I would allow them to compound drugs for me. But 
they cannot go in a classroom and explain to kids how that works or, 
more importantly, how the interaction of compounds actually happens. 
That is not my role. It is not our role. Our role is to encourage, by 
making sure the tools are there for those closest to the problem to 
come up with solutions.
  Well, what we did last week was a minor step in the right direction. 
I hope my colleagues will look at the legislation and will entertain 
cosponsoring it. I hope the Secretary of Education will look at it, 
even though we have had conversations that have continued since the 
first of the year, and we have a ranking member and a chairman engaged 
in the reauthorization of elementary and secondary education right now. 
I hope we influence their ability to get some type of an agreement.
  But I think it is also important to understand that within the 
context of this issue are things that all of us know work. Let me give 
you a couple examples.
  Senator Kirk introduced a bill on expansion of charter schools. Why 
is that important? It is not important because we simply want to create 
competition with the public model. Charter schools have become an 
incubator of new ideas, of new ways to teach.
  In Houston, TX, some former Teach for America students created KIPP 
Academy and immediately had such success that they exported KIPP 
Academy to New York. Their intent was to go from New York to Atlanta, 
and somehow they happened to stop in Northampton County, NC, in a 
little town called Gaston. It is in the middle of nowhere. But like all 
of North Carolina, it is beautiful. Its students are at risk. There is 
no economic driver in that county. But for some reason, KIPP stopped 
there and created a school. Now we have taken underperforming students 
and through KIPP all of them excel.
  I can take you to Charlotte, NC, where KIPP finally found a home and 
was located next door to the elementary school. There is no way anybody 
can claim they draw from a different population. They draw from the 
same school neighborhood. Yet if we compare KIPP to the traditional 
elementary school next door, the performance of those students is off 
the charts. At some point, we have to look at it and say: This model 
works. How do we replicate it? But we are hung up in that one is public 
and one is charter.
  Well, let me tell you, if we could replicate all of them to be KIPP, 
I would not care what we call them, and I would care less about how we 
funded them. I would only care about the outcome, how many students 
have the education foundation we need. In KIPP's case, it is almost 100 
percent.
  One big component of KIPP is the fact that they plug in to Teach for 
America graduates, teachers who enter the system knowing that for a 
period of time their agreement is they are going into at-risk areas; 
they are going in dealing with students ``somebody'' has deemed hard to 
complete the process. They go in with a different passion. They do not 
go in surprised with the makeup of the students in their classroom on 
the first day. They go in expecting this job to be tough, knowing their 
creativity and their innovation is going to be challenged.

  What we have found so far is that for those Teach for America 
graduates, they end up staying longer than, in fact, the contractual 
period of time. They find it is much easier, but also much more 
satisfying, to take the most at risk and to make sure they have that 
education foundation that is needed.
  That is incorporated into these bills. It is not just left to a 
simple line item that, in this particular case, I think, has been 
zeroed out in the President's budget. But it can be incorporated into 
this where we cannot only fund but we can expand Teach for America. 
With Senator Kirk's bill we can expand what KIPP is doing. We can 
challenge other individuals in other areas of the country to create 
KIPP-like models that work.
  My challenge today is to assure all Members of the Senate and all 
Americans. Our kids deserve us to try. We have been dictating from 
Washington for decades, and we continue to see 30-plus percent of our 
kids not reach that goal line. If they do, they do it in a way that is 
not necessarily advantageous to their future.
  If we want our country to continue to prosper, if we want to continue 
to be the innovator of the world, then we have to create a pool, a 
generation of kids, where 100 percent of them are prepared to compete. 
I think that is exactly why Senator Alexander stated he was willing to 
give up the rein of leadership, to be more integrally involved in the 
solutions that are crafted on this floor and in this Congress. That is 
why I said earlier, America has benefited because we have people such 
as Lamar Alexander here.
  I am convinced that over the next several months, the reauthorization 
of elementary and secondary education will be front and center. I can 
only ask my colleagues that they spend the time looking at some of the 
suggestions that are on the table already. Authorship means nothing to 
me. It is outcome. Change the bill in a way that still stays within 
this framework--I will be a cosponsor of anything. Start to make 
Washington more dominant in the control of how the money is used or 
what the programs look like--I have been there. We have tried that. Not 
only does it not work, educators have told us it is increasingly more 
frustrating for them and they will drop out of the system.
  We have to create a system that is a magnet for talent, a magnet for 
people who are as passionate as Lamar Alexander, something that gives 
us hope in the future that our kids have a better chance of succeeding 
than they have had over the past few decades. I think the Empowering 
Local Educational Decision Making Act of 2011 is a start, and I think 
the next generation is worth the investment of time on the part of our 
Members to look at this legislation and to get behind it.
  I thank the Acting President pro tempore and yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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