[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 47 (Wednesday, March 21, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1945-S1946]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  TRIBUTE TO SENATOR BARBARA MIKULSKI

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I have been able to listen a bit to the 
wonderful tributes over the last few hours to Senator Mikulski. We all 
know of her wonderful service all these years, the record that is being 
shattered--a very special record.
  As I listened to some of the comments, I was struck that tributes 
usually come in the Senate when one of our colleagues is leaving office 
or sometimes one of our colleagues passes away. And what I am struck by 
this afternoon is how glad I am and colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle are that Senator Mikulski is very much alive, and next week and 
next month and in the years ahead she is going to continue to bring 
this kind of wellspring of conscience and energy and passion and 
expertise to the Senate.
  I am going to have more to say in terms of a lengthier speech, but 
she and I have had a special relationship for almost three decades. We 
served together in the other body on the Energy and Commerce Committee. 
We would often show up at meetings together, and this is still a 
tradition that continues now because we both have the honor of serving 
on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Senator Mikulski and I 
would walk in together, and she would smile and say: Now the long and 
short of it are arriving. And I guess that is true in a literal sense, 
but while Senator Mikulski may be modest in stature, she has one very 
large record on behalf of the public interest, and I am especially 
grateful for all she has done for people without power and people 
without clout.
  When we think about what has so angered the American people--and I 
have heard the Senator from Colorado, the Presiding Officer, talk about 
this--it is that people feel so disconnected from government; that you 
can have a community meeting in Oregon or Colorado or Maryland or some 
other part of the country, and somehow there is this sense what goes on 
in Washington really has nothing to do with people in their home 
community.
  Senator Mikulski doesn't practice public service that way. Senator 
Mikulski has always felt, since the days when she was a community 
organizer and they were dealing with those community problems and where 
are you going to locate a freeway or something of that nature, that 
public service and community service were always about being connected 
to people. She understood right away what people may say at a townhall 
meeting now in Colorado or Oregon about government being removed from 
their lives, and for decades she has practiced a very different kind of 
public service. She did it when she was a community organizer, she did 
it in the House of Representatives, and she continues to do it today.
  Very often when we take the subway to a vote and I ask her what she 
has done over the weekend, she will talk about families. She knows I 
was codirector of the Gray Panthers for many years before I was elected 
to Congress, so we will talk about aging issues. And everybody knows 
what she has done in the aging field and her interest in fighting 
Alzheimer's. So it always comes back to people, and that connection she 
brings to public service that is so lacking from what Americans see is 
the big problem in government today, that much of what goes on here is 
simply disconnected from their lives.
  What I see in Barbara Mikulski is the real measure of what we want in 
a public servant. We want someone who is conscientious, we want someone 
who is smart, we want someone who has good values and someone who 
always tries to be a coalition builder.
  I have watched Senator Mikulski in lots of instances. We had one just 
recently where Senator Mikulski was trying to find a balance on a 
difficult and contentious issue between industry and the environment, 
and I watched how she was trying to listen to both sides. Maryland has 
some communities where they have older plants, and if she can't take 
steps to protect those plants and have the workers keep their jobs, a 
lot of people are going to hurt, and Senator Mikulski always tries to 
keep that from happening. She has also said clean air and the 
environmental

[[Page S1946]]

laws are important. And that last quality of trying to bring people 
together, which I have heard the Senator from Colorado talk about, is 
what Senator Mikulski's public service career has been all about.
  So tonight and through the day we have heard colleagues pay tribute. 
I made mention of the fact that so often I hear these tributes when a 
colleague is leaving the Senate. I would like to close these brief 
remarks by saying that I am especially grateful that the cause of good 
government is enhanced by the fact that Senator Mikulski is very much 
alive. This is not a tribute to someone who is leaving office, this is 
a tribute to someone who is going to be here next week, next month, and 
the years ahead, continuing to shatter those records as she advocates 
for people who don't have big lobbies, who don't have lots of political 
clout and can't go out and hire PR firms and well-paid and well-
tailored advocates to walk the halls of the Senate. She is there for 
those people who don't have a voice. She has been there for those 
people ever since she was a community organizer in those early days in 
Baltimore.
  When I think about trying to give public service a good name, I think 
about Barbara Mikulski--our wonderful friend, Senator Barbara Mikulski, 
the senior Senator from the State of Maryland. We thank her for giving 
public service a good name. We thank her for taking on the battles and 
the fights she has in the past. And we are all especially grateful that 
at the end of this tribute she will be back at her post a few seats 
from me, standing for those values and standing for those causes that 
are so important to the well-being of this country.
  Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I may be the last speaker of the day, 
but I did not want to leave the Chamber or the building without taking 
a moment to come to the floor, as so many of our colleagues did today, 
to honor one of our own, one of our favorites. Not only is she a 
favorite to us but I am certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that she 
is one of the favorite Senators ever to represent the State of 
Maryland. She is respected, she is beloved, and she is admired by 
millions of her constituents from Maryland, but I can promise you that 
is true of constituents in Louisiana, potentially in your home State, 
Madam President, and throughout the world.
  Last Saturday our friend and colleague Senator Barbara Mikulski of 
Maryland became the longest serving woman in the history of the 
Congress. I can only say that we have come a long way since the first 
woman was appointed, as I recall back in the 1920s. She was only 
allowed to serve 1 day and was not going to be given a paycheck but 
insisted that she be paid for her service. I think she might have been 
paid $1 for her service.
  Of course, the record of that 1 day on the floor speaks for itself. 
We have come a long way since that day. But Barbara Mikulski was first 
elected to the House in 1976, and then to the Senate 10 years later. 
When she first entered this Chamber, there was only one other woman 
here, her friend and her good, strong, supportive colleague, Nancy 
Kassebaum, a Republican from Kansas. So a Democrat from Maryland and a 
Republican from Kansas, but the two of them were quite a team and 
Barbara Mikulski speaks fondly of her days with Senator Nancy 
Kassebaum. Today there are 17 of us and proudly we continue that 
tradition of respect and bipartisanship set in large measure by two of 
the women we greatly admire.
  The late Representative Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts, who 
served from 1925 to 1960, had previously held the record for the 
longest serving woman in Congress. Breaking this record is only one of 
the many milestones Senator Mikulski has accomplished during her tenure 
in the Senate. But, as she would so quickly say, it is not how long you 
serve but how well you serve. It is not the length of your service, as 
she said to us so many times, but the quality of your service. We could 
not have a better role model--in terms of effectiveness, strength, 
tenacity, courage, boldness--than in our own Senator Barbara Mikulski.
  She was the first female Democrat, the first in the history of our 
country, to serve in both Chambers of Congress, the first female 
Democrat to be elected to the Senate without succeeding a husband or a 
father, and the first female to chair an Appropriations Committee.
  I serve on the Appropriations Committee. It is one of the most 
powerful committees in our Congress. When I think about the fact that 
it took over 225 years for a woman to get the gavel on just one of the 
14 subcommittees--that number has changed over the decades--but if you 
think about it, from the beginning of our country's history, those 
early days through the expansion out West, through the Civil War, post-
Civil War history, the early part of the 1900s, World War I, World War 
II--never did a woman hold a gavel to write one budget for one 
committee in the entire country, until Barbara Mikulski received one of 
those gavels.
  I can tell you from personal experience serving with her on that 
committee, our country is a better place--in health, in welfare, our 
space program, our science and technology programs--because Barbara 
Mikulski has used that gavel not to promote herself but to promote the 
people she serves and the principles for which she fights.
  She is well respected for her wisdom, for her tenacity and her 
strength. She is respected by female and male peers who serve with her. 
As most of my female colleagues in the Senate have also experienced, 
Senator Mikulski took me under her wing when I was first sworn in as a 
Senator. She extended her hand to help me in every way possible, to 
help me find my footing here as a Senator and to navigate through the 
intricacies of the Senate process. She was never too busy to hold out a 
helping hand or for a pat on the shoulder. She was always willing to 
give that extra advice and, I might say, was always willing to suggest 
that you might have made a mistake--try it a little different way the 
next time--not one to mince words, but as a good Big Sister would take 
us under her wing and help us out as any good Big Sister would do.
  In addition to that wonderful, helpful, and thoughtful gesture that 
she shared with me and so many, she has been an inspiration to many 
women, particularly young women who have looked up to her, trying to 
follow in her footsteps.
  I can only say that this Senate and this Congress--the people of 
Maryland, the people of our country and women throughout the world--
have been blessed by her leadership.
  What has touched me the most about watching her is the fearlessness 
in which she serves. She does not back down. She knows herself, she is 
comfortable in her own skin, and she doesn't try to be someone she is 
not. She is very proud of her Polish-American background, always proud 
to talk about the bakery her parents owned, her immigrant background, 
and always so willing to share from her heart as well as her mind some 
of what she believes.
  She has been nothing but an inspiration to me and to many. I am so 
glad I could come to the floor today, I am so glad. I think almost 
every one of our colleagues has made it to the floor to honor her. When 
God made Barbara Mikulski, he threw away the mold. I don't think there 
will ever be one like her. There most certainly isn't anyone in 
politics today who is like her. That is good, to be unique in that way. 
She will be long remembered. I hope she will serve here for many 
wonderful years to come.
  I yield the floor.

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