[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 149 (Tuesday, December 9, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Page S6425]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO MARK UDALL

  Mr. WYDEN. I close with just a word about our friend and colleague 
Senator Mark Udall of Colorado. I have had the pleasure of serving with 
Senator Udall on the Intelligence Committee and have admired his 
commitment to American security and core American values. Many in the 
Senate would not know this because all of those intelligence meetings 
are behind closed doors, but Mark Udall is not a Senator who is afraid 
to stand alone. He is not afraid to fight for what he believes in. When 
the fight to declassify this report got bumpy--and let me tell you it 
did a lot of times. I think some of you heard this weekend we had an 
eleventh-hour objection to the report getting out. People asked me what 
I thought, and I said it was not particularly surprising because there 
were objections practically every hour on the hour for months and 
months. Yet when the fight to declassify the report got very difficult, 
some people said: This is going to get buried forever. That is what 
happens when you try to get accountability and transparency. Senator 
Mark Udall made it clear that wasn't going to be allowed to happen on 
Mark Udall's watch.
  I am going to wrap up by saying to Senator Udall, I remember when we 
started this battle together and we got a handful of votes, sometimes 
like 13 to 2 or whatever. We thought it was going to be a long time 
before there was reform. We went from those days to eventually getting 
up to 15 or 20 votes. Colleagues, today, to a great extent because of 
Senator Udall, in the last vote for real surveillance reform, we were 
up to 58 votes--58 votes for real surveillance reform. That, to a great 
extent, is possible because of the extraordinary service of my good 
friend Senator Mark Udall from Colorado. We westerners always make sure 
we stay in touch, and you know that is going to be the case with this 
particular friend from the West, a wonderful Senator, Mr. Mark Udall.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.

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