[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 142 (Wednesday, September 30, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Page S7011]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO ED WHITFIELD

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, yesterday Representative Ed Whitfield 
announced that he will retire at the end of this term. Ed has served 
the First District of Kentucky for more than 20 years. He will be 
missed in the Capitol when he retires. It is clear that his leadership 
will be missed in Kentucky too. Our troops at Fort Campbell will miss 
it. The workers at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant will miss it. 
Kentucky's countless coal families--hard-working Kentuckians he never 
failed to stand up for--will certainly miss it as well.
  Ed was rightly considered a western Kentucky trailblazer. He became 
the first Republican elected to represent that district in 1994. Our 
party, the Republican Party, never held that district going back to the 
Civil War. It was an enormous breakthrough. Ed has worked hard and 
delivered for the Commonwealth in the two decades since. He will leave 
behind a record of service and accomplishment.

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