[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 38 (Monday, March 5, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S1333]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       RETIREMENT OF THAD COCHRAN

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, late this afternoon, Senator Thad 
Cochran, the senior Senator from Mississippi, announced he will be 
retiring from the Senate on April 1. He said his health had become an 
ongoing concern.
  I saw a steady stream of Senators visiting with Senator Cochran today 
expressing their best wishes to him and for good reason: Senator 
Cochran is a gentleman, first of all; he is a skilled legislator, 
second of all. He has earned the respect of his colleagues on both 
sides of the aisle through his chairmanship of the Senate 
Appropriations Committee, the one-time chairman of the Senate 
Republican conference, and back in Mississippi, he was a pioneer in the 
development of that State's two-party system in the Republican Party.
  He and Trent Lott were both elected to Congress in 1972, in the Nixon 
sweep. Then, Thad Cochran became the first statewide-elected Republican 
in Mississippi since Reconstruction, in 1978, when he was elected to 
the U.S. Senate. He has been here ever since.
  He is a close friend. I admire him greatly. We will miss him greatly, 
but I especially admire his service and wanted to say that before I 
made other remarks.

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