[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 202 (Friday, December 21, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S8014]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO BOB CORKER

  Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, people often forget that each of us 
comes to the Senate having done other significant things in life. Mr. 
Corker, the Senator from Tennessee, came here with a series of 
experiences that greatly informed his work in the Senate, as well as 
the work of his colleagues.
  Mr. Corker was a success in business long before he entered politics, 
and he brought the lessons of that success into public service. He was 
the deeply respected mayor of Chattanooga, TN. Mayors are perhaps the 
most accountable elected officials in the Nation. They are a pragmatic 
results-oriented stock. They live in the communities that they govern, 
so there is no place to hide, and they are forced to defend their 
records because the electorate knows what they have done and haven't. 
No room for spin when you are a mayor.
  Bob then brought the lessons of both of these careers to the U.S. 
Senate where he is known as a no-nonsense Senator who cuts through the 
bluster and focuses on the facts. On difficult problems, whether it was 
the Iran nuclear agreement or working to save the American automobile 
industry from near collapse, he brought discipline to our 
deliberations.
  I would like to say a few words about Bob's work as chairman of the 
Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee has historically held a preeminent role in the formulation 
and execution of U.S. foreign policy. Chairman Corker approached the 
position with all of the grace and diplomacy appropriate to the office.
  As the Senate's representative to the executive in foreign policy, he 
ably represented our interests. He asked the questions that were on so 
many of our minds and then he returned to the Senate to explain the 
administration's thinking. He calmed many of our anxieties about the 
turbulent world in which we live. I like to think that is because Mr. 
Corker is a thoughtful, methodical, and calm thinker. His calm, steady 
leadership as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee these past 
several years will be greatly missed.

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