[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 167 (Tuesday, October 22, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S6048]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO KAITLIN GAFFNEY

  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I come to the floor today to recognize 
Kaitlin Gaffney, a longtime member of my Senate team who, after nearly 
11 years, is leaving to start a new chapter in her life.
  Kaitlin has been a key part of Team Merkley since our earliest days. 
In fact, she was part of the original team that built our office and 
our constituent services operation from scratch. I don't know how many 
folks here have been part of opening a Senate office, but it is not 
easy. It is daunting. You walk into a completely empty office. There 
are no computers, no phones, not even the basics in terms of pens and 
paper, and you know you have responsibilities, and you need to start 
fulfilling them.
  In the early days, we didn't have a computer system to track our 
constituents' thoughts or opinions, so Kaitlin and the team wrote 
everything down on paper before moving to spreadsheets. There was no 
training on how to serve constituents, but from day one, that is 
exactly what we were determined to do and she was determined to do.
  So you have to hit the ground running, learning as you go, and 
Kaitlin did hit the ground running like an Olympic Gold Medalist. She 
built our constituent services operation from the ground up, and I am 
proud to say that today, 11 years later, it is an operation that is 
second to none and one that Oregonians across our State know they can 
rely on for help.
  It is Oregonians who know that if they are in a bind, the team they 
can call on is my constituent services team, and often that is Kaitlin, 
specifically. In the beginning days, we were in the middle of the 
mortgage crisis, and that crisis was forcing Oregon families out of 
their homes--to where they couldn't afford the balloon payments or the 
doubling of the interest rate at the expiration of the teaser rate. 
They couldn't pay the high rate on the triple option loan. They were 
desperate, and they called Kaitlin. Kaitlin was the point person on our 
team fighting to keep roofs over their heads. She is the one who day 
after day had to consult with them in that very stressful situation 
where often a mortgage company was simultaneously telling a family they 
will be evicted for nonpayment and simultaneously saying we have this 
program in which you can sign up and don't worry. She is the one who 
brought together advocacy organizations, housing authorities, and local 
elected leaders to help assist a massive caseload of struggling 
Oregonians. Her direct involvement meant that a very large number of 
them were able to solve the challenge and stay in their homes.
  Even today, as I go around the State, I hold a townhall in every 
county every year, and people will come up to me at those county 
gatherings and say: By the way, I just wanted to tell you that a decade 
ago a person on your team, Kaitlin, helped me out and I still have my 
home today and it is en route to being paid off. That meant so much to 
families.
  There were all kinds of different challenges that came up over the 
years that she was able to assist with. There was a time when she 
helped rescue an Oregon constituent who was stranded on an island in 
the Pacific. One day, she got a call from a woman who was worried about 
her son who was on a trip to Thailand and had gone missing. His friend 
said he had told them he was going to swim across the ocean to a 
specific island, and they hadn't heard from him. There were strong 
currents between the mainland and that island, and the efforts to find 
him on that island had turned up nothing. There wasn't really any 
organized effort to look for him. So Kaitlin did what she does so well. 
She picked up the phone, and she started making calls. Eventually, she 
was able to convince an office in Thailand to send out a search and 
rescue helicopter to go looking for this lost Oregonian. Because she 
did, he was eventually found, and he was rescued. Thus, the currents of 
the world changed with him still with us when it might have turned out 
quite disastrously.
  That is the type of team member she is--always determined to go to 
any length necessary. That includes a situation when the life of a sick 
baby was in danger because this baby was being barred from the United 
States to receive a lifesaving medical procedure. Baby Fatemah was 
being barred because of a policy that had been adopted to block Muslims 
from coming into the United States.
  It was early 2017, and this baby needed an immediate procedure to 
save her life. It was considered by the experts that there was a very 
small chance of her surviving with this procedure in Iran. The Oregon 
Health Science University in Oregon said they really understood this 
procedure, had very high odds of it going well, and that was her best 
shot.
  So we had to work to lobby the administration, and, boy, I tell you, 
Kaitlin was right at the heart of that, working to coordinate all the 
phone calls. In the end, Baby Fatemah was granted a waiver, she did 
come to Oregon, and her life was saved.
  In case after case, Kaitlin succeeded because she cared about the 
individuals involved, and she worked every avenue to assist them. She 
certainly embodied the spirit of my complete constituent services team.
  I can't thank her enough for her dedication, the intensity of her 
efforts, and her incredible contributions to solving challenges for 
Oregonians. She leaves extremely large shoes to fill, and we will 
dearly miss her. After almost 11 years, she is on to another chapter, 
and I know she is just going to be as much of a phenomenal success in 
that chapter as she has been on my team, and we wish her well.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.

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