[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 198 (Wednesday, December 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6976-S6978]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Farewell to the Senate

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I always come to the well of the Senate 
with a purpose. I try not to talk too long, and I try to make my point 
and get out before I make a big mistake. When you are saying thank you 
to people who have done so much for you, it is almost always the time 
where you do make a mistake and you leave somebody out here and 
somebody out there and somebody out here. I am going to do a little 
something I have never done before. I know one thing, I will leave 
nobody out.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
a list of names of my staff.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   Personal Office Staff and Interns

       Monica Heil, Jeremy Johnson, Jay Sulzmann, Amanda Maddox, 
     Marie Gordon, Charles Spry, Michael Gay, Toni Brown, Jody 
     Redding, Kathie Miller, Nancy Bobbitt, Nancy Brooks, Tommy 
     Nguyen, Maureen Rhodes, Sheila Robinson, Andrew Blascovich, 
     Michael Black.
       Laura Gower, Will Dent, Jack Overstreet, Gus Youmans, 
     Elizabeth McKay, Tripp Adams, Hanna Yu, Preston Miller, 
     Kristine Nichols, Brad Williamson, Ryan Williams, Brooke 
     Doss, Drew Ferguson, Connor Rabb, Taylor McDowell, Logan 
     Purvis.
       Caroline Maughon, Kate Hunter, Nyjel Jackson, Jason 
     Maynard, Max Turner, Hannah Kitzmiller, Colleen O'Connell, 
     Ken Ciarlatta, Seth MacKenney, Riya Vashi, Matt Sartor, 
     Sahiti Namburar, Olivia Kelly, Frederick Severtson, Floyd 
     Buford.

                           VA Committee Staff

       Adam Reece, Thomas Coleman, Reider Grunseth, Asher Allman, 
     DeKisha Williams, Barry Walker, Leslie Campbell, Annabell 
     McWherter, John Ashley, Brian Newbold, Lindsay Dearing, David 
     Shearman, Patrick McGuigan, Jillian Workman, Emily Blair, 
     Pauline Schmitt.

                         Ethics Committee Staff

       Deborah Sue Mayer, Karen Gorman, Cami Morrison, Geoff 
     Turley, Madeline Dang, Shane Kelly, Katharine Quaglieri, 
     Kelly Selesnick, Charlotte Underwood, Danny Remington, Katie 
     Jordan, Gabrielle Quintana, Taylore Presta, Taisha Saintil, 
     Mary Yuengert.

  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, it contains a list of literally hundreds 
of people who have helped me get to where I am today in this Chamber. A 
few of them are in this Chamber with me right now and a lot of them 
were here Tuesday of last week when the Senate was very kind to give me 
a sendoff. In fact, I thought they were so happy I was leaving, I had 
done something really wrong, and I was saving them some trouble, but 
they were really happy because we were being happy together about the 
years we have had together.
  I have had 15 years together with Members of the U.S. Senate, and it 
has been the greatest 15 years of my life. I learned as much about 
myself as I learned about anybody else, but I learned even more about 
my country, which I love so passionately.
  I want to take a few minutes today to talk about a few people I want 
to thank for what they said about me, what they have done for me, and 
how they have helped me. I wish to also tell the people who may be 
listening to this show or watching C-SPAN today to understand there are 
a lot of people who make us work. We do all the mistakes by ourselves 
without any help, but the good things we do take a lot of help. They 
take a lot of strength and a lot of time and a lot of commitment.
  The 100 Members of this Senate sitting here have literally hundreds 
of people behind them who help them do their job they otherwise 
couldn't do. I represent 10 million people; Senators from California, 
almost 30 million people; from New York, almost 15 million people. All 
of the States have different populations, but all of them have a lot of 
people who need help.
  That is what Members of the Senate are there to do, along with the 
Members of the House, and that is to give them the help they need from 
the country they love and the country they were born in or became a 
naturalized citizen in.
  I want to talk today more about the hard work--the hard work of 
licking stamps and envelopes when I first got

[[Page S6977]]

in politics. I don't do that anymore. We punch a computer key, and it 
says ``reply all'' or ``distribute to all'' or ``send to all.'' 
Technology allows us to communicate at the drop of a hat.
  The biggest challenge I have every day communicating is because of 
what is on television beginning at midnight. President Trump usually 
makes a tweet about 3 o'clock in the morning, and the news starts. We 
get phone calls, our staff gets phone calls, and for the rest of the 
day we are responding to what he said at 3 a.m., knowing the next 
morning at 3 a.m. there will be a new tweet. There will be a new issue, 
and he will be setting the pace. During the afternoon, when people 
respond to it, their response to it will be setting the pace. All of us 
are reacting in the third person or for the third time. It is a 
challenging job.
  With communications like it is and 24/7 television like it is and the 
media like they are, it is really a challenge. The men and women who 
work for me help me to make that communication. I want to, first of 
all, start off by thanking them.
  The lady sitting to my left--on the screen, I guess that would make 
it your right--Miss Amanda Maddox. Amanda came to work for me a number 
of years ago when I stole her from one of the House Members because I 
knew she was the best person on the floor of the House. She was not an 
easy steal because I knew she was a tough lady, but I knew I needed a 
tough lady and somebody who could help. She has been a tremendous help 
for me through a lot of difficulties we never expected, neither she nor 
I--health challenges that I had, challenges I had in terms of my staff, 
training for trips I took, going on trips I took, dealing with the 
media during things we took on that were tough. Every day she did it 
with skill and aplomb. Every day she did it right, and every day she 
helped me look much better than I deserved.
  I look in the mirror so I know what I start out with, but when I get 
up and open my mouth, I can do even more damage. Amanda keeps me from 
doing that. She is a first-class lady.
  Another lady who is not here today, unfortunately, is Marie Gordon, 
who is in Atlanta. Marie works under Amanda. She works for me in 
Atlanta, GA.
  They are really my communication. You heard of left brain-right 
brain. This is my left brain. Marie is my right brain. They make me 
work, and I know how many times I owe to say thank you to them, and it 
is more than I could ever come to. They have been wonderful to me, and 
I will miss them a lot as I retire, but I know they will be here to 
help somebody else along the same way who will take my place and do 
just as good a job or better.
  I want to, personally, publicly, thank Amanda and Marie for what they 
have done and how they made me look good.
  A harder job is getting me around with my current difficulties I am 
having in terms of movement.
  Where is Logan?
  Logan is on the floor somewhere. He is my pusher. He is not the kind 
of pusher you are thinking about. He is my wheelchair pusher. He 
doesn't sell anything else but wheelchairs, but he does a great job 
with it and gets me in a lot of bad places I am not supposed to be able 
to get into, but he does it safely. We haven't had any accidents, and 
he makes me look good. I could not do without Logan and his talent and 
his willingness to get up early hours to get me in a truck or get me in 
an airplane or get me in my own car and get me to the places I need to 
go safely and on time and get me back home to see my wife if we are in 
Atlanta or back here to see my many supporters in the office when they 
need me.
  He is my instant communication man. That means he is also my right 
brain. He is in there thinking ahead to make sure we have enough time 
to get where we need to go and have enough places to stop for the 
restroom, which when you are in a wheelchair, that is something you 
have to think about from time to time and all the other little parts of 
life you take for granted until you can't do them anymore. When 
somebody helps you do them, they are a lifetime friend, and Logan 
Purvis is a lifetime friend for me in what he does.
  There is a real tall guy somewhere in the room who is good golfer. 
His name is Trey Kilpatrick. Trey has been with me for 10 years. He 
started with me in my third reelection or second reelection--one of my 
reelections--in the first half of this century. Sometimes elections 
seem like a century, not a day or not an hour but a century.
  Trey has done everything. He has made appointments; he has 
substituted for me; and he does an excellent job of that. He has given 
me advice on what not to say. When he does this, I know what it means. 
I know what it means from my wife, too, but when Trey does it, it means 
to shut up, you dummy. He gets me to shut up in time and not say a bad 
thing. That is a valuable person.
  He is also valuable because I can't play golf anymore, but I let him 
play in my stead, and he is a scratch golfer. For those of you who are 
listening or watching this, that means he will beat anybody who tries 
to beat him, and I hope to get half the money. If I don't get half the 
money, I just enjoy seeing him and his great talent.
  He has his third child coming pretty soon, so he is producing some 
good voters for us in about 15 or 20 years from now. I appreciate that 
as well. I appreciate Sally, his wife, and the sacrifice she has made 
to let him take as much time out of his life and her life as I have 
taken out of their lives.
  I appreciate those who have made me look good. They made me look good 
all the time, and I appreciate what they have done to help me along the 
way with my service in the U.S. Senate.
  There is another person I want to talk about for 1 minute. I will do 
it some more tomorrow. I will break it up, so I am not taking up all of 
the time of the Chair, but I want to take as much as I can right now to 
talk about Joan Kirchner Carr. I have a unique situation with the chief 
of staff. Joan Kirchner is my chief of staff. Her name is now Joan 
Carr. She changed her name because she married my previous chief of 
staff. She came with me as a deputy chief of staff and fell in love 
with my chief of staff, and they fell in love with each other. He is 
now the attorney general of Georgia. She married my chief of staff.
  I actually have pretty good luck for somebody who wants to get 
married. If you come to my office, you will find a husband or wife or 
something like that. That is not a bad thing to happen in Washington, 
DC.
  Joan has been fantastic. She wrote for AP. She covered me when I was 
almost a little guy. I first got elected in 1976, and she was working 
for AP at that time in the Georgia Legislature and wrote speeches about 
all the people who were in the legislature, and I was one of them. I 
was the minority leader. I was the minority leader of a group of 19 
Republicans who had 161 Democrats opposing them. Custer had better odds 
than we did. We didn't have good odds at all. She was a great writer, a 
great reporter, and I fell in love with her--not in the physical sense 
but in the platonic sense--because I knew how good she was at what she 
did.
  Over the years, she impressed me so much, I brought her along on 
whatever campaign I had. I brought her along to help me in the office I 
had. She ultimately became my press secretary, my deputy chief of 
staff, my chief of staff, and my best friend. When you can cover all 
those bases at one time, you are doing pretty good, and Joan does 
exactly that.
  I am so grateful for all those who have helped me along the way, all 
those who gave a lot, all those who gave a little but mostly those who 
gave of themselves. Politicians are always asking for money; they are 
always talking about money; and they are always promising money. Money 
is fine, but that doesn't get you much of anything--but relationships 
are impossible to replace. You take a good relationship with somebody 
who has worked hard to help you get where you want to go, there is 
nothing better or more valuable in life. No contribution of money is 
worth anything more than just that act of love or that act of kindness 
or act of support that gets you where you are going.
  From this one guy who is leaving the U.S. Senate under his own power, 
but not as much as I used to have, I enjoyed my 15 years more than you 
would ever know, and I want to thank all those people who helped me get 
here and made it possible for me, particularly those I pointed out now 
and will point out later in my speeches this week. May God bless them, 
may God bless all of you, and may God bless the United States of 
America.

[[Page S6978]]

  I yield back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). The Senator from West Virginia.