[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 144 (Wednesday, August 12, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5392-S5393]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION

  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the latest 
coronavirus emergency aid package, but before I do, as a matter of 
personal privilege, I want to offer some comments in praise of a 
colleague.
  Just as we gather together, regardless of party, to mourn when a 
colleague dies or be together with a colleague who is undergoing a 
challenge, I think it is good to gather together and acknowledge when 
something positive happens to a colleague, regardless of our political 
affiliation.
  This is the first opportunity on the Senate floor to offer a word 
about Senator Kamala Harris, one of our colleagues, who, in a historic 
move, was asked by another former Senate colleague, Vice President Joe 
Biden, to join him as his preferred nominee to be Vice President of the 
United States.
  I have come to know Senator Harris in her 4 years in the Senate, as 
many of us have, through her service on especially the Judiciary 
Committee and the Intelligence Committee.
  Her public service track record is a significant one worthy of 
praise, from her work as a district attorney, first a line prosecutor, 
and then the elected district attorney in San Francisco, where she 
focused on trying to keep her community safe, to serving as 
California's attorney general, broadening the portfolio to include 
environmental justice and consumer protection, and now her work in the 
Senate since 2016.
  What I find so compelling about Senator Harris, in addition to her 
track record of public service during a very long career, is her 
personal story. Raised as the child of two immigrants, a Jamaican 
father and an Indian mother, as so many in this country raised as 
children of immigrants, she developed a passion to serve and a 
patriotic love of country.
  She is the first African-American woman nominee ever to be on a 
ticket. She is the first person of South Asian descent ever to be on a 
ticket. And in the year 2020, when we are commemorating the 100th 
anniversary of the amendment that guaranteed women the right to vote, I 
can think of no

[[Page S5393]]

greater way to celebrate a centennial than for one of our colleagues 
who is a woman to have a chance to break a glass ceiling that still has 
existed, whereby no woman in this country has ever been a Vice 
President or President.
  We are so good at so much in this country. In fact, we are so good at 
many things with regard to women in this country, but we are sort of 
uniquely bad in electing women to higher office. In Congress right now, 
24 percent of Congress is women, and that ranks us 76th in the world in 
terms of our percentage of women in a national legislative body. We are 
tied with Afghanistan, but we trail Iraq and Mexico and many other 
nations.
  So regardless of how it all works out between now and November, and 
regardless of our own political affiliations, this is a good day, I 
believe, for the country and a good day for the Senate when 1 of the 
100 is recognized in such a way and introduced to the American public 
with an opportunity to serve at a significant level.

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