[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 203 (Wednesday, December 2, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7157-S7163]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Farewell to the Senate

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, this morning we got to hear the farewell 
speech of my friend Lamar Alexander. He is a fantastic speaker and 
legislator. It has been an honor to serve with him and to learn from 
him. Now you get to hear from the accountant.
  I rise today to give my farewell speech on the floor of the U.S. 
Senate. It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve the great people 
of Wyoming in this position for the last 24 years. I have really 
enjoyed being a Senator--not for the title, not for the recognition, 
and certainly not for the publicity.
  I love solving problems for folks in Wyoming and America. I like 
working on legislation. It might shock those who know me, but I never 
intended to get into politics. While I always had great respect for 
those who served in public office, it wasn't my calling when I left 
college.
  But over 50 years ago, when I joined the young men's leadership 
training group known as the Jaycees, at a State convention in Cody I 
spoke about the value of leadership in communities.
  The keynote speaker was Al Simpson, who would go on to serve three 
terms in the U.S. Senate. After I gave my pitch on the importance of 
leadership training, Senator Simpson did his usual fascinating and 
humorous speech and then took me aside and said: I don't even know what 
party you are in, but it is time you put your money where your mouth is 
on this leadership stuff and get into politics. That town you live in, 
Gillette, needs a mayor.
  My wife Diana and I had only moved to Gillette a few years earlier. 
The town was facing a crisis as the discovery of oil, gas, and coal 
turned it into a boomtown. The population started to skyrocket, and 
city services were not keeping up.
  On the way home from that Cody meeting, while my wife was driving, I 
told her what Senator Simpson had said and that I was thinking maybe I 
should run for mayor. It must have come as quite a shock because she 
ended up swerving into the borrow pit and then coming back up onto the 
road.
  We ended up talking about it seriously for the 4 hours that it took 
to drive back to Gillette and thought of a lot of things that needed to 
be done to make a difference in our town.
  I was new to the community and just 29 years old, but I thought that 
Gillette was in need of a budget, agendas, and planning--not the most 
exciting topics to get people's attention. I ran anyway, and I did win.
  Nearly five decades later, having served as mayor, having served in 
the State house, having served as a State senator and then as a U.S. 
Senator, I still find myself motivated by the urge to help my community 
and my country.
  I also find myself still pushing those same three ideas that I did 
when I first

[[Page S7158]]

ran for mayor: budgets, agendas, and planning. I keep finding myself 
wanting to help solve problems. Once you embrace that responsibility, 
it is hard to ever ignore it again. I have found that many of my 
colleagues in Congress tend to feel the same way.
  The Senate is a very different place than when I arrived in 1997, and 
it is a very different place than it was in 1789 when the very first 
Senate met. But over all those years, it has been a place for folks 
rising to the challenge of being a leader. We are looking to make our 
communities and country a better place. We might not always agree on 
what the solutions are, but we can respect each other for working to 
find one.
  Over the years, I have learned a great deal from those around me. 
Just like I listened to Senator Al Simpson all those years back, I have 
tried to keep an open mind to learning from others.
  Now that my time in the Senate is coming to a close, I would like to 
pass along some of the lessons I was taught--and some I learned the 
hard way--in the hopes that it may be useful for my colleagues working 
to get things accomplished in the Senate and for anybody who wants to 
be a leader in their community.
  In my office we have a mission statement. It reads:

       We have been given a sacred trust to work for our families, 
     grandparents, and grandchildren. We will respect the wisdom 
     of those before and the future of those to follow. We will 
     discharge this trust through our legislative policy, our 
     constituent services, and the way we treat each other, guided 
     by these three principles:
       Doing What Is Right
       Doing Our Best
       Treating others as They Wish to be Treated

  These last three principles are advice my mom gave me often, and they 
remain my core values. Every member of my staff is given that mission 
statement when they start, and we rely on it to remind us why we are 
here and how we should act.
  It isn't just a saying. It is a way to work, a way to build trust, 
and a way to govern. These values are not always easy to live by. We 
are all human, and we all struggle to live up to these ideals we set 
for ourselves, but that is why we call them ideals.
  I believe these are values we can all agree on, and by remembering 
the values we share, we can work together to tackle tough problems and 
find shared solutions.
  ``Do what is right'' is a great slogan, but you might ask what it 
means at a practical level. People see a mess in Washington, so how do 
we actually make progress? I believe it involves focusing on common 
ground over compromise, especially when it comes to legislating.
  People sometimes think that compromise is the answer. I think it 
means that I give in to something I don't like, and you give in to 
something you don't like, and we both wind up with something neither of 
us likes. That is not legislating.
  When it comes to legislating, often the best way to get something 
done that everyone can agree on is to leave out the things you don't 
agree on and focus on what you can get done. That is why I suggest my 
80 percent tool.
  Generally speaking, people can talk civilly on 80 percent of the 
issues. It is only on about 20 percent of the issues that we find real 
contention. Now, even picking a single issue out of the 80 percent, you 
might still find disagreement, but once again, you can probably focus 
on 80 percent of the issue that you can agree on.
  It is all about focusing on what you can get done and not focusing on 
the points of disagreement, the weeds of debate that have choked 
issues, or, to say it another way, it is all about what you leave out.
  Former Senator Ted Kennedy, from Massachusetts, and I used this tool 
when we led the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee 
together, and it worked great. It worked even though we were on 
complete opposite sides of the political spectrum.
  I once showed Senator Kennedy an article that mentioned how unusual 
it was for the most conservative Senator and the third most liberal 
Senator to work together, to which he said: So who is ahead of me?
  We were able to get legislation passed that others had been trying to 
do for years. Here is how we started working together. When I first got 
to the Senate, I wanted to change some things with OSHA--the 
Occupational Safety and Health. Senator Kennedy, at the urging of my 
predecessor, Senator Simpson, did let me sit down and take him through 
the bill a section at a time. That is something we always did in the 
Wyoming Legislature. When we marked up the bill in committee, Senator 
Kennedy said: In all my years in the Senate, I have never had anybody 
take me through a bill a section at a time, but I am still going to 
have to vote against it. It still got out of committee. But later he 
called me about a safety bill he had been working on for over a 
decade--a bill to save nurses and medical janitors from accidental 
needlesticks--and asked if I would take a look at it. I did. The 
biggest suggestion that I gave was to leave out a couple of small parts 
that had been jamming up the bill. The bill passed the Senate and the 
House unamended and was signed. And now you see needle disposals in 
restrooms and all sorts of places. And the issue has never had to be 
readdressed.
  Later, I became the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions chair, and 
Senator Kennedy was the ranking member. We used the 80-percent tool. We 
were able to get 35 bills through the HELP Committee in the 109th 
Congress. Twenty-seven of them made their way to the President's desk 
and were signed into public law. In between, we were able to report out 
352 nominations for consideration by the full Senate.
  Here is how the 80-percent tool worked. At the beginning of each 
year, each of us made a list of the issues the committee should do. We 
compared lists. We made an effort to argue some to be on both lists. 
Then we worked on the ones on both lists. We usually had a duplication 
of about 80 percent of the issues. Then we could pick out any issue and 
work on it, usually agreeing on 80 percent of that issue. If we 
couldn't find a new way to do the part that had been argued for years, 
we simply left it out, believing that 80 percent finished is better 
than 20 percent that only makes the press.
  The 80-percent tool is where all of our energy, attention, and 
talents could be focused. If we just worked on the 20 percent that we 
don't agree on, and never will agree on, we will only generate 
headlines about how hard we are working, with nothing actually getting 
done, just gridlock.
  When the news comes on, if we are here in the Chamber arguing and 
bickering and getting nothing done, we are focusing too much on the 20 
percent. If people do not see much of us, that means we are taking on 
the 80 percent and making progress without headlines and often with 
unanimous consent.
  What we are really talking about is working together. That is what 
the heart of the 80-percent tool is. Oftentimes, people say what we 
need is more bipartisanship, and there is a very practical reason for 
that. In the Senate, you can't get anything done without working with 
the other side unless one party has 60 votes or more, which is rare. 
And even with 60 votes from one party, the bills that party passes when 
they have a supermajority often are flawed. It turns out that when we 
work together, we can create a better bill than when we just try do it 
alone or force others to accept our ideas. That is why success is not 
really about compromise. It is really about what you leave out--or 
finding a way to accomplish it doing a mutually agreeable new way.
  We used to take the people who had similar amendments and send them 
off to see if they could come up with one amendment. Quite often, they 
could. It was fascinating, when they came back, they said: It was my 
idea. And when all of them report to you that it was their idea, you 
know that you have enough votes to pass it.
  That is why success is not really about compromise; it is about what 
you leave out or finding a third way to come up with a mutually 
agreeable goal. Here are a few key steps that I used to find that 
common ground to pass legislation. First, find someone from the other 
side of the aisle who likes to legislate.
  Second, discover and agree on common goals.
  Third, consult with stakeholders that will or could affect the 
changes being discussed.

[[Page S7159]]

  Fourth, hold roundtables instead of hearings. With hearings, each 
side beats up on the other's witness with clever, stump-the-professor-
type questions. At a roundtable, people who have actually done 
something on a policy share their real-life experiences.
  Finally, you set aside the part of the issues you can't agree on for 
another day. Now you will have a bill that has a good chance of being 
passed and signed into law. That is the heart of the 80-percent tool.
  This way of working also ensures that we can disagree without being 
disagreeable. There is a lot of vitriol in our politics and our world 
right now, but you can stay true to what you believe in without 
treating others badly. Nothing gets done when we are just telling each 
other how wrong we are. Just ask yourself, has anyone ever really 
changed your opinion by getting in your face and yelling at you or 
saying how wrong you are? Usually, that doesn't change hearts or minds. 
That might make the attacker feel better in the moment, but it doesn't 
do much for getting anything accomplished. Following the 80-percent 
tool will not get you notoriety. It won't get you fame. It won't get 
you headlines. Most media coverage requires ``blood in the water.'' 
However, the ability to work among your peers using this method can, 
and will, move us forward and get things done.

  This tool is only successful if we are actually working on passing 
legislation together, and that means letting the Senate work as it was 
intended. One of the best ways to do that is to allow the members of 
each committee to actually take time to craft bills. The committees are 
where the experts are and where I think some of the best work gets 
done. I have already made it clear that I don't think hearings are 
overly useful and are often wasted on collecting soundbites for the 
evening news. Instead, we should be encouraging committees to give 
their members more say in crafting legislation and working together on 
best solutions. If you look at bills that pass with strong bipartisan 
support, they are usually because flaws were ironed out in committee. 
Legislation is oftentimes at its best when it has taken time in 
committees being hashed out until it is ready for prime time. You might 
not always be able to get everyone on board, but if you have done it 
right, you should see strong bipartisan support.
  Sometimes this also means letting others take credit for your ideas. 
An old salesman's trick is to convince others that your good idea was 
really their good idea. Don't let your vanity stand in the way of 
getting the job done.
  Too often, in the modern Senate, legislation is rushed out of 
committee to the Senate floor. And then once it hits the Senate floor, 
both sides try to prevent amendments, but the process of allowing 
amendments and debates is a core component of how the Senate was 
designed to operate. Without it, the Senate can get gummed up. The 
gears can get jammed. Without the fresh air that new ideas and 
legitimate debate brings, tensions can rise as Senators feel unable to 
make progress.
  The difficulty is that each party is so worried about the next 
election, looking to hold on to the majority, that everybody is either 
trying to force the other side to take politically perilous votes or 
trying to avoid taking those votes themselves. No matter which party is 
in charge, we end up blocking amendments and shying away from allowing 
legislation to be altered on the floor of the Senate. And usually those 
tough votes don't really make any difference.
  It might help if Members made it clear to leadership they would be 
willing to take some tough votes in return for more chances to amend 
major legislation on the floor. People might be less likely to demand 
votes on a poison pill or messaging designed to put the other party in 
a tough spot if they knew they could face the same treatment. In the 
end, the onus is on the Members of the Senate, on us, to take on a 
responsibility to work together in return for a chance to pass 
legislation. I suggest that amendments should have to have 60 votes. If 
it was so bad that it needed a filibuster, the 60 votes would be 
required to end that. But that takes about 3 days. So many have been 
willing to allow their amendment to have a 60-vote threshold, and if it 
was strong enough, it passed anyway.
  I also ask you to avoid comprehensive. Comprehensive bills make it so 
large that everyone can find a reason to vote against it. Senator 
Alexander is a big promoter of step-by-step. That is taking a piece of 
legislation and solving it, and then taking the next step and solving 
it, and so on. This practical solution would avoid passing 
comprehensive legislation. Comprehensive legislation is usually a 
byproduct of compromise, not common ground, and often ends up being 
incomprehensible. Giant bills that try to do everything usually end up 
with too many unintended consequences and include a litany of unrelated 
pieces of legislation that are merely hitching a ride because otherwise 
they would never be able to stand on their own merits.
  These ``Christmas tree'' bills are often designed so that if you vote 
against it, you would be voting against some key legislation for your 
constituents. Once again, the ugly nature of compromise over common 
ground is clear.
  A simple solution I have proposed would be to pass more bills as 
individual pieces of legislation, that step-by-step. In Wyoming, bills 
have to be focused on a single subject, and all amendments need to be 
relevant. In the past, I have introduced a bill that would require that 
here, but it never was really treated seriously.
  To talk on a little different article, my favorite article of the 
Constitution is article V. The reason it is, is it assures that all 
States will have equal representation in the Senate. And that can't 
even be changed by a constitutional Congress. Since I come from one of 
those low-population States, it is very important to us. Sometimes we 
are criticized for being overrepresented in the Senate. We have two 
Senators, the same as California, New York, and Texas. But in this 
argument of unfair representation for States, we find the same inherent 
issues we do with the filibuster; our government was not set up to be 
majority rule by population alone. Our Founders, through their own 
debate, were able to understand the risk of pure democracy and the 
benefits of a federalist system, where ideas were represented not just 
by population but by regions and shared cultures. Wyomingites deserve 
to have their cultural say in our system protected against the 
majority. We are all in the United States of America.
  The Senate represents more than just the people. To protect the 
individuality of the States, of the culture of those who live in the 
regions of the country less populated, and it also represents States 
that founded our federalist system. Of course, at that time, several of 
them had little population.
  I have covered a lot of ground, but for my last piece of advice, I 
would call on my colleagues to recognize that it is time to formally 
allow electronics on the floor of the U.S. Senate. It is an issue near 
and dear to my heart and one I think will help how we work in the 
Senate. It is clear that anyone who watches C-SPAN that all of us are 
already breaking the spirit of the law, checking our phones on occasion 
as we walk off or onto the floor. Those devices are often inseparable 
from our ability to do our work. We rely on them to do almost 
everything. It is time to make this commonsense change, allowing iPads 
to be used for speeches, as long as they are laid on the lectern like a 
paper speech. And if Senators could do some work from their desks, like 
early Senators had to do, we would listen to more of the speeches and 
get something done.
  I do remember when I brought that one up before, that it was covered 
by--in 1997, I thought it was important that we have that use. TIME 
magazine did a special article on it. I remember Senator McConnell 
going to New York City and coming back to report to me that he got in a 
cab and the cabdriver said: You are a United States Senator, aren't 
you? Of course, he proudly was. The guy said: So when are you going to 
let the guy from Wyoming have his computer on the floor? Senator 
McConnell told me if I had lobbied it down to cabbies, that it was time 
to do it. But we still haven't done it.
  As we move forward, of course, our country has no shortage of 
problems we need to address. Some are out of our control, but many of 
our own making. If my experience over the years has taught me anything, 
it is that we will

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never be able to tackle these challenges unless we find common areas of 
agreements and work to solve these problems together.

  I hope that everyone listening--especially my colleagues in the 
Senate--remembers the core values I spoke of today: Do what is right. 
Do what is best. Treat others as they wish to be treated.
  I truly believe if we adhered to these ideals, the world would be a 
better place for our children and grandchildren.
  I want, again, to thank the people of Wyoming for giving me the 
opportunity to serve them. I also want to thank my colleagues and 
friends who supported me over the years. I want to thank all the 
amazing staff I have had over the years in my personal office, in the 
DC office, in my State offices in Wyoming; and my staff on the Health, 
Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and on the Budget Committee. 
Over the years, I have gotten to work with incredible staff that made 
it possible to do more than a Senator by himself or herself could ever 
do. Thank you for working so hard over the years.
  I also want to give the most thanks to my family for all of their 
support over the years, especially to my wife Diana. It has been a long 
journey since I told Diana that I was thinking of running for mayor.
  You have supported me more than anyone can truly comprehend, and, in 
no uncertain terms, I couldn't have done it without you. It has been 
more than 50 amazing years together, and I look forward to our next 
adventure.
  I yield the floor.
  (Applause, Senators rising.)
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to pay tribute 
to this great Wyoming leader. For nearly a quarter of a century, Mike 
Enzi has represented the people of Wyoming in Washington, and he has 
done it with intelligence, with intensity, and with integrity.
  The Cowboy State and the Capitol are going to sorely miss Mike Enzi. 
He has truly supplemented his legacy as the trusted trail boss of the 
Wyoming congressional delegation, and it has been an incredible honor 
and a great privilege for my wife Bobbi and me to serve the people of 
Wyoming alongside Mike and his wife, Diana, who is with us today.
  Mike is truly a devoted family man, as well as a man of great and 
deep faith. In fact, Mike taught Sunday school over the decades. Many 
in the Wyoming faith community know that Mike's first Sunday 
schoolteacher in Thermopolis, WY, was my wife Bobbi's mother Jerry 
Brown.
  Jerry and her husband Bob, a World War II and Korean war veteran, 
both passed away this past year, and they had been married 70 years. 
She taught Sunday school in Thermopolis, WY, and her star pupil was 
Mike Enzi, to the point that she actually gave Mike Enzi his first 
Bible, and he still has that today.
  Here in the Senate, Mike has been not just a close friend to me and a 
mentor to me, but he has been that to many Members of this body.
  Mike was sworn in 1997. Throughout four terms in the U.S. Senate, he 
has never wavered in his commitment to God, to family, to country, and, 
of course, to Wyoming. He is known by many as the Senate's moral 
compass.
  He is a remarkable spiritual leader of our bipartisan Prayer 
Breakfast. I am a member of that group and a number of Senators are as 
well. We met today, and Mike led us in prayer.
  I have seen firsthand just how much Republican and Democrat Members 
depend on Mike for his moral and ethical guidance. He really is a 
bipartisan not just policymaker but also a peacemaker, and we have all 
seen it within this body.
  His legislation--he talked about the 80-20 rule. It has a long 
history of garnering overwhelming bipartisan support. Over 100 Enzi 
bills have become law. I have been proud to sponsor and cosponsor many 
of them with him in my time in the Senate. The thing he didn't point 
out is that most of the bills passed with over 80 votes. It is rare for 
an Enzi bill to get to the floor and pass with any more than 15 to 18 
``no'' votes. It is a remarkable accomplishment.
  It is important to note that these bills have been signed by 
Republican and Democrat Presidents. When you go into his office, his 
whole conference room walls are filled with bills and pens--signed into 
law with the pens being used by Bill Clinton, by George W. Bush, by 
Barack Obama, and by President Donald Trump.
  Behind all of these, as he just talked about, is that very successful 
80-20 rule--a rule that he learned while in the Wyoming State 
Legislature, and it has worked extremely well for him here in 
Washington as well.
  But such is the practical Western wisdom in Mike Enzi. Born in 1944 
in Bremerton, WA, his father was there serving in the naval shipyards 
during World War II. He moved his family to Wyoming shortly thereafter, 
and that is when he started elementary school in Thermopolis, WY. They 
moved to Sheridan, where he graduated from high school.
  Mike didn't talk about this today, but there Mike earned his Eagle 
Scout award. He is a proud Eagle Scout, as is his son Brad. His 
grandson is working on it as well. Mike has been named a 
``Distinguished Eagle'' by the Scouts.
  He has a bachelor's degree in accounting from George Washington 
University and an MBA in retail marketing from the University of Denver 
in Colorado.
  Mike and Diana moved to Gillette in 1969, where they started their 
own small business. It is wonderful to listen to Mike talk about small 
businesses. It is called NZ Shoes, not as he spells his last name, E-N-
Z-I, but the letter ``N'' and the letter ``Z'' so people could remember 
NZ Shoes. They later expanded their successful family business to Miles 
City, MT, and to Sheridan, WY.

  But Gillette, WY, is Mike's true home and where his heart is. He 
served 2 terms as Gillette's mayor. During his 8 years as mayor, Mike 
led Gillette to their first economic boom. He served 10 years in the 
Wyoming State Legislature as a State rep, as well as a State senator. 
Wyoming is Mike's world.
  Family means the world to Mike. They are the proud parents of three: 
Amy, Emily, and Brad; and even prouder grandparents of four: Megan, 
Allison, Trey, and Lilly.
  Now, anyone who knows Mike knows that he loves to fish. Even during 
Prayer Breakfast today, when you watched on the Zoom call, behind Mike 
you could see on the wall the fishing rod and all the lures he uses in 
fishing on display. He is an accomplished and avid fly-fisherman. In 
August 2015, he achieved every fly-fisherman's dream, completing his 
Wyoming Cutt-Slam. This Wyoming Game and Fish Department program 
increases appreciation for our native cutthroat trout.
  If you want to talk to Mike about anything, talk to him about 
fishing. His passion comes through with his love of nature for spending 
so much time in nature's cathedral of the great outdoors. He fishes in 
majestic spots throughout Wyoming and all over the world.
  Well, here in Washington, Mike has been a leading voice on budget, on 
tax, and on healthcare issues. He serves on the Senate Budget Committee 
and has been chairman since 2015. As the first accountant to chair the 
Budget Committee, Mike is committed to making government more 
accountable to hard-working American taxpayers. He has been a 
tremendous Budget chairman. That is because he learned valuable lessons 
in the Wyoming Legislature where, like all American families, you need 
to balance your budget every year and live within your means.
  Under Mike's leadership, Congress passed balanced budget resolutions 
for fiscal years 2016 and 2017 and 2018. He worked tirelessly to pass 
these budgets--even working through the night all week for the marathon 
floor debates called vote-aramas. His budget blueprints offered a 
better fiscal path by reducing wasteful spending, by lightening tax 
burdens, and by boosting economic growth.
  Mike's fiscal year 2018 budget not only provided a path to balance; 
it paved the way for pro-growth, pro-jobs tax relief legislation, the 
most comprehensive reform in the Tax Code in over a generation. As a 
reconciliation bill, this historic 2017 tax reform bill, the Tax Cuts 
and Jobs Act, went through Mike's Budget Committee.
  As Budget chairman, Mike has also focused on the soaring national 
debt, budget process reform, and oversight of Federal programs.

[[Page S7161]]

  Mike also served as a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, 
and Pensions Committee since his arrival in the Senate. And as a former 
chairman and ranking member, he championed the efforts to ensure a 
quality education for all. He expanded access to affordable, quality 
healthcare, and he spearheaded the most significant pension reform in 
30 years, securing millions of Americans' retirement.
  He is also a member of the Senate Finance Committee, Homeland 
Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and the Joint Committee on 
Taxation.
  Other policy successes include improving mine safety, helping end the 
AIDS epidemic in Africa, and passing mental health parity.
  Mike's highest priority, of course, has always been helping the 
people of Wyoming. As he said in announcing his retirement, ``I am an 
advocate for Gillette and Campbell County and Wyoming.'' He went on to 
say, ``I point out that everyone lives at the local level. No one lives 
at the Federal level--or even the state level.'' He said, ``So Diana 
and I are your Chamber of Commerce and economic development people for 
every town and county in Wyoming all the time.''
  Mike started several annual events to boost our State--the Inventors 
Conference, the Procurement Conference, and Wyoming Works Tours.
  In 2009, Mike and I started Wyoming Wednesdays, and it quickly became 
a big hit. This is a great tradition. When people of Wyoming come to 
Washington, we greet them every week and get together for coffee and 
host a time of doughnuts and friendship, and people love to attend.
  But Mike, as well as Diana, are a force in the Senate. Diana did it 
again just recently. Mike has called Diana ``the most thoughtful 
person'' in the world, and that is no exaggeration. Here in the Senate, 
every year Diana hosts a Christmas cookie party to thank, as they 
describe, the ``real workers'' who keep the Senate running--the 
janitors, cleaning crews, electricians, police officers, and food 
service workers. Every year, Diana and her friends work hundreds of 
hours and bake hundreds of dozens of cookies. All the Senate workers 
look forward to Diana's 200-dozen cookie thank-you event. That is not 
200 cookies. It is 200 dozen cookies. It is not unusual for people to 
come up to Diana in the hallway and ask when the party is. Mike is the 
wonderful cohost.
  This year, because of coronavirus, she couldn't do all the baking, 
but they have the cookie festival with baked cookies. Those who 
couldn't get to receive them in locations, Mike and Diana walked the 
halls of this building and the Senate office buildings to make sure 
that the guards and the custodians and janitors and others got their 
Christmas cookies.
  Mike is usually a man of few words, but in a recent Prayer Breakfast, 
he reminded everyone about the importance of thinking before we speak. 
He titled his presentation ``Me and My Big Mouth.'' He reminded us that 
our mouths cannot be trained--as you said, Mike--only guarded.
  Mike is a true Wyoming gentleman, someone who will always be a great 
friend and a mentor to me, to younger people in Wyoming, and to 
everyone here in the Senate.
  In my office, there is a picture on the wall of my first day in the 
Senate, right here in 2007, being sworn in by then-Vice President 
Cheney, with Senator Enzi, along with former Senator Malcolm Wallop, 
standing behind. It has been a tremendous privilege to serve with Mike 
from the very first day in the U.S. Senate.
  The people of Wyoming owe him an incredible debt of gratitude for his 
tireless and faithful service. Mike's character, his courage, and his 
credibility have cemented his legacy as a highly respected leader of 
the Senate.
  So today many Senators are here gathering to listen to, to honor, and 
to thank Mike Enzi for his decades of distinguished service to the 
Nation.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant Democratic leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it is hard to follow those heartfelt words 
from Senator Barrasso about his colleague and friend and our friend 
Mike Enzi, but I am going to make a try.
  Just as our tribute to Lamar Alexander was a tribute to the better 
angels of nature as they are shown in the lives of Senators, so, too, 
was Mike Enzi. I join my colleagues in thanking Mike for his service to 
Wyoming and to America.
  One of the most frequent questions many of us are asked is, Why can't 
you folks get along in Washington? Why can't you just do things 
together? I say to them that there are times when we do, and the many 
times are very important. When we do come together, it is because of 
people like Mike, who worked under his so-called 80-20 rule. We know 
that well, don't we? He would tell you he believes both sides could 
agree on 80 percent of the substance, and if negotiators are willing to 
give up the other 20 percent, we could actually get some things done 
around here. Wouldn't that be refreshing?
  One of those items was the Marketplace Fairness Act. Mike helped to 
lead the fight for local brick-and-mortar retailers in order to give 
them a chance to compete on an equal and level playing field with 
online sellers, email companies, and internet companies and to allow 
the States and localities to collect much needed sales tax revenue. It 
is hard to imagine how many years Mike put into that effort, but the 
Marketplace Fairness Act would have given the States the option to 
require from out-of-State businesses, such as those selling online, the 
collection of taxes owed under State law in the same way local 
businesses are required.
  Mike knew a lot about local business. As was mentioned on the floor 
by Senator Barrasso, his colleague, he was a small business owner in 
Gillette, WY, running NZ Shoes. Even as he went on to become mayor of 
Gillette at age 30, a staff sergeant in the Wyoming Air National Guard, 
a State representative, and then a State senator, he was always still 
the small business man from Gillette.
  In 1996, when he was recovering from open-heart surgery, then-Senator 
Alan Simpson decided not to run for reelection. Local leaders kept 
trying to talk Mike into running. He really just wanted to have more 
time to hunt and fish. In the end, he made an important decision. He 
ran, and he won. His career has had many legislative successes in 
having used his 80-20 rule.
  I will never forget the days when Ted Kennedy would come to the floor 
and talk about the compromise and the bargain he had struck with you. I 
had thought what a political odd couple, but the two of you did some 
remarkable things.
  Poles apart in terms of political philosophy, they treated each other 
with respect, and they had amazing successes to show for it. Even when 
he has differing views on the best ways to resolve issues, Mike Enzi 
shows a willingness to come to the table and discuss the areas in which 
we can agree.
  In 2012, Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan retired. I called Mike after 
Byron left and asked if I could take up Byron's position in his fight 
for the Marketplace Fairness Act. He said: Let's do it. We brought in 
Senator Lamar Alexander--that was a pretty smart move--and then Senator 
Heidi Heitkamp, who both made great contributions to our work. It was 
our luck that Heidi Heitkamp was the petitioner of the 1992 Supreme 
Court case Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, which made the Marketplace 
Fairness Act necessary.
  We were an unexpected group of Senators--two Republicans and two 
Democrats who were literally from all over the United States. We 
disagreed on some things, sure, but we agreed that Main Street business 
needed a break and deserved fair treatment. We kept working on it with 
Mike Enzi's leadership, and, in 2013, the Marketplace Fairness Act 
passed the Senate, overwhelmingly, with 69 votes. Unfortunately, the 
House of Representatives, once again, broke our heart and didn't act on 
it. We kept introducing the bill.
  Main Street businesses were still struggling against the unfair 
advantage that internet-only retailers had. Visitors to my office might 
have noticed a little something that was in my office that I have 
brought to the floor today and wondered what this was all about. This 
was a gift from Mike Enzi after we were successful in the U.S. Senate. 
It is a small, wooden, three-note train whistle. It would be a 
violation of the Senate rules to blow the whistle, but I want to tell 
you that it was a gift from Mike for our work we did together in 
helping to get the bill down the tracks of the legislative process.

[[Page S7162]]

  We were never able to get the House to take up the measure, but, in 
2018, the Supreme Court finally did the right thing. In a 5-to-4 ruling 
in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., the Court closed the loophole we had 
been struggling to fight and address for years. I am proud to be a part 
of that bipartisan coalition. In Illinois, it has meant a lot. We 
estimate that our State has received $460 million in annual revenue by 
virtue of Mike Enzi's determination and leadership on the marketplace 
fairness front.
  In this pandemic crisis, this revenue is more important than ever. 
Mike has always been a force for fairness, a friend, and a leader for 
whom I have great respect. As we fight this pandemic, we should strive 
to abide by Mike's 80-20 rule and remember that Main Street businesses 
are really hurting and need our help.
  I know Mike will have more time now for fishing and hunting. I wish 
him and Diana, his wonderful wife--and she is a wonderful person--and 
their grandchildren happiness. I look forward to reading about the next 
chapter in Mike Enzi's life of giving and caring.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, Mike Enzi and I were both sworn in to do 
our first terms in the U.S. Senate on January 7, 1997. I immediately 
saw in the gentleman from Wyoming a quiet, effective, and ethical 
leader who was focused not on partisan advantage but, rather, on 
results--results that would benefit the people who had sent him to 
Washington and results that would benefit the American people as a 
whole.
  The nearly 24 years since then have only confirmed my initial 
impression. For the first 14 of those years, Mike was the sole 
accountant in the Senate. That discipline, combined with his experience 
as a small business owner, have served him so well in his role as 
chairman of the Senate Committee on the Budget. He knows how important 
it is to set a budget, to follow it, and to control spending. His 
priority has always been the American taxpayer. As chairman of the 
Committee on the Budget and as a member of the Senate Committee on 
Finance, he has been a leader on tax issues as well. He helped to shape 
the 2017 tax reform act, which has helped to boost economic growth and 
the creation of more jobs.
  Mike's leadership style is characterized by his willingness to always 
search for common ground. He described in great depth today what he 
calls his 80-20 rule, and anyone who has ever worked with Mike Enzi on 
any issue quickly learns about the 80-20 rule. Through it, he forges 
solutions where many others see only impasse. The key to success in 
moving legislation, as he told us today, is to focus on the 80 percent 
of issues on which agreement can be found and not waste time on the 20 
percent on which the disagreements are insurmountable.
  That rule served him well when he, along with the late Senator Ted 
Kennedy, sat at the helm of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions. Well, as Mike has described today, it would be 
difficult to think of two individuals serving in the Senate who had 
more different political philosophies than he and Ted Kennedy. You 
could probably say that this is true with his current ranking member of 
the Budget Committee. Yet, together, he and Senator Kennedy crafted 
dozens of laws. Neither side got 100 percent of what it wanted. They 
put aside the areas of disagreement. For them, it was far more 
important that progress was made for the American people.
  In serving with Mike on the HELP Committee, I have seen him employ 
this rule over and over again to bring about real progress. He has led 
efforts to help to ensure that everyone can receive a quality 
education. He has helped to provide Americans with access to 
affordable, quality healthcare. He has helped to protect workers and 
foster job training opportunities. As the leader of the committee, he 
has worked to oversee the biggest revision in pension laws in 30 
years--to strengthen funding rules to enhance retirement security for 
millions of Americans.
  Mike comes from a small business background, and as Senator Durbin 
just described, he was passionate about the Marketplace Fairness Act--
to enable States to collect sales and use taxes from out-of-State 
online retailers. He recognized that the brick-and-mortar Main Street 
businesses that provide local jobs should not be penalized. Mike and I 
also worked together on successful legislation to improve workplace 
safety for postal employees and to better protect the American people 
from deceptive mailings that mimic official government documents.
  Senator Mike Enzi has compiled a long record of selfless service as a 
business leader, as a member of the Wyoming Air National Guard, as a 
mayor, as a State legislator, and as an involved citizen. When he 
announced his intention early last year to leave the Senate, he said 
that he had no definite plans other than to find other ways to serve. I 
am 100 percent certain that the author of the 80-20 rule will continue 
to contribute to his community, his State, and our Nation. I wish him 
and his beloved wife Diana all the best in the years to come.
  I thank the Presiding Officer.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I have had the pleasure of working 
with my chairman on the Budget Committee on budget reform initiatives, 
and I want to take this occasion to thank him for the wonderful way in 
which he worked with me on those issues and for all of his support.
  I want to make a pledge to him as well. The effort began with a lot 
of hearings in the Budget Committee to sort out how we could reform 
what we were doing. At the moment, the Budget Committee is, probably, 
the most dysfunctional piece of this dysfunctional institution, and 
Chairman Enzi was determined to remedy that. A lot of work went in at 
the committee level. Then a bicameral committee was created to look at 
budget reform, primarily out of the House, and I had the opportunity to 
serve on that bicameral committee. That was an opportunity that I owe 
to Chairman Enzi. He both advocated for me to his leader that I should 
be on that committee, and he gave up a spot on that committee to make 
sure there was a spot for me there. I hope and believe that I conducted 
myself in due accord with Chairman Enzi's wishes and principles in the 
course of that.
  We had the ability to use that bicameral committee process to do a 
test run of our budget reform, and I am pleased to report that, 
although the end product was never adopted between the two bodies, the 
product that came out of the committee included our budget reform as it 
was then constituted. We raised our aspiration from the budget reform 
as it was then constituted, which was entirely voluntary, to actually 
try to change the Budget Committee's rules to force the process of the 
Budget Committee into the mold of the voluntary structure. We did good 
work on that, and we came to an agreement. I am sorry to say that its 
failure to pass into law arose not from problems on the Republican side 
of the aisle but from problems on my side of the aisle that I have been 
unable to yet surmount.
  My pledge to you, Chairman Enzi, is that I will keep at it. Senator 
Blunt is here, and he is helpful in that regard. Senator Lankford and 
Senator Perdue are here, and we have a good team, along with Senator 
Kaine, Senator King, myself, and others on our side--another being 
Senator Shaheen.
  So I will continue the work. I vow to you that I will somehow find a 
way to get this done, and if I can find a way to call it the Enzi 
reform, I will find a way to call it the Enzi reform.
  I will long remember the relationship we had and the good work we did 
together. I will long remember your 80/20 rule. And maybe--because I 
have a similar proposal in Rules--maybe we will even be able to get 
your phones and electronics amendment passed.
  So thank you to you, sir, for doing what is right, doing your best, 
and treating others as they would want to be treated.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I feel a little guilty, as the chairman of 
the Rules Committee, standing in between the Enzi desire to get the 
devices on the floor.
  I have watched in recent weeks. If you looked around on the floor, 
you would assume that we had adopted that

[[Page S7163]]

rule. It is a pretty hard rule to enforce with all the information that 
Senator Enzi always knew was there and needed to be available in ways 
that we have not made it available yet.
  I just want to stand as a particular friend of Mike Enzi. We came to 
the Congress at the same time. I came to the House, and he came to the 
Senate. He and Diana and I were together on travel fairly early in that 
we had an opportunity to go to Lithuania, as they were desperately 
trying to get included in NATO.
  And, Mike, you remember walking on that little square where people 
had their signs up: We want in NATO. They had been left behind one 
time; they didn't want to be left behind another time.
  But that is one of the many memories I have with Mike.
  Another is just Mike's incredible capacity to listen. I think without 
question and by plenty of evidence, Mike is the best listener in the 
Senate. In fact, he has listening sessions in his State, where what he 
does, shockingly, is listen. His talking is at a minimum at those 
sessions. His interest in taking in input from whoever wants to talk--
you can envision Mike at the front of the room with his notepad, taking 
notes on what everybody says, and then often the move from one speaker 
to the next is ``Thank you'' and ``Let's hear what other people have to 
say,'' and he absorbs that in a great way.
  There are many times when I have come to Mike in the Senate and said: 
Tell me what you are thinking about this. And it is amazing how much 
you can learn by listening. Mike so often has a different view, a more 
nuanced view than others do because of that.
  I also thought, Mike, as you were speaking today--I know that your 
driver in the State is usually Diana. And even describing the return 
from the Jaycees event back to Gillette, I noticed who was driving, 
that you spent so many hours together and miles together in a State 
that maybe doesn't have the most people, but it sure has lots of 
distance, and I know it was just a challenge to get home to Wyoming 
every week and then to get to the place you live in Wyoming, in 
Gillette, as often as you can, and that is not often possible.
  But what an honor and privilege to serve with you, to spend these 24 
years in the Congress together, and for me to get to spend the last 10 
years of your Senate time here in the Senate with you. It is a great 
honor. It is a great privilege.
  I am trying to learn all I can about listening from the master 
listener who then takes all that information and actually produces, as 
we have heard here today, real results.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I just want to thank all the people who came 
and listened, and I hope there were other Senators who were watching on 
their televisions and taking notes on the 80-percent tool and other 
things that I mentioned.
  But I just appreciate the friendships that I have had here. I have no 
qualms about leaving because of the quality of people who will still be 
here, still solving problems for America.
  There is some great teamwork that never gets any publicity but that 
actually functions around here, and I can't thank my friends enough, 
particularly Senator Barrasso, who has been a part of this team and has 
helped to bring me along. I have learned a lot from him and gotten to 
do a lot with him, and he and his wife are good friends of ours. It is 
not all that common to be good friends with the other person in your 
delegation, but we have a strong delegation and get along well that 
way.
  I want to thank Senator Whitehouse for his comments and particularly 
his promise that he is going to get some reform done so that the 
committee is actually doing what everybody thinks it does--providing a 
budget that we will follow. Those were goods reform principles that we 
put together.
  I have always said that the only time we are going to have reform to 
the budget is if we can do it just before a Presidential election year 
because nobody knows who is going to be in the majority in the Senate 
and the House, and nobody knows who is going to be the President. 
Otherwise, we want to make sure that we can keep all of the control for 
our party that we can.
  I want to thank Senator Blunt. I actually remember trying to get some 
local food and running into Senator Blunt, who was also looking for 
local food overseas, and so we had local food together. That was our 
first year in Congress. I have known him for a long time, and I 
appreciate your comments.
  So thank you, everybody. Thank you, all the people from Wyoming.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I ask unanimous consent that the scheduled votes 
commence.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.

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