[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 204 (Thursday, December 3, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7199-S7203]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RECOGNIZING THE STAFF OF SENATOR ALEXANDER
Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, here is my view of serving in the
U.S. Senate: It is hard to get here, it is hard to stay here, and while
you are here, you might as well try to accomplish something good for
the country. Accomplishing something good in the U.S. Senate means
working with a superior staff.
Today, I want to pay tribute to the 270 men and women who have served
on my staff since I came to the Senate in 2003, in my personal office,
both here in Washington, DC, and in the six Tennessee offices; in the
Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; the Senate
Rules Committee; the Senate Appropriations Committee; and at the Senate
Republican conference.
Some who started with me in 2003 are still working for me after 18
years, and some have moved on to other opportunities, but each has
played a major role in the Senate, whether they were helping to pass
laws, serve our constituents, or answering the front-office phone.
We have some important traditions here in the Senate, including the
maiden speech, which I delivered 17 years ago, in my case, and the
farewell speech, which I delivered yesterday, but for me, something is
missing. Usually staff is acknowledged in the farewell address, which
either makes the address way too long or at least too little time to
properly acknowledge their contributions. I am here today to make a
``Salute to the Staff'' speech. I know my colleagues agree that their
own accomplishments are the result of working with superior staff, so
perhaps, if I may not be presumptuous, a ``Salute to the Staff'' speech
might become an additional Senate tradition.
When I say ``superior staff,'' here is what I mean: superior in being
what Senator Howard Baker used to call an eloquent listener--that the
constituent on the phone might be right or even the staffer in the
other office might be right; superior in courtesy to the Tennesseans
for whom we work; superior in insight; superior in resolving complex
issues and wrapping up the result in a nice package with a ribbon tied
around it, ready to be passed and signed into law whenever the moment
came that it could be passed, which would usually be a surprise and at
an inconvenient time; and superior in writing and speaking plain
English in order to persuade at least half the people we are right; and
superior in working well together--something you are supposed to learn
in kindergarten--so we have a good time while we are working.
Unlike almost every other Senate office, at the suggestion of my
chief of staff, David Cleary, we created a single team composed of
personal office staff here and in Washington, DC, and the committee
staff, with David in charge of all of that. I originally thought that
was a big mistake. I didn't see how anyone could be in charge of all of
that, but I was wrong about it because what it did was break down
barriers and eliminate jealousy, improve communication, and create a
much happier and effective working condition.
The results have been exceptional. For 18 years, I have gotten up
every morning thinking I might be able to do something good to help our
country, and I have gone to bed most nights thinking that I have. That
couldn't have happened without the privilege of working with an
exceptional staff.
The truth is--we all know this--that there is just no physical way
for any U.S. Senator to see every single one of our constituents every
time we want to
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see them or talk to them on the phone, although we all make our best
efforts to do that. And you learn pretty quickly that constituents
expect and deserve to be treated not just with courtesy but promptly.
For example, Senator Estes Kefauver held this seat that I now hold when
I was a high school student.
One day, Maude from Madisonville, his hometown, called Senator
Kefauver's office and said: ``I want to speak to Estes.''
The staffer said: ``I'm sorry but Senator Kefauver is tied up on the
floor.''
There was a long silence. Maude said: ``Well, you go down and untie
the son of a gun and get him up off the floor and tell him Maude's on
the phone and wants to speak to him.''
So our constituents expect to talk with us when they want to.
My first visit to the Senate was when I was a junior in high school.
It was part of the American Legion Boys Nation Program. I was invited
to visit Senator Kefauver. I was 17 years old. I was reluctant to do
that because I was sure he had many more important people to see than a
17-year-old boy from Maryville, TN. I was even more sure of that when I
arrived at his office because his office was just filled with people
who looked important and looked like they had come from all over the
world to see him. But his assistant came out and swished me in through
all the important people, doing her best to make me feel comfortable.
Kefauver had a reputation for being accessible, and it was because his
staff made it appear that he always was.
I remind my staff that there are many people who want to see us who
suspect that we feel we are too important to see them, and we should do
everything we can to help them understand that we know that they are
the important ones.
The staff and I have done our best to try to do that. With all of the
Senators with whom I have served from Tennessee, we have what we call
Tennessee Tuesday, which are breakfasts where any Tennessean can come
and visit with both Senators, have a little breakfast, and have their
photograph taken.
In 18 years, 270 people have worked on my Senate staff--as I
mentioned, in Jackson, Nashville, Tri-Cities, Knoxville, Memphis,
Chattanooga, or in Washington, DC, on my personal staff or the Health,
Education, Labor, and Pensions staff or the Rules Committee or
Appropriations Committee or at the Senate Republican conference. There
are a lot of places to have a lot of staff--153 women, 117 men.
Our staff has also benefited from the work of 433 interns. These
interns usually stay with us 1 to 3 months, and they have some real
work experiences while they are here, and they are pretty good. In
fact, 30 staff members--that is 11 percent of our staff--began their
work in our office as interns.
Our staff has experienced some great personal joys. We celebrated the
birth or adoption of 30 babies over those 18 years. Just as I met my
wife Honey while we were both working in the Senate, some of our
staffers met their spouses while working on my staff, including:
Mackensie Burt and Paul McKernana, Will Patterson and Katherine Knight,
Virginia Heppner and Bobby McMillin, Laura Lefler and John Herzog, Will
Campbell and Victoria Souza, and Patrick Jaynes and Jill Salyers. They
are all married now.
We also have experienced some profound sorrows. Some have lost
parents, nursed seriously injured children, or been through their own
health emergencies.
In November 2007, Trey Lefler, a very special staffer and friend, was
involved in a serious car accident and died as a result of his
injuries.
Many staff members have stayed. We have worked together for a long
time. Some have been a part of our team--meaning we worked together--
since I became a Senator: Patrick Jaynes, State director; Lindsey
Seidman, deputy staff director on the HELP Committee; Jane Chedester,
field representative in Knoxville; Kay Durham, constituent services
representative in Nashville; Charlotte Jackson, who knows more about
how to help people with a visa problem than anybody in the world; Matt
Varino, field representative in Jackson; Gina Parkerson in Tri-Cities;
Stephanie Chivers, a senior adviser in Nashville.
It is pretty remarkable. It is not so easy to be on the staff of a
U.S. Senator in the State they represent. Everybody knows who you are.
Everywhere you go, you are likely to be sought out by people who need
help, people who are hurting. It is easy to get burned out. It is hard
to stay in a job like that for that long.
Patrick Jaynes says that while these might be jobs in politics, the
politics end when you start the job. You have to work with everyone and
help everyone.
Our Tennessee field representatives have traveled thousands of miles,
meeting with mayors, businesses, schools, hospitals, and other
organizations across our 95 counties.
Caseworkers have handled about 20,000 cases over the years, like
getting disability benefits, helping a World War II veteran get a
medal, helping a family stranded overseas get home.
For example, Laura Ray Goodrich is a staffer in Jackson. She heard of
a single mother having desperate issues getting her tax refund. The
mother needed the money to help pay rent and the rest of her bills.
Laura got to work and reached out to the IRS. She discovered the
mother's returns had been wrong for several years and helped the
thrilled single mother recover far more money than she was expecting.
Keith Abraham, who works in the Knoxville office, heard from a
Tennessee company about an employee with a grim cancer diagnosis. The
employee's parents lived in China. They were unable to see the employee
because of COVID-19 restrictions. Long and short, Keith worked it out
so they could receive the appropriate paperwork and fly here to be with
their daughter.
One story that I got to see in person was about Wilbur ``Bill''
Hoffman from World War II. Mary Wooldridge, in our Memphis office, was
asked if there was some way he could be recognized for his World War II
service. She worked with the service and discovered that he was not
only eligible for a Purple Heart after he had been wounded at Pointe du
Hoc on D-Day in 1944, he had also earned the Bronze Star and the Ranger
Tab awards. In 2012, he was presented with these awards by our State's
highest ranking military officer, General Haston at a ceremony I
attended. He died a year later.
Each fall, Kay Durham in our office works through about 150
Tennesseans' applications to attend our Nation's service academies. She
has worked with over 2,500 candidates applying for those academies.
There is no better State director than Patrick Jaynes. He also served
as deputy chief of staff. He worked to create a smooth relationship
between what happens in Tennessee and what happens here. I have
traveled thousands of miles with Patrick. He has not run into anybody,
but we have been through a lot of flat tires and some speeding tickets.
Patrick and I have seen it all. He is full of insights. He always has
energy for the next event and can always solve a problem.
During my time in the Senate, the conference elected me three times
as chairman of the Senate Republican conference. That is a little bit
of a political job. What you are supposed to do is come up with
something that Republicans can say to counter what Democrats are
saying. It is especially a challenge to do that for Republicans to get
them to talk on a single message.
All of the Senators--every one of us--are experts in politics or we
wouldn't have gotten here. And Republican Senators are especially
independent-minded. Republicans and Democrats will often all do things
together as a caucus, but we do it differently than they do. Democrats
will all hold hands and jump off the cliff together. Republicans will
also all jump off the cliff at the same time, but one will do a
somersault, one will do a back flip, one will do a dive, and so forth.
The goal was to come up in the caucus with a catchy phrase. For
example, on energy, ``Find more, use less,'' or about ObamaCare, ``step
by step,'' instead of ``comprehensive.''
To persuade Senators to say the same thing, staff would record clips
of them saying what I thought they should say, and then we would show
that back to them at lunch. I found that Senators paid a lot more
attention to watching themselves say things
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than they did to watching me suggest to them what to say.
It wasn't me doing all that; it was staff doing it. They came up with
catchy phrases, many of them. They made sure we communicated them at
the conference.
While I was on the Rules Committee, I had a chance--I worked with
Senator Schumer on that. We were ranking--really, like this year, we
didn't know who would be the new President. I had an opportunity to
speak at President Obama's inauguration. We talked about the peaceful
transfer or the reaffirmation of power as a conspicuous symbol of our
democracy. There is no possible way to organize a Presidential
inauguration without a superior staff. Mary Jones and Lindsey Seidman
were the ones who were in charge of all that for us.
Then, in 2012, on the Senate HELP Committee--as the senior Republican
for 2 years, then 6 years as chairman--the staff grew a lot. Senator
Ted Kennedy used to say that the HELP Committee had about one-third of
the jurisdiction of the Senate. It certainly does a lot of work, and it
needs a lot of talented staff members. During my 8 years as the senior
Republican, the staff helped organize 209 hearings, 752 witnesses,
mostly bipartisan--meaning that I agreed with Senator Harkin first,
then Senator Murray for the last 6 years, on whom the witnesses would
be. We produced 90 bills that have become law.
That is a lot of work--weeks of work by the staff. Securing each
witness often takes a host of conversations with Democratic committee
staff, numerous phone calls with experts.
Every bill that becomes law takes efforts that are hard to comprehend
outside the walls of Congress, from the consultations with constituents
and experts to the drafting of the legislation, to the work with other
members and outside groups, to consulting, to trying to soothe bruised
feelings, to working with other committee members, bring it to the
attention of the majority leader, try to find an opportunity for it to
be on the Senate calendar, then bill support, then remove holes. There
is a lot of work to do in passing a bill and making a law, and staff
does most of the work. Senators do a lot, but they can't do it all.
Here are some of the achievements worth highlighting. I mentioned
many of them yesterday in my farewell address, so I won't go into great
detail about them today; for example, the Every Student Succeeds Act.
This was the bill to fix No Child Left Behind. It affects 50 million
children in 100,000 schools. President Obama called it ``a Christmas
miracle.'' The Wall Street Journal said it was the largest devolution
of power from Washington to the States in 25 years. I will never forget
what, to me, was a truly emotional moment, when every Senator on our
committee--this is from Rand Paul to Elizabeth Warren--voted to
recommend the bill to the Senate. This law was the result of
complicated and nimble work by Peter Oppenheim, Lindsay Fryer, Matt
Stern, and David Cleary.
FAFSA Simplification. Twenty million Americans fill out this
ridiculously complex form for Federal aid for Pell grants and student
loans. You have seen me hold it up on the Senate floor. Everyone agrees
it can be 33 instead of 108 questions. Almost everyone agrees it is the
major obstacle to low-income students getting Federal aid to go to
college because they are intimidated by it. Bob Moran, Lauren Davies,
and Andrew LaCasse have worked hard with Senator Murray's staff. We
have it about half done. We would like to get it across the finish line
before the end of the year.
Head Start. In 2007, we came up with the idea. Sarah Rittling was the
staffer. It was to establish 200 centers of excellence for the Head
Start Program.
Then, in 2005, Katrina came and Rita came, two big hurricanes.
Kristin Bannerman was critical to legislation, where we worked with
Senator Kennedy, Senator Dodd, and Senator Landrieu for voucher funding
to assist with the cost of educating 150,000 public and nonpublic
school students in grades K-12 displaced by the hurricane.
Then, reauthorizing the Perkins Career and Technical Education Act.
Education Week said it was ``a watershed moment.'' Staffer Jake Baker
worked on that. Senator Enzi did a lot of the heavy work.
I have been fortunate to have two extraordinary women whom I work
with on the team of staff on the HELP Committee who handle family
health policy: Mary-Sumpter Lapinski and Grace Graham.
Before they started, Melissa Pfaff, Page Kranbuhl, and Marguerite
Salee Kondracke were instrumental in passing the PREEMIE Act in 2003,
getting the bill well written and signed into law, working with the
March of Dimes to help give more babies a chance to live long and
healthy lives.
Once I became senior on the HELP Committee, we began to work on the
21st Century Cures Act. Senator McConnell said it was the most
important law of that Congress. It helps speed medical innovations to
patients in doctors' offices. Margaret Coulter, Andy Vogt, Melissa
Pfaff, Brett Meeks, and others spent countless hours getting ready for
that.
FDA user fees. This showed Grace Graham's ability to be a traffic cop
working with Senator Murray's staff and with House committees. We had a
really fairly seamless effort to take these complicated pieces of law
to collect user fees from drug and device makers and include
significant new provisions to speed those drugs and devices into
doctors' offices.
The most popular bill that never became a law was called Alexander-
Murray. I even bought a case of Scotch called Alexander-Murray to give
out to everybody when it passed, but it never was passed. The result of
the immense efforts--the whole goal--was to reduce the cost of
healthcare premiums in the individual insurance market. President Trump
worked well with us on that. Virginia McMillin and Liz Wroe did
countless hours of work, but we couldn't quite get it across the finish
line.
Then, this year, there was the shark tank. With the support of
Senators Blunt and Shelby, we worked together with Francis Collins, of
the National Institutes of Health, to create an initiative of $2.5
billion to produce 50 million more COVID diagnostic tests a month than
current technologies would do. Grace Graham, Melissa Pfaff, and Laura
Friedel on Senator Blunt's staff worked on that.
During all of this, Grace Graham was in her third trimester--not
during all of it. During the latter part of this, she was in her third
trimester. She was working on design policies and being a traffic cop
between here and the House. To date, she and Stash, her husband, have
had their first child, Penn. She is back at work, and the country is
better off for everything that she has contributed.
Our committee leadership positions are often considered the plum
positions, but you can do a whole lot with a talented personal staff.
Ours has put in long hours and has met expectations. For example, on
the Great American Outdoors Act, Anna Newton and Lindsay Garcia did
yeoman's work. This is a bill that good people have literally been
trying to pass since the Eisenhower years. It was the most important
piece of outdoor legislation in that period of time.
With the Music Modernization Act, we worked with Senator Hatch and
his staff. We eventually got 85 cosponsors, but this one nearly ran off
the road several times. Lindsay Garcia and Paul McKernan made sure it
became law.
The America COMPETES Act was back in my early years as a Senator,
when I was very junior, so I got the Republican leader and the
Democratic leader to cosponsor it. It passed with, I think, more than
60 cosponsors to improve our competitive position in the world.
Matt Sonnesyn and David Cleary were the key staffers on that. They
were not just working with staff people around here. For example, with
the America COMPETES Act, the bill wouldn't have passed if it had not
been for 800 outdoor recreation environmental groups outside of
Congress who supported the bill and encouraged Senators to get off
planes and come back here to cast crucial votes. We are grateful for
that. Matt Sonnesyn worked with the Iraq Study Group recommendations
that we made during the George W. Bush years, and Erin Reif and Lucas
DaPieve have been experts on foreign affairs and appropriations.
While I have been chairman of the Energy and Water Appropriations, we
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have had 5 straight years in a row--hopefully, we will have 6--of
funding the Office of Science, which supports our 17 National
Laboratories. We have also stepped up funding for all of the inland
waterways, like Chickamauga Lock, and for supercomputing in order to
keep us first in the world. Tom Craig, Tyler Owens, Meyer Seligman, Jen
Armstrong, and Adam DeMella all played key roles in that.
I met every week with what I called my Energy Working Group. I found
the intersection of energy and environment to be, really, the most
fascinating new subject for me during my time as a Senator, and we did
a lot of work on that both on the Committee on Appropriations and with
other Senators. Meeting with that energy policy staff helped to get the
America COMPETES Act passed. It stopped the Road to Nowhere in the
Smokies. It pushed back on the efforts to promote Big Wind on our
mountain ridges, and it resulted in record funding for energy and water
development. Sharon Segner, Jessica Holliday, Conrad Schatte, and
Lindsay Garcia all led those teams.
We spend a lot of time working with staff to get the policy right and
trying to get the message right. You have to be able to persuade at
least half the people that you are right in this business. Words
matter. We spend a lot of time on headlines so that we convey what we
are trying to do. The individuals who have led our communications unit
include Alexia Poe, Harvey Valentine, Lee Pitts, Jim Jeffries, Brian
Reisinger, Margaret Atkinson, Liz Wolgemuth, Ashton Davies, and Taylor
Haulsee.
You can't run an effective office without a good office manager. We
have had the best--Trina Tyrer and Debbie Paul. Misty Marshall came to
us from the White House, where she was the director of correspondence
for Laura Bush.
One of the toughest, most important jobs in the Senate office that
people outside the Senate don't really appreciate as much is the job of
scheduling. It requires constant changes, great discretion, enormous
promptness, and attention to detail. Every day is a mismatch of
meetings and calls. There is no schedule, really, in the U.S. Senate.
You just kind of keep up with what is going on, and you put it down on
a piece of paper. Suddenly, everything can get wiped out by an
emergency call. Bonnie Sansonetti, Sarah Fairchild, and Alicyn York
have been the very best.
The legislative director conducts the office orchestra. I have been
very fortunate that Allison Martin has been our conductor. She used to
work for Bill Frist and Fred Thompson. She is a West Tennessean, but
the whole State is what she cares about as well as the country. If you
were to look for somebody with her skill and talent, you would be
looking for a very long time. David Cleary, Richard Hertling, Matt
Sonnesyn, and David Morgenstern were also legislative directors.
One thing I know is I wouldn't be very good as a chief of staff, so I
needed a very good chief of staff to do some things that I don't do as
well. My first one was Tommy Ingram, whom I have known since 1966 when
he was a Tennessean reporter, and I was working for Howard Baker in his
second campaign. We have been friends ever since. He was my campaign
manager and chief of staff as Governor. He did the same thing. He is
really responsible for much of my success in politics.
David Morgenstern joined my staff in 2005 as legislative director,
and he became chief of staff in 2009.
Matt Sonnesyn came to me from the Harvard Kennedy School of
Government. He was initially a senior policy adviser. He was one of the
few Republican students in the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, so
he was well trained in defending his views.
Ryan Loskarn served as chief of staff starting in 2007.
Then, in my personal office, David Cleary has been the chief for the
past 7 years. You can see him somewhere in an outrageous red and black
suit on the Senate floor. David and I have worked together for almost
15 years. First, he served as staff director for the HELP Subcommittee
on Children and Families. He used to work for John Boehner in the House
In 2014, after becoming the ranking member of the HELP Committee,
David suggested, as I said earlier, that he be both chief of staff and
staff director of the committee. I recounted how, at first, I thought
that was a bad idea, but it was one of the best ideas suggested to me
because it made our staff so much more effective and work so much
better. It was the key to our success, really, and I do not know of a
more effective chief of staff of the Senate than David Cleary. He led
our efforts to fix No Child Left Behind, the 21st Century Cures, the
reauthorizing of Perkins, and the FDA user fees legislation. I
appreciate how much time Marci, his wife, and Maria, their daughter,
have given to our team.
To close, I would like to thank all 270 staff members who have given
time and energy to our office. One of those, Reynard Graham, has been
my administrative right hand for many years. His bigger job is that he
is a minister on the weekends. There isn't time to recognize the
accomplishments of each one by name, but there are many, and I am
grateful to every single individual.
It has been a tremendous gift to work with a skilled and dedicated
staff. Each person who has served in this office should be proud of
what we have accomplished. I have been so fortunate to have been on the
same team with each of you for the last 18 years.
In a farewell address yesterday, I said that I wake up every day
thinking I might be able to do something good for our country and that
I go to bed most nights thinking that I have. It has been a great
privilege to be a U.S. Senator. It has been a great privilege over
these 18 years to work with such an exceptional staff.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a list of the
names of my staff
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Keith Abraham, Halee Ackerman, Hayley Alexander, Abbey
Allen, Stacy (Cline) Amin, Carrie Apostolou, Sarah Arbes,
Katie Argo, Jen Armstrong, Abby Atkins, Margaret Atkinson,
Jill Bader-Thompson, Jake Baker, Brandon Ball, Aaron
Baluczynski, Andy Banducci, Kristin Bannerman-Herrmann,
Kathryn Bell, Bailee Beshires, Anthony Birch.
Jeremy Boshwit, Lyndsay Botts, Jennifer Boyer, Charlie
Brereton, Kelly Brexler, Palmer Brigham, Justine Brittain,
Louie Brogdon, Austin Bryan, Adam Buckalew, Brenda Buescher,
Ace Burch, Jonathan Burke, Andrew Burnett, David Campbell,
Will Campbell, Victoria (Souza) Campbell, Meredith Carter,
Laura Chambers-Crist, Robbie Champion.
Jane Chedester, Stephanie Chivers, Sarah Chu, David
Cleary, Joseph Cody, Chris Connolly, Molly Conway, Mary
Catherine Cook, Hannah Cornwell, Margaret Coulter, Tom Craig,
Sydney Crawford, Starling Crossan, Joseph Cwiklinski, Lucas
DaPieve, Ashton Davies, Elizabeth Davis, Adam DeMella, Evan
Dixon, Christine Dodd.
Kay Durham, Emily Durnin, Jennifer Ellis, Grant English,
Seth Ephrussi, Greg Facchiano, Sarah Fairchild, Anna
Catherine Feaster, Qur'an Folsom, Kyle (Hicks) Fortson,
Harrison Fox, Jr., Emily France, Evann Freeman, Lindsey
Fryer, Alice Ganier, Kitty Ganier, Lindsay Garcia, Jaime
Garden, Nick Geale, Elizabeth Gibson.
Randall Gibson, Jr., Houston Goddard, Meredith Good-Cohn,
Laura Ray Goodrich, Carolyn Gorman, Elizabeth Gorman, Reynard
Graham, Grace (Stuntz) Graham, John Grant, Jon Grayson, Sarah
Greene, Sharon Hagget, Daniel Hale, Jeremy Harrell, Brandon
Harrison, Heather Hatcher, Jenn Hatfield, Taylor Haulsee,
Crystal Hayslett, Faye Head.
William Heartsill, Alicia Hennie, Richard Hertling, John
Herzog, Laura (Lefler) Herzog, Kai Hirabayashi, Madison Hite,
Jessica Holliday, Alexanderia Honeycutt, Derek Horne,
Elizabeth Howell, Haley Hudler, Kara Huffstutter, Jones
Hussey, Jordan Hynes, Joel Igelhart, Neena Imam, Tom Ingram,
Charlotte Jackson, Patrick Jaynes.
Jill Jaynes, Jim Jeffries, Lora Jobe, Tonya Johnson,
Madeline Jurch, Nora Khalil, Lina Kilani, Kimberly
Kirkpatrick, Emily Kirlin, Katherine Knight, Bill Knudsen,
Hillary Knudson, Page Kranbuhl, Andrew LaCasse, Lesley
Landrum, Mary-Sumpter Lapinski, Trey Lefler, Jeff Lewis,
Bridget Lipscomb, Rachel Littleton.
Anne Locke, Brett Logan, Linda Long, Ryan Loskarn, Molly
Lukic, Nick Magallanes, Christina Mandreucci, Molly Marsh,
Misty Marshall, Allison Martin, David McAdam, Meghan McCully,
Paul McKernan, Mackensie (Burt) McKernan, Bobby McMillin,
Virginia (Heppner) McMillin, Kayla McMurry, Brett Meeks,
Michael Merrell, Will Meyer IV.
Latonya Miller, Meade Miller-Carlisle, Scot Montrey, Lana
Moore, Bob Moran, David Morgenstern, Jennifer Moroney, Nicole
Morse, Brandon Morton, Kim Morton, Jeff Muhs, Patrick Murray,
Katie Neal, Beth Nelson, Anna Newton, Laura Marks O'Brien,
Andrew Offenburger, Katie Oglesby, Peter Oppenheim, Tyler
Owens.
Mary Parkerson, Will Patterson, Debbie Paul, Megan
Paulsen, Austin Payne, Constance Payne, Laura Pence, Kelly
Perry,
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Morgan Petty, Melissa Pfaff, Charlie Phelps, Jr.; Lee Pitts,
Alexia Poe, Greg Proseus, Erin Reif, Brian Reisinger, Sarah
Rittling, John Rivard, Michelle Rodriguez, Adam Rondinone.
Kristin Rosa, Kristyn Royster, Marguerite (Sallee)
Kondracke, Bonnie Sansonetti, Sandra SawanLara, Conrad
Schatte, Lowell Schiller, Michael Schulz, Lauren (Davies)
Schwensen, Kelly Scott, Sharon Segner, Lindsey (Ward)
Seidman, Meyer Seligman, Erin Shea, Trina (Eager) Shiffman,
Tyler Shrive, Aliza (Fishbein) Silver, Tiffany Smith,
Kathleen Smith, LaShawnda Smith.
Rhonda Smithson, Charles Snodgrass, Matt Sonnesyn, Daniel
Soto, Kristin (Nelson) Spiridon, Riley Stamper, Daniel
Stanley, Matthew Stern, Deborah Sturdivant, Bill Sullivan,
Carey Sullivan, Curtis Swager, Caroline Taylor, Rhonda
Thames, Josh Thomas, Nathan Thomas, Kristi Thompson, Sean
Thurman, Kara Townsend, Diane Tran.
Bill Tucker, Harvey Valentine, Tim Valentine, Curtis Vann,
Matt Varino, Andy Vogt, Sandra Wade, Jack Wells, Marty West,
Mitch Whalen, Rob Wharton, Louann White, Donovan Whiteside,
Brent Wiles, Samantha Williams, Liz Wolgemuth, Mary
Wooldridge, Liz Wroe, Sharon Yecies, Alicyn York
Mr. ALEXANDER. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, first, let me join with so many of my
colleagues in wishing our distinguished friend and Senator from
Tennessee best wishes.
Thank you, Senator Alexander, for your incredible leadership and
working across the aisle. So many good things that you have talked
about are so meaningful to all of us. I appreciate the way you have
conducted yourself with the committees and with Members, and I have
enjoyed the opportunity to work with you. Electric vehicles didn't
quite get across the line this year with what we wanted to do in terms
of tax cuts, but I appreciate the chance to have been able to partner
with you. Certainly, I wish you the best in your next steps in work as
you end the year with your family. In whatever you do, I know you will
be very successful.
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