[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 215 (Friday, December 18, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7648-S7649]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO PHIL MAXSON

  Mr. McCONNELL. Now, on a completely different matter, Mr. President,

[[Page S7649]]

I jump at any opportunity to praise my incredible staff. I am just 
sorry that one natural occasion is when great people head toward the 
exits.
  Phil Maxson of Lexington, KY, has mastered one of the toughest jobs 
on Capitol Hill. As chief of staff for my personal office, he oversees 
the operation that delivers for Kentucky families and Kentucky 
priorities.
  Here is what that role means in our tight-knit organization. It is 
like being the player-coach on an old baseball team who is also a 
utility player at the same time. Phil wears about 10 hats each day, 
orchestrating a seamless operation. He has mastered policy, political 
strategy, messaging, and constituent services. He has budgeted and 
managed the office itself, and Phil is also a liaison and colleague to 
my leadership office here in the Capitol.
  He is the linkage between the two sides of my operation, the single 
person most responsible for helping me harmonize home-State priorities 
with my national duties and keep the Commonwealth at the center of all 
I do. It is a tall order. It takes the best of the best, someone who is 
so capable that every important issue will involve them, but so humble 
that situations never become about them. Enter Phil Maxson--a kind, 
cheerful, and unbelievably confident servant leader whom I am convinced 
nobody in this planet dislikes.
  Phil climbed the Capitol Hill ladder the old-fashioned way. He joined 
my team as an intern a decade ago. Actually, I think Phil may have 
snuck a late application into a last-minute opening. If I am right 
about that, then his good fortune was ours as well.
  He has done every job: legislative correspondent, legislative 
assistant, legislative director, and then the top spot.
  As one of his old bosses reminded me recently, ``every time a gap in 
the office appeared, Phil was the natural choice'' to fill it. It is 
not like he elbowed his way up. It is that circumstances and our needs 
kept pulling him up. He is that good.
  For the past decade, Phil has walked into every meeting, every 
markup, every normal day at the office, and every grueling far-flung 
codel with total preparation, complete professionalism, and the score 
of the latest UK game.
  Another former supervisor of his put it this way: ``I don't think I 
ever asked Phil a single question he didn't already know the answer to, 
or didn't find the answer within about 10 minutes.'' That is high 
praise when your portfolio ranges from U.S.-Burma relations to the 
BUILD grants that improve our roads and everything in between.
  It helps that Phil is a Kentucky thoroughbred through and through. 
The man really is ``dyed in the bluegrass.'' As a young man in 
Lexington, he found part-time work giving tours at Henry Clay's Ashland 
estate. He also graduated from Henry Clay High School.
  You could say the Senate was a natural destination. Here, he met UK 
Coach Calipari, President Netanyahu, and families from Kentucky's 
smallest towns. And they all got exactly the same attention, 
enthusiasm, and warmth from Phil Maxson.
  He clicks with everyone. He is as affable as he is intelligent. In a 
town full of big egos and sharp elbows, he stands out because he 
doesn't try to stand out.
  For the better part of a decade, virtually every significant win we 
have notched for our Commonwealth has had Phil at its nucleus. But if 
you drop by the staff meeting the day after, what you would hear is 
Phil explaining why everyone else deserves more credit than he does, 
why it really all came down to my leadership or his peers' efforts or 
the hard work of the junior folks beneath him--in other words, everyone 
else but him.
  You would have to go to everyone else to learn that Phil was the 
human glue that, in fact, held it all together. It would take me all 
day to list every win Phil helped quarterback for our home State: a 
state-of-the-art chemical weapons destruction facility in Madison 
County, the transfer of the Rochester Dam to local ownership, a new 
wildlife refuge in Henderson County, environmental cleanup and health 
benefits for nuclear workers in Paducah, the planned construction of a 
new VA hospital in Louisville, Freedom to Fish and the raising of Lake 
Cumberland, and many, many more.
  But, alas, his dedication to Kentucky is so all-encompassing that he 
and his wife Sarah Beth have decided they don't want to raise their 
young family anywhere else.
  So ``Bee and Phil on Capitol Hill''--as friends have called them--
plus their two boys, Barbour and Theodore, are homeward bound.
  I made the same decision myself as a young man, trading in the life 
of a Senate staffer for a move back home. So I can't exactly fault his 
decision.
  Phil needs to spend fewer breakfasts and dinners with me and more 
with his own burgeoning clan. I get it, but I am sure sorry to see him 
go.
  Phil is the kind of Senate all-star who deserves a full-dress curtain 
call. He deserves toasts and a dinner and a big farewell party. I 
regret that in these bizarre pandemic times, a floor speech will have 
to suffice, at least right now.
  So, Phil, thank you for your years of dedication to the State we both 
love. We will miss your brain. We will miss your heart. You are leaving 
behind one heck of a fan club all throughout the U.S. Senate. We wish 
you all the best in the chapters ahead.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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