[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 104 (Thursday, June 20, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4169-S4170]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Tribute to Michelle Altman

  Mr. President, I was first elected to the House of Representatives in 
2010. I had no political background at all--none. I was a voter and a 
youth pastor. I was someone who loved our country and felt called to 
this task. When I ran for election, we figured out everything we could 
all the way through the campaign time period, trying to figure out what 
to do and what to do next.
  I was elected in 2010 by the folks in Central Oklahoma to represent 
the Fifth District of Oklahoma in the House of Representatives. In 
November, I came up for orientation, and I started doing interviews to 
try to figure out who were going to be staff for this very green Member 
of Congress that was walking in.
  There was a group of folks I met with over a couple of days to be 
able to interview. One of them--her name was Michelle Altman. She had 
already worked on the Hill. She had worked for

[[Page S4170]]

my predecessor, Mary Fallin. She had done a great job there. She worked 
as a staff assistant. That is the person answering the phones. That is 
the entry-level position into the office.
  She graduated from college and determined that she wanted to be able 
to serve our country. She came to Washington, DC, worked for a Member 
of Congress she didn't know at that time at all, and landed her first 
job on the Hill and went to work.
  Michelle Altman, one of my very first hires that I had as a brandnew 
House Member in 2010, is now leaving my staff as my chief of staff. She 
has literally worked her way through the office, from answering the 
phones at the front desk all the way to being in the top leadership 
position on my team.
  In supervising individuals on my team, she knows how to supervise all 
of them because she has done just about every task in the office. She 
continues to be able to work and to engage with people to be able to 
mentor and help others in the office be better at what they do. It is a 
gift to every young staff member that comes in to be able to have 
somebody that knows what they are talking about and has a passion for 
my State of Oklahoma.
  She knows half the people in my State of 4 million people, and she 
gets to interact with people on the phone. She tracks what is happening 
in the news. Although she lives up here, she stays in close contact 
with what is actually happening in my State of Oklahoma. She has loved 
the State of Oklahoma and served in ways that Oklahomans will never 
know in the tasks that she has taken on for now the last 14 years in 
serving alongside of me.
  She is tenaciously competitive. She is a person that plays golf and 
wants to be able to win. She is an avid horseback rider and loves to be 
able to get on her horse. If she is going to escape from the craziness 
of Washington, DC, it is going to be riding a horse somewhere.
  She also is quite a shot with a shotgun as well. My team--when we get 
together on our staff retreats, we will often do trap shooting or skeet 
shooting. When we get out there, we will do a competition among all of 
our staff. So when all of our staff--both from instate and Washington, 
DC--all compete for the best shots, it often ends up Michelle and I end 
up in the very final round, and I am not embarrassed to tell you that 
in the final rounds, she has beaten me before in trap and skeet 
shooting.
  She is tenaciously competitive but also incredibly gregarious. She 
loves to study policy. She loves to engage in the politics of the 
conversation. I am also not afraid to be able to note that she knows 
politics better than I do. She is a student of how things actually move 
and has done a great job.
  She knows the lyrics to every song, but don't ask her to quote a 
single movie--she can't tell you. In fact, at one point, among all of 
our staff, there was this ongoing dialogue about different quotes from 
the movie ``Princess Bride'' that just moved among our staff for a 
couple of months, different random statements from the movie ``The 
Princess Bride,'' and she had a blank stare long enough that one of us 
looked at her and said: You have never seen this, have you? She had to 
admit that she had never seen the movie ``The Princess Bride.'' So I 
literally brought her a copy--this was an old-school DVD--and handed it 
to her and said: Your assignment as my chief of staff is to watch ``The 
Princess Bride'' this weekend and come back and give me a report on the 
movie. She now understands all of the jokes among the staff on the 
movie ``The Princess Bride.''

  She has been through a countless number of vote-aramas, BRACs. She 
was here during the Affordable Care Act conversation, debate, fiscal 
cliffs, debt ceiling, an endless number of late-night votes where all 
they could do was watch us here on the floor as they were back in the 
office, trying to be able to track everything going on.
  I am grateful to have had a chief of staff that has worked so hard, 
so remarkably for the State of Oklahoma and has been a person that has 
been able to be beside me for years now.
  She is leaving. She is starting a consulting firm. Her skills will 
still be used to be able to support the Nation and the task at hand. I 
know Michelle's faith. She will be a person that will continue to walk 
with God and follow God's leadership in the days ahead as she follows 
what she sensed as a calling to be able to do.
  But I have been grateful to be able to have the time, and my State of 
Oklahoma is grateful to Michelle Altman for what she has taken on for 
the sake of our State and the Nation.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Peters). The Senator from Texas.