[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Page 15714]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       COMMENDING SENATOR MERKLEY

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, it is now approaching 4 o'clock. The 
Presiding Officer has been in that chair since noon. That is a long 
time. I have sat there for a while but never as long as the Senator 
has--3 hours 40 minutes.
  I have commented in recent days about the brilliance of the Senator 
from Oregon and the speech he gave on health care. There have been a 
lot of good speeches, but no one has given a better, more informative 
speech than the Senator from Oregon. I say that without any 
qualification.
  The people from Oregon are fortunate to have the Senator from Oregon, 
Jeff Merkley. He is a wonderful human being, I say to everybody in 
Oregon--so well prepared, and he has extremely difficult committee 
assignments, which he handles with such confidence and grace. I 
appreciate very much the work he does for the State of Oregon and for 
our country.

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