[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16549-16552]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         FAREWELL TO THE SENATE

  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, as our office is winding down from my Senate 
term beginning this week, the field offices in Virginia ceased their 
functioning, and it is going to be my pleasure later on today to host a 
lunch for all my staff and to thank them for the work they have done. I 
just want to take this opportunity to talk about why I have said so 
many times since I came to the Senate that my greatest legacy will be 
the work of our staff.
  When I first came to the Senate, people were asking: Will you be 
remembered for the GI bill if you get it done--which we did--or maybe 
some great transportation project or something of that sort? I said: 
No, the most important thing a leader can do is to bring good people 
around him or her and to work them to the full extent of their capacity 
and then to provide them the opportunity to grow professionally in the 
spirit in which we have worked together.
  It is not going to surprise the Presiding Officer or anyone else when 
I say the greatest learning experience for me in that regard was when I 
served as a rifle platoon and company commander in the U.S. Marine 
Corps. When we were in training to go to Vietnam, we got a lecture from 
a battle-hardened lieutenant colonel who fought as an enlisted marine 
in World War II, rifle platoon commander in Korea, and then as a 
battalion commander in Vietnam.
  One of the things he said to us was, You may carry a side arm, you 
may carry a 45 pistol, you may carry an M-16 rifle, but a Marine 
officer is only successful if he fights with his marines. It is the 
same concept here. A person is no better as a leader than the people he 
or she leads. We worked hard on our staff for 6 years to find the most 
talented people in America, to work them to their full capacity, to 
instill in them my personal views of the principles of leadership and 
the philosophy of governance which are at the core of what I wanted to 
bring to the Senate, and I believe we did that.
  We started with Paul Reagan and Kathy Wilmoth. Paul Reagan, my chief 
of staff, is a veteran with 25 years of Democratic politics and 
governance inside Virginia. He worked for Congressman Rick Boucher. He 
worked for Jim Moran as his chief of staff. He worked for two other 
Members of Congress, and he had been the communications director with 
Mark Warner when he was Governor. We were what some people would call 
the political odd couple early on. Paul was a master of every detail 
inside Virginia politics. My experience for many years had been on the 
national level of policy. We worked very hard to screen every single 
applicant to make sure these were people who met the standards we were 
trying to put into place.
  Kathy Wilmoth, in my view, is something of a legend here. She became 
our office director. She knows every Capitol Hill policeman. She 
probably knows every person sitting here working on the Senate floor. 
She is an absolute gold star administrator. Before she came to work for 
us, she worked for Senators John and Lincoln Chafee. When I was a 25-
year-old marine, I worked on Senator John Chafee's staff when he was 
Secretary of the Navy. I know I am biased, but I would challenge anyone 
to rebut that we have had the best run staff on Capitol Hill.
  We set up a communications shop. We had Jessica Smith and Kimberly 
Hunter, two very talented and invaluable communicators, who understood 
the job was not simply to respond to media requests but to proactively 
explain what we were doing, what our purposes were, what our goals 
were, and what the philosophical approach we were taking happened to be 
to local and national media rather than simply entertaining interview 
requests and those sorts of things.
  On the State level, we were able to have Conaway Haskins and Louise 
Ware. They set up the State administrative structure. We were 
constantly able to listen and respond to the needs and to the opinions 
of people throughout this extraordinarily complex demographic 
jurisdiction that is the Commonwealth of Virginia.
  Sometimes we forget about what happens on these phones in our offices 
when we are off in our meetings. The people who have run our phones and 
have done our casework at times have astounded me. We go back to the 
votes on health care reform. We know all the debates that were going on 
here. We took a count in our office, and we received--just in our 
office--226,000 pieces of advice just on health care reform; in fact, a 
total of 300,000 pieces of communication on that debate of which 
approximately 50.1 percent of the people who called in to us may have 
been happy with the eventual vote that I

[[Page 16550]]

took. But I could walk out of the office when that was going on and I 
could see the young people on those phones and see how battered they 
often were, from the advice which, quite frankly, wasn't always 
pleasantly given.
  With respect to casework, I had the great pleasure and unique 
experience when I was 25 years old, on the Secretary of the Navy's 
staff, of how to do casework. It opened my eyes to how many people 
there are in this country who simply don't know how to open the door to 
get their needs solved by the government that has set its requirements 
on them. I did this for John Chafee when he was Secretary of the Navy, 
and I did it for John Warner when he was Secretary of the Navy. I 
strongly emphasized to the people who handled our casework what an 
important job it was they were doing.
  In the time we have been in the Senate, our staff has resolved more 
than 40,000 personal cases. More than 40,000 people who had not known, 
in many cases, even how to approach their government have received 
personal assistance that has helped them solve other problems in their 
lives. In fact, Andrea Trotter, JoAnn Pulliam, Debra Lawson, Gwen 
Sigda, and Debby Burroughs are on our staff, and each one of them 
resolved more than 3,000 cases during the time I have been in the 
Senate.
  On legislative and political issues I would say that before I came to 
the Senate, I made promises on the campaign trail and we kept those 
promises. The greatest achievements, in my view, during this term were 
made right out of our office, not because we were responding to the 
suggestions of some committee work or from the executive branch saying 
they wanted something, but because we continually made suggestions to 
those committees and to the executive branch about what we thought 
needed to be done.
  My first day in office I introduced a new GI bill. I had talked about 
it for years. The logic was very simple. These people who had been 
serving since 9/11 deserved the same chance at a first class future as 
those who had served during World War II. Within 16 months, with the 
strong support, by the way, of Leader Reid, we were able to pass this 
legislation, the most important piece of veterans legislation since 
World War II.
  Most of that effort, again, came directly out of our office from the 
work of people on our personal staff, led by Mike Sozan, who at that 
time was our legislative director and has since moved on to be the 
chief of staff for Senator Mark Udall.
  We said during my campaign and after I got here that the United 
States desperately needs to reform its criminal justice system. We have 
5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's 
prison population. If we ask the average American, two-thirds of them 
will tell us they feel less safe in their own community than they did a 
year ago. It is not a political issue. To me, it has always been a 
personal issue, a leadership issue. I was warned when I first started 
raising this issue in Virginia 7 years ago that this could actually 
kill my political campaign. It didn't. People responded.
  So since I was not on the Judiciary Committee, we worked on this 
legislation to create a national commission to examine all the aspects 
of the criminal justice system, and we did it right out of our office, 
with Doug Ierley being the point person for the entire country to get 
this debate going in a way that it hadn't been debated before. We met 
in our own office with more than 100 different organizations in our 
conference room. We had a bill a little more than a year ago that 
reached the floor of this Senate.
  I would ask the Presiding Officer or any of my other colleagues when 
is the last time they have seen a criminal justice bill endorsed by--I 
have two pages of organizational endorsements--the National Sheriffs 
Association, the Marijuana Project, the Fraternal Order of Police, the 
International Association of Chiefs of Police, the ACLU, and the 
Sentencing Project. We got a buy-in from across the philosophical 
spectrum for a mere $14 million commission where we could receive the 
advice from the experts in this country on an issue that we have not 
received their advice on since the 1960s.
  One of the great disappointments of my time here has been the fact 
that this simple, sensible piece of legislation was filibustered. We 
got 57 votes on it. For some reason, the people on the other side of 
the aisle decided this shouldn't happen. We did get four votes from the 
other side of the aisle. Even the National Review, which is one of the 
most conservative magazines in the country, said filibustering this 
piece of legislation was ``insane.''
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at this time 
the endorsers of that legislation for the historical record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   Criminal Justice Bill Endorsements

       Innocence Project; National Sheriffs' Association; NAACP; 
     ACLU; Fraternal Order of Police; American Bar Association; 
     International Association of Chiefs of Police; Sentencing 
     Project; Families Against Mandatory Minimums; National 
     Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators; American 
     Probation and Parole Association; National Association of 
     Evangelicals; American Society of Victimology; Colorado 
     Organization for Victim Assistance; International Community 
     Corrections Association; International Organization for 
     Victim Assistance; Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD); 
     National Association of Crime Victim Compensation Boards; 
     National Center for Victims of Crime; National Children's 
     Alliance.
       National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center; 
     National Organization for Victim Assistance; The Renee 
     Olubunmi Rondeau Peace Foundation; Legal Action Center; 
     Correctional Education Association; Middle Atlantic States 
     Correctional Association; Mennonite Central Committee; Safer 
     Foundation; Just Detention International; Justice Policy 
     Institute; Law Enforcement Against Prohibition; Union for 
     Reform Judaism; Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights; Church 
     of Scientology; United Methodist Church, General Board of 
     Church and Society; American Humanist Association; National 
     Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd; Healing 
     Communities Prison Ministry and Prisoner Reentry Project; 
     Marijuana Policy Project; Citizens United for the 
     Rehabilitation of Errants (CURE).
       National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws; 
     Corporation for Supportive Housing; National Employment Law 
     Project; United Church of Christ/Justice and Witness 
     Ministries; National African American Drug Policy Coalition, 
     Inc; American Probation and Parole Association; Women of 
     Reform Judaism; Students for Sensible Drug Policy; The 
     Fortune Society; Black Law Enforcement in America; 
     Therapeutic Communities of America; National Treatment 
     Accountability for Safer Communities; National Association of 
     Criminal Defense Lawyers; The Leadership Conference on Civil 
     and Human Rights; National Association for the Advancement of 
     Colored People; National Association of Social Workers; 
     NETWORK--A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby; Community 
     Action Partnership; Safe Streets Arts Foundation; November 
     Coalition; TASH--Equity, Opportunity and Inclusion for People 
     with Disabilities; Drug Policy Alliance; American Civil 
     Liberties Union; National Council of La Raza; National 
     Association of Evangelicals; National Alliance of Faith and 
     Justice; The Episcopal Church; National Gay and Lesbian Task 
     Force Action Fund.

  We have had a lot of discussion over the last 6 years about the so-
called pivot to Asia. I will say as someone who has spent a great deal 
of time in and out of east Asia that this pivot was heavily influenced 
by the actions, again, taken directly out of our office. We looked for 
people to come and work with us who had expertise and the intellect to 
work not only on the Hill, not only with Members of Congress, and not 
only with the State Department, but with our embassies around the 
world, with foreign leaders, with validators, to take a different 
approach and to refocus the energy of the United States on this most 
vital part of the world. David Bonine, Marta McLellan Ross, Gordon 
Peterson, and Philip Brady were among them.
  Our many visits to this part of the world sometimes included five 
countries in 2 weeks, traveling solely via commercial air rather than 
with military codel support, and included repeated meetings with the 
top leadership of countries such as Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, 
Singapore, Indonesia, and Burma, all of which represent the future of 
the United States in terms of trade, security, and cultural growth in 
the coming decades.
  With respect to Burma, it was a great moment for me to be able to sit 
down

[[Page 16551]]

with and see Aung San Suu Kyi, recognized by the Congress a month or so 
ago, coming to this country as an elected member of their Parliament. 
We began the change in that relationship directly from our office based 
on work I had begun and become interested in over a period of 6 years 
before I was elected to the Senate.
  I am very proud to say we laid the groundwork for a historic visit in 
2009 from inside our office--often, I would say, against the will and 
against the advice of our own State Department. We used validators. We 
talked to people we knew in the region. I became the only American 
leader ever to meet with GEN Than Shwe, the leader of the military 
junta, to express my belief that we could work forward and have a 
different relationship. We met with Aung San Suu Kyi. I hope those who 
had some doubts about the wisdom of opening this relationship now can 
see the benefits as we are seeing the political situation beginning to 
truly change in Burma.
  We worked heavily with Japan. This is a critical yet often overlooked 
relationship. It involved an effort to resolve basing issues on Okinawa 
that don't always get the attention they deserve in the Congress but 
have at times absolutely paralyzed the political debate inside Japan. 
Ironically, I first began working on these issues as a military planner 
in 1974 after I left the Marine Corps and was in law school. Our staff 
has met--and I have been a part of most of these meetings--with more 
than 70 delegations from Japan, in our office, organized and conducted 
by our staff.
  In Korea, we led an effort to bring Democratic Senators onboard to 
support the critical free-trade agreement that is so important not only 
to our bilateral relations but to the signals of the United States in 
that part of the world, and we began what I believe is something of a 
pioneering effort to get Korea and Japan to come together at the table 
to realize their common security interests.
  As to Vietnam, I have visited and worked inside Vietnam for 18 out of 
the last 21 years in addition to having served there as a marine, I 
would say.
  I fought in Vietnam because I believed in the importance of that 
country to our relationships in Asia. I have spent a great deal of 
energy for more than 30 years now in an effort to heal the final wound 
of that war, which is the relationship between our Vietnamese community 
here in the United States and the government inside Vietnam.
  We have worked in Thailand, Singapore, Laos. I was the first American 
Senator to visit Laos in 7 years, the first Member of Congress to visit 
Cambodia in 2 years when we visited Indonesia. We worked hard on the 
sovereignty and maritime issues in the South China Sea. We initiated 
and sponsored two important Senate resolutions regarding China's recent 
aggression in the South China Sea. Again, we initiated this from the 
staff members in our office.
  I could go on. Let me just say that the other areas--important 
areas--that our staff has worked on in the past 6 years include our 
pioneering work in economic fairness, the need for stronger programs in 
the area of adult education, the efforts from inside our office to 
encourage a full spectrum of energy development, the preservation of 
Civil War battlefields, and the vital need to rebalance the 
constitutional relationship between the Congress and the Presidency, 
which I have pursued in both administrations that have been in office 
while I have been a Member of the U.S. Senate.
  Mr. President, at this point, because I really will not have time to 
list all of the contributions by my staff members, I ask unanimous 
consent that the names and the positions of my staff members be printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       Kathryn M. Wilmoth, Administrative Director
       Staff Arthur B. Scott Assistant to the Chief of Staff
       Colin MacDermott, Assistant to the Chief of the Staff
       Will Jenkins, Communications Director
       Heather Fluit, Communications Director
       Jessica A. Smith, Communications Director
       Rafael Anderson, Constituent Correspondence Manager
       Verna (Tina) Graham, Danville Caseworker
       Lisa Marie Stark, Director of Scheduling
       Melissa Bruns, Director of Scheduling
       Carolyn D. Walser, Executive Assistant
       Nadia S. Naviwala, Legislative Aide
       Ann M. Vallandingham, Legislative Assistant on Veterans 
     Affairs
       Doug Ierley, Legislative Assistant and Counsel on Economic 
     Issues
       Gordon I. Peterson, Legislative Assistant for Defense
       Ali Nouri, Legislative Assistant for Energy
       Trent D. Bauserman, Legislative Assistant for Energy and 
     Environment
       Juliet M. Beyler, Legislative Assistant for Veterans 
     Affairs
       Courtney L. Weaver, Legislative Assistant on Energy
       Trevor L. Dean, Legislative Assistant on Environment-
     Transportation
       Marta McLellan Ross, Legislative Assistant on Foreign 
     Relations
       Jennifer Park Stout, Legislative Assistant on Foreign 
     Relations
       Ann M. Vallandingham, Legislative Assistant on Veterans 
     Affairs
       William Edwards, Legislative Assistant on Veterans Affairs
       Maribel Ramos, Legislative Assistant on Women's Issues, 
     Indian Affairs, Immigration
       Patrick Day, Legislative Correspondent
       Amy E. Hensley, Legislative Correspondent
       Ashleigh Owens, Legislative Correspondent
       Jacob E. Terrell, Legislative Correspondent
       Jacqueline R. Ball, Legislative Correspondent
       Jennifer Ann Bryant, Legislative Correspondent
       John L. (Luke) Principato, Legislative Correspondent
       Kyle Grantier, Legislative Correspondent
       Nathan D. Buniva, Legislative Correspondent
       Olivia N. Marshall, Legislative Correspondent
       Sara Brown, Legislative Correspondent
       Will Rosenthal, Legislative Correspondent
       Nelson M. Jones, III, Legislative Director and Counsel on 
     Judiciary
       David N. Bonine, Legislative Director
       Michael L. Sozan, Legislative Director
       Regan Gwyn Dutton, Norton Caseworker Director
       Gwen Sidga, NOVA Casework Director
       Matthew Scott Lucas, NOVA Casework
       Barrett Kinsella, NOVA Caseworker
       Kali A. Matalon, NOVA Caseworker
       Tuy Q. Le, Outreach Staff
       Anne Elizabeth Hughes, Press Assistant
       S. Logan Gibson, Press Assistant
       Allison H. Jaslow, Press Secretary
       Kimberly Hunter, Press Secretary
       A. Nicholas Cohen, Richmond Caseworker
       Hope L. Elliott-Murphy, Richmond Caseworker
       Justin Jennings, Richmond Caseworker
       Joann B. Pulliam, Richmond-Deputy State Director
       Deborah R. Burroughs, Richmond-Director of Casework
       Conaway B. Haskins, III, Richmond-State Office Director
       Louise F. Ware, Richmond-State Office Director
       Linda C. Williams, Richmond-State Office Manager
       Frederick W. Hutchins, Jr, Roanoke Caseworker
       Brittany A. Brown, Scheduler
       Jessica VandenBerg, Staff Assistant
       Martin Mash, Special Projects Manager
       Cody Huffman, Staff Assistant
       Erin Raymond, Staff Assistant
       Gregory Willett, Staff Assistant
       Hope W. Hurley, Staff Assistant
       Jada Greenhowe, Staff Assistant
       Jonathan Shields, Staff Assistant
       Kevin Franklin, Staff Assistant
       Liza Bray, Staff Assistant
       Mary E. Humphreys, Staff Assistant
       Russell M. Rivers, Staff Assistant
       Sarah Broadwater, Staff Assistant
       Daniel L. Gonzales, Systems Administrator
       Joe G. Gallo, Systems Administrator
       Andrea R. Trotter, Virginia Beach Caseworker
       Charles F. Stanton, Virginia Beach Caseworker
       Emily V. Mazich, Virginia Beach Caseworker
       Jeanne S. Evans, Virginia Beach Field Representative
       Joel R. Alvarenga, Staff Assistant
       Michael (Mack) McGarvey, Legislative Assistant on Veterans 
     Affairs
       Amy Reiter, Strategic Planning Coordinator
       Phillip F. Thompson, Executive Assistant
       Debra T. Lawson, Roanoke Casework Director
       Evan Chapman, Staff Assistant
       Michael Mazzuto, Staff Assistant
       Steven D. Le, Staff Assistant
       Darryl Holt, Richmond Caseworker
       Kimberly A. Hunter, Press Secretary
       Philip O. Brady, Counselor
       Emily Zuelzer, Legislative Aide
       Will Wyche, Staff Assistant
       Ryan Kennedy, Staff Assistant

[[Page 16552]]

       McKenzie Bennett, Legislative Aide
       Adam Schiff, Legislative Aide

  Mr. WEBB. So to my staff, a heartfelt thanks, and to each of those 
who have served with us, I say again, thank you for your contributions 
to our staff and, most importantly, to our country. And I say also 
again that I will continue to expect great things from you in the 
future. You are my legacy. Never forget that the people you might have 
the honor of leading as you move forward in your careers, wherever you 
end up, will someday become your legacy.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown of Ohio). The senior Senator from 
New Mexico is recognized.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, I want to first, of course, commend the 
Senator from Virginia for his great leadership here in the Senate on a 
whole range of issues. He has served with great distinction here, and 
it has been an honor for me to serve with him. So I congratulate him on 
the various issues he discussed and the various issues he has worked 
on. I have had the good fortune to work and support his efforts on many 
of those issues.

                          ____________________