[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18082-18083]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO MICHAEL ALEXANDER

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the nearly 
quarter of a century of public service of my friend and the staff 
director of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, 
Michael L. Alexander.
  Mike will be leaving his position when this Congress adjourns. And he 
will leave quite a legacy.
  Thomas Jefferson once asked the question: ``What duty does a citizen 
owe to the government that secures the society in which he lives?'' 
Answering his own question, Jefferson said: ``A nation that rests on 
the will of the people must also depend on individuals to support its 
institutions if it is to flourish. Persons qualified for public service 
should feel an obligation to make that contribution.''
  Mike answered that call in a way that would have made Jefferson 
proud.
  Mike joined what was then the Governmental Affairs Committee as a 
staff member for the minority side in April 2001 and was a leader in 
negotiating and drafting the legislation that created the Department of 
Homeland Security and later the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism 
Prevention Act.
  In recognition of his hard work and proven leadership abilities, I 
promoted Mike to the position of staff director in May 2006. Under his 
direction, the committee, through legislation and investigation, took 
on some of the great challenges of our time.
  After Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast in August 2005, 
claiming more than 1,800 lives, the committee launched a major 
investigation into how American government at all levels failed so 
dramatically to safeguard its citizens from a predicted storm. Over the 
course of the investigation, the committee held 22 hearings, 
interviewed 345 witnesses, and reviewed over 800,000 documents. The, 
``Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared,'' was the most 
comprehensive evaluation of the Katrina catastrophe.
  In 2007, the committee began a series of 14 hearings examining the 
root causes of violent domestic radicalization, the tactics and 
measures used by U.S. law enforcement at every level to prevent and 
deter homegrown terrorism, the role of the Internet in self 
radicalization, and the threat of homegrown terrorism to military 
personnel.
  In May 2008, the committee issued a bipartisan staff report detailing 
the results of its investigation entitled, ``Violent Islamist 
Extremism, The Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat.'' The 
report concluded that: ``No longer is the threat just from abroad, as 
was the case with the attacks of September 11, 2001; the threat is now 
increasingly from within, from homegrown terrorists who are inspired by 
violent Islamist ideology to plan and execute attacks where they live. 
One of the primary drivers of this new threat is the use of the 
Internet to enlist individuals or groups of individuals to join the 
cause without ever affiliating with a terrorist organization.''
  Following the murders at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009, when Maj. Nidal 
Hasan--a psychiatrist trained by the U.S. Army at taxpayer expense 
entered the Soldier Readiness Processing Center with two loaded pistols 
and opened fire, killing 13 and wounding 32, the committee launched a 
14-month investigation into what happened and why.
  The report that followed the investigation--``A Ticking Time Bomb: 
Counterterrorism Lessons from the U.S. Government's Failure to Prevent 
the Fort Hood Attack''--detailed flawed practices and communications, 
both within and between the FBI and Department of Defense, that allowed 
Hasan to remain in the military--and even be promoted--despite many 
warning signs that he was becoming dangerous.
  Besides the investigations, here are just a few of the successful 
pieces of legislation that were passed out of the committee and enacted 
into law on Mike's watch: The ``Post-Katrina Emergency Management 
Reform Act of 2006,'' which remade and strengthened the Federal 
Emergency Management Agency after the failures in responding to 
Hurricane Katrina; the ``Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 
2007,'' which made sweeping ethics and lobbying reforms; the 
``Implementing the Recommendations of the

[[Page 18083]]

9/11 Commission Act of 2007,'' which strengthened the Nation's security 
against terrorism by providing first responders with the resources they 
need to protect their communities from disaster, promoting 
interoperable emergency communications, requiring screening of cargo 
placed on passenger aircraft, securing mass transit, rail and buses; 
and improving the security of maritime cargo; ``The Inspector General 
Reform Act,'' passed in 2008, which sought to improve government 
accountability by guaranteeing that qualified individuals are appointed 
as IGs and that IGs remain independent; ``The Presidential Appointment 
Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011'' that addresses the 
increasingly slow and burdensome appointments process by, among other 
things, removing about 170 non-policymaking positions from the list of 
Presidential appointments requiring Senate confirmation, thereby 
allowing the Senate to focus on the most important positions; and the 
Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge, STOCK Act, that ensures that 
Members of Congress are subject to the same insider information 
prohibitions as other Americans.
  It is quite a record of accomplishment. And he did it all with a 
wonderful sense of humor, patience and civility.
  Mr. President, I want to return to Thomas Jefferson for a moment, 
because he had another thought on public service that sums up one of 
Mike's greatest assets--spotting talent in young people and convincing 
them to use those talents in public service.
  Jefferson once wrote to a friend: ``It will remain . . . to those now 
coming on the stage of public affairs to perfect what has been so well 
begun by those going off it.''
  Mike may be leaving the Senate, but he leaves behind a cadre of 
talented and diverse individuals he recruited to join the committee and 
then gave increased responsibilities as their talents began to flower.
  Many of these people who started out as interns or junior support 
staffers, have moved up the committee ranks, working on important 
legislation and investigations, while others have gone on to other 
Congressional or executive branch offices thanks to the skills Mike 
helped them develop.
  Prior to joining the committee, Mike served as an Executive Assistant 
to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy and had also been Espy's 
Legislative Director when Espy was a Congressman.
  One of the joys of my Senate career was the chance to work with 
talented and dedicated public servants like Michael Alexander and I 
want to thank him for all his hard work and wish him the best of luck 
in whatever his next endeavor may be.

                          ____________________