[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 4070-4071]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  TRIBUTE TO SENATOR BARBARA MIKULSKI

  Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I join with the entire Senate family in 
congratulating my great friend, the distinguished senior Senator from 
Maryland, Barbara Mikulski, on becoming the longest serving female 
Member of Congress in our Nation's history. She reached that milestone 
recently, having served in Congress for 12,858 days--more than 35 
years--surpassing the previous longest serving Member of Congress, the 
late Representative Edith Nourse Rogers.
  Representative Rogers famously quipped, ``The first 30 years are the 
hardest.'' But I dare say that Senator Mikulski has had a somewhat 
different experience. As with other pathbreaking women, she has 
encountered sexism and discrimination. But from her first day in the 
House in 1977 right up to today, in her much respected role as dean of 
women Senators, Barbara Mikulski has been a singularly formidable and 
forceful public servant. Pity the Representative or Senator who has 
made the mistake of in any way underestimating this remarkable person.
  For three and a half decades in Congress, Barbara Mikulski has been 
an outspoken and proud progressive--a tireless advocate for quality 
public education, access to health care, and a strong safety net for 
those she calls ``the least of these our sisters and brothers''--
including the elderly, people with disabilities, and the poor. Her 
passion for social and economic justice was nurtured by the nuns who 
taught her at Catholic school in working-class east Baltimore.
  Senator Mikulski's legislative accomplishments are too numerous to 
cite here. But I am particularly grateful for the lead role that she 
played in early 2009 in passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay 
Restoration Act--the very first bill signed into law by President 
Obama. This law reversed an outrageous Supreme Court decision that 
allowed discrimination against women to go unpunished. But, as Senator 
Mikulski knows all too well, even the Lilly Ledbetter Act leaves in 
place an outrageous status quo where women are paid only 78 cents for 
every $1 that their male counterparts are paid. That is why she and I 
have continued to work closely together to advance the cause of equal 
pay. We are the respective leads on the two Democratic equal pay bills 
in the Senate.
  As chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, I 
want to pay special tribute to the extraordinary role she has long 
played on our committee.
  Senator Mikulski's legislative skills and leadership were critically 
important in crafting and passing the Patient Protection and Affordable 
Care Act 2 years ago--an achievement that she calls one of the 
``greatest social justice initiatives'' of our time. She led the team 
that wrote the quality title in the bill, insisting that higher quality 
care does not have to be higher cost care. Thanks to Senator Mikulski, 
the health care reform law includes a whole range of provisions that 
shift the emphasis--rewarding providers not for quantity of service but 
for quality of service. I would add that throughout the debate on 
health care reform and during the many months the bill was being 
written, Senator Mikulski was a fierce advocate for women's health and 
for ending the brazen discrimination against women by health insurance 
companies.
  On the HELP Committee, and also in her role as chair of the 
Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Legal Services Corporation, 
Senator Mikulski has been a great leader on another issue near and dear 
to my heart: legal services for the poor. She has fought hard--and it 
has always been an uphill struggle--to provide adequate funding so that 
people without resources are not barred from the courthouse door.
  Of course, Senator Mikulski has also been one of the Senate's leading 
proponents of national and community

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service. In 2009, she was the Senate manager for the Edward M. Kennedy 
Serve America Act, which retooled our national service programs for the 
21st century and provided expanded opportunities for young people to 
gain valuable skills and experience by helping neighbors in need.
  Let me share a brief anecdote that illustrates the remarkable role 
that Senator Mikulski plays in the body and the respect that she 
commands among her colleagues. We all remember the debate, in late 
February, on the Blunt amendment, which would have allowed employers to 
deny health insurance coverage for contraception. In my role as chair 
of the HELP Committee, I was invited to attend a press conference in 
the LBJ Room of the Capitol organized by Senator Mikulski to speak out 
against the amendment. Let me tell you, this was a remarkable event. 
Senator Mikulski spoke first, with tremendous power and passion. One by 
one, other Senators spoke--women who, over the decades, have been 
counseled and mentored by Senator Mikulski: Senator Patty Murray of 
Washington, Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California, 
and Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. Senator Mikulski's 
message, echoed by the other Senators, was characteristically loud and 
clear: Decisions about medical care should be made by a woman and her 
doctor, not a woman and her boss. Needless to say, Senator Mikulski 
carried the day; the amendment was defeated.
  Other Senators have noted Senator Mikulski's many firsts, including 
the first woman elevated to a leadership position in the Senate. I 
would simply add that Barbara Mikulski is also first when it comes to a 
Senator being true to her roots, a fierce and effective champion for 
her State and passionate fighter for social and economic justice. 
Again, I salute the Senator on reaching the historic milestone as the 
longest serving female Member of Congress, and I wish her many more 
years of distinguished service to our Nation.

                          ____________________