On the recordOctober 16, 2013
Madam President, I join my colleague Senator Pryor. I don't think any of us had planned to do anything coordinated at this point in time. I came to the floor and was anticipating the announcement from both leaders. But I see so many of our colleagues who have been working on this proposal with Senator Collins from Maine. She has truly been remarkable in her persistence and insistence that we continue this effort to work collegially, to work collaboratively on these very difficult issues that we have been facing these past several weeks. I thank Senator Collins for her leadership most particularly, but we all know, if you are trying to move the ball, just one person, you don't get anywhere. We do a lot of sports analogies around here. Honestly, I am tired of the sports analogies. But what I do appreciate is that as a Senate we cannot work together as individuals and expect to accomplish the work that is needed, not only for my constituents in Alaska but around the country. Regardless of who is in the majority or who is in the minority, in order to make it work for the country we have to be working together. As difficult as all this has been in the past several weeks, what I found encouraging is there has been a nucleus of folks who would come together as the need arose, or perhaps just for a little moral support, and continued the effort to try to find common ground. We went from a small group to a group of six on each side to a group of seven on each side.…
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