Asa Hutchinson: “I take a moment to pay my personal tribute to Paul Wellstone. Paul was a dear friend and someone for whom I had a great…”

“I take a moment to pay my personal tribute to Paul Wellstone. Paul was a dear friend and someone for whom I had a great deal of respect, someone with whom I enjoyed working. We served on the Health, Education, and Labor Committee together. We served on the Workforce Protections Subcommittee together. We had many opportunities to deal on differing positions, obviously, on that committee, but always with great congeniality and with a great deal of affection for one another. He and I were both in very heated reelection campaigns, very tight reelection campaigns, and oftentimes discussed before the adjournment our mutual desire to be able to campaign in our States. I share the grief of my colleagues in the loss we have all experienced, the State of Minnesota has experienced, along with his family and what they are enduring. We also look back with a great deal of joy at the life he lived and the contribution he made not only to his State, to his country, but to each one of our lives.”