Jeff Flake: “Thank you very much to the Speaker of the House, to the minority leader [Mr. Gephardt], who did come to the district and…”

“Thank you very much to the Speaker of the House, to the minority leader [Mr. Gephardt], who did come to the district and visit with me at the school and with our people, to all of the leadership here and all of the Members of this body. Eleven years ago when I ran for Congress I said to the people of the Sixth District that I intend to go and stay from 10 to 12 years. When we conclude business in the next few days, it will be the end of the 11th year for me. I do not think you can come any closer to fulfilling a promise than that. I come as the product of a family who gave birth to 13 children, grew up in Houston, TX, in Sheila Jackson-Lee's district, grew up in a family where my father was a janitor all of his life. My mother was a housekeeper. My father would not allow her to work, but worked two jobs, three jobs, made us work from the time we were about 6 and 7 years old. By the time I was 6 I had my own paper route, and by the time I was 8, my mother had taught us how to cook and wash and iron and sew, so I had my own homes that I cleaned up every Saturday. By the time I was 13 I was busing tables at restaurants and waiting tables, and when I got ready to go to college, because of the size of the family, my family could not afford to give me a dime, but I told them I wanted to go, I could have gone to one of the Texas schools and run track, but chose to go away to a school where I could prepare for the ministry, having accepted the call at the age of 15.”