Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. Keating. I thank you for yielding. I thank you and Mr. Capuano and the members of the Massachusetts delegation for bringing us together to honor a wonderful friend to all of us. Mr. Speaker, in late 1979, the legendary Congressman Joseph Moakley, a colleague to many of us who had the privilege to call him ``colleague,'' ran into the son of a friend and former colleague, Leo Sullivan, in Boston. He knew that the young Boston State College student had served as a page on Beacon Hill and had an interest in public service. He suggested that it was time for this young man to travel to our Nation's Capital to serve in Congress, led by another Massachusetts legend, Speaker Tip O'Neill. That young man was and is Barry Sullivan. When he arrived in Washington the following March, he thought he would spend just a few years here before returning to his beloved South Boston. Thirty-three years later, he will finally leave his post in the Democratic Cloakroom, an institution in its own right, a source of information for Members. He leaves as a committed public servant to the Congress and to our country. As one of Barry's former colleagues once said, ``Down here, Members are looking for somebody who knows what's going on.'' And Barry always knew. He was the trusted source, has been the trusted source, of what was happening on the floor, what bill was up for a vote, what issues Members were tackling on any given day.…”