Political Quotes

“I say this to the Senator of New Jersey and the Presiding Officer: Thank you very much for being here, for enduring this. When I started here, I was sitting in the chair all the way to the right of where you are today, Senator Booker. I can remember the day you walked in to be sworn in. You came through those doors right there. I had a huge smile on my face because I knew when you were walking through those doors, when you were walking into this Chamber, you would bring with you the kids that you used to work for in Newark, NJ. The reason I knew that was that when you were working for the kids in Newark, NJ, as the mayor of Newark, NJ, I was working for the kids in Denver as the superintendent of Denver Public Schools. At that time in our country's history, we were engaged in a pretty profound effort to try to make better the schools in our respective communities--not that everything was perfect, but we were trying to drive achievement for the kids in Newark and the kids in Denver, and we talked about it over many years. And here you walked into this Chamber, a place where it would be easy to imagine has long had the habit of treating America's kids like they are someone else's kids, not like they are America's kids. I know that because if the kids in America were represented by the 100 desks that are in this Senate, roughly 9 of them would be graduating with a college degree in our country, 9 of these desks.…”