Political Quotes

“I want to spend a few minutes recognizing our late colleague and my friend Senator Kay Hagan. Kay and I both came to the Senate in 2009. I had the privilege of working with her on two committees--HELP and Banking. As a former vice president of the North Carolina National Bank, she had a lot more to offer to that committee than I had, and I tried to learn from her whenever I could. Kay and I both came to the Senate in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression. We were losing 700,000 jobs a month, and millions were losing their homes. It was an incredibly difficult moment for the country, but it brought out all of Kay's best qualities. Everyone knew that Kay faced some of the toughest politics of any Member of our caucus, but in those early days, I saw her take vote after vote on some of the hardest issues. She never wavered. She voted for the Recovery Act to save the economy when we were in free fall. She voted for Dodd-Frank to restore confidence and accountability to the financial sector, which was something she knew quite a lot about. She spoke out against amendment No. 1 in North Carolina and for marriage equality. She also cast a decisive vote for the Affordable Care Act. As a Democratic Senator from North Carolina and as a freshman Senator, none of those positions were easy to take, but she knew they were the right places to be for her State and for the country.…”