Political Quotes

“Today I rise to honor former Congressman Ray Kogovsek, a dear friend who represented the Third Congressional District of Colorado before me. I ask that you keep him in your thoughts and prayers as he now faces a challenge far greater than any political race. Ray is a native of Pueblo, Colorado, and but for his college years and his tenure here from 1979 to 1985, he never left his hometown and never wanted to. His commitment to his community spread to encompass the entire Third District, which he came to serve after 10 years in the Colorado Legislature where I first met him. Ray won election to Congress in 1978 by 364 votes. In 1980, he faced the same challenger in a Reagan landslide year. He won by 22,000 votes. And in 1982, after redistricting changed half of his district, he handily won again. Ray won because of who Ray is. He is a man of gentle wisdom, wisdom about people, a man with a gut instinct to know what is right, a genuine man, a man who knows no anger. His achievements in his short time here in Congress were many. From a vast wilderness bill painstakingly built through his outreach and development of a coalition of broad support, to funding to widen a beautiful highway through Glenwood Canyon to make it safer for road travel, to resolving a decades-old boundary dispute for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and his work on behalf of the Third District continued after he chose to leave Congress.…”