María Elvira Salazar: “I want to quickly make four points. It is going to be very important for us in the weeks ahead, and in the new Congress…”

“I want to quickly make four points. It is going to be very important for us in the weeks ahead, and in the new Congress, that we do find the seeds of bipartisanship which we have found in the past in many of the efforts that have gone on in this body. For me, during my first 2 years as a Senator, one of the things I will always remember as one of the best times of the Senate is when we came together with the Gang of 14, with 7 Republicans and 7 Democrats, to make sure that this Senate was able to get beyond the very difficult issue that it faced. I hope we find more and more of those opportunities as we move forward on the great issues of our time, including Iraq, energy, health care, and the rest of the issues with which we must deal as a country. I will say this as well. In the days ahead, we will hear many things about some of our colleagues, some of whom are newcomers to our institution, the U.S. Senate, and some of them who are leaving. For me, it is a sad day that Senator Chafee and Senator DeWine, who were members of the Gang of 14, will not be around to be a part of that future bipartisan coalition that we are going to have to have in the Senate.”