Political Quotes

“the desk behind me is empty at this moment, but whenever anything important is taking place on the floor, you will find seated there the dean of the U.S. Senate, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont. This week, he surprised a number of us by announcing his retirement at the end of next year. I have come to know Pat during my service in the Senate. He is a humanitarian. He is a gifted lawmaker and a passionate defender of America's national ideals and, I might add, of international human rights. Loretta and I count Patrick and his wonderful wife Marcelle as really good friends. I have been on the Senate Judiciary Committee, chairing it for a year. I have more insight into that job than I ever had before, and I have certainly realized that when Senator Leahy was the chair of that committee, he wrote an extraordinary record, which many of us only dream of emulating. I thank him for his passionate, consistent, faithful support of the DREAM Act, which I introduced 20 years ago, and his efforts to help me get this enacted into law. I also appreciated when he gave me the opportunity to create a new subcommittee in Judiciary entitled the ``Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law,'' which I chaired. We did good things for America and the world. Pat Leahy is known throughout the world, and I mean that literally, as a defender of human rights and human dignity. I have seen it so many times. He and I decided to join forces a few years ago on behalf of a political prisoner.…”