On the recordJanuary 7, 2022
Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Minnesota. She is an extraordinarily talented legislator and works well in a challenging political environment, and she has tackled this issue with a ferocity and intensity which is seldom seen in the U.S. Senate. It is fitting that she did and that she continues even to this day because of the gravity of the issue, but we are fortunate to have her leadership--extraordinary leadership--to bring us to this moment where we are facing the issue of voting in America. Mr. President, I started on Capitol Hill at the lowest possible level, as an intern, in the office of U.S. Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois. I was a college student at Georgetown University. Senator Douglas had served in World War II. He volunteered at the age of 50 to enlist in the Marine Corps and worked his way into a fighting position in the South Pacific. And on the island of Okinawa, he was shot up, and his left arm dangled by his side the rest of his life, much like Bob Dole. He used to refer to that left arm as his paperweight. He had a way of running a Senate office which would be impossible in these days, but he insisted on signing every letter that went out of his office. And he would read them and make notes, which I thought were illegible, but they were his efforts to send personal greetings along with the letters. Well, you can imagine that they stacked up the letters each day--his staff did--as they typed them and used carbon paper back in the day.…
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