Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise today to recognize and thank three long-serving aides who have served my office but more importantly served our Nation proudly, and they are now moving on to the next chapters of their lives. First, Chris Gillott. Chris Gillott was my legislative director and for 8 years has been my right-hand person on policy. He never failed to take the ideas we discussed together and craft the actual policy needed to make a meaningful difference in the lives of folks in Louisiana and the lives of all Americans. He was a master at navigating the partisan divide to find areas of consensus upon which we could build to advance real solutions. I was always struck that he was on a first-name basis with the legislative director of--and fill in the Democratic Senator's or the Republican Senator's name. You have a sense that in the era before Zoom calls, they would go out and have a beer on a regular basis, and that helped us tremendously. We saw this fully on display recently as Chris was a central figure in the so-called 908 Coalition, which jump-started stalled COVID relief packages. And it wasn't just the relationships between the Senators but, again, as I said, between the different legislative directors from both parties in all offices. His efforts were also central to passing legislation to ban surprise medical billing--a more than 2-year effort that will have a direct and positive impact on the pocketbooks of American families.…”