On the recordMarch 8, 2016
Madam President, I rise today with enormous pride, but also real sadness, to honor one of my most talented and longest serving staff members, Zak Baig, as he departs the Senate and starts an exciting new career. Zak has worked his way up the ranks in my office. He started working for me on the House side and in the process has filled almost every role in sight, starting with chief bottle washer and going up from there. He actually started in 2001, shortly after I was elected to the U.S. House, as an intern back in Hammond, LA. He did a great job there. In 2002, he was an intern in DC and showed even greater progress and promise, and then he came on full time as a legislative correspondent at the end of 2002. In 2004, I ran for the U.S. Senate. It was a big undertaking and an enormous challenge to take on a statewide campaign. Zak moved onto the campaign side and was in charge of the grassroots effort, which was enormously important and helped lead to our success. He truly helped guide us to victory that year. After that, as we started working in the Senate, he became an integral member of the Senate staff. In those first 3 years, he served as our projects director and then in 2008 became legislative director. In 2013, Zak served as a Republican staff director for the EPW Committee, while I was the ranking Republican.…





