Political Quotes

“I thank my colleague for yielding. I had the privilege of serving with these two gentlemen, not only in Congress but in the Massachusetts Legislature. I remember being elected and serving at the age of 24, and my seat was right in front of Barney Frank's seat in the legislature at the time. Now, at that time, we had 240 legislators. Very few people had legislative aides. Truly, you were on your own: you were your own speechwriter; you were your own researcher; you did your own negotiations. So to have Barney Frank behind me in the give and take of everything when there were issues on the floor and when we were talking was amazing. I can't even tell you what I learned about being a lawmaker and a legislator, of putting deals together and negotiating. We also worked in the legislative study group at the time, and I learned an important lesson that is, sadly, not utilized at the State or Federal level these days, that of how to work in coalitions effectively, because a lot of us were real progressives, and the legislature at the time wasn't particularly noted for that. I learned from people like Barney that, if you work together, they're going to need your vote sometime, and we could work together as a group and be effective. I learned at that stage that you can be effective at any level of the legislature if you become skilled and if you become tenacious. He inherited this. I had the good fortune of also getting to know his mother, Elsie.…”