Ed Markey: “it is my pleasure to honor my good friend and my colleague Senator Cory Gardner. Cory and I were friends in the House of…”

“it is my pleasure to honor my good friend and my colleague Senator Cory Gardner. Cory and I were friends in the House of Representatives. Our friendship deepened in the Senate, especially after he took the reins as chair and I as the ranking member of the Subcommittee on East Asia of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the 115th Congress. We were unlikely partners in a lot of ways. He is a conservative Republican and I am a liberal Democrat. I know that Tom Brady is the best quarterback ever. He just might say that it is John Elway. But like me, Cory is a pragmatist, and we did find common ground. In fact, we were a two-man legislative wrecking crew, with several credits to our names. Gardner-Markey collaborated on such hits as the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, ARIA, sweeping Asia-focused legislation to reorient our Indo-Pacific strategy around alliances, common values, and mutual security; the Cambodia Democracy Act, to stand up for civil society the rights of a political opposition; the Taiwan International Participation Act of 2018, to signal both our commitment to the island nation and our displeasure with China's efforts to shut it out of international organizations; and the Leverage to Enhance Effective Diplomacy Act, to build the conditions for a future North Korea that no longer threatens its neighbors and the world with nuclear weapons.…”