Political Quotes

“I rise this evening with my colleagues from Maryland and with Senator Reed from Rhode Island to pay tribute to someone whom I was lucky enough to have as a mentor when I first entered the Senate. And I want to associate myself with all of the wonderful words of my friends from Maryland. With any new job, there is a learning curve. There are certainly things that you don't know and that you don't even know enough to know you don't know. That certainly is true in the Senate. In 2001, I was a former Member of the House who had just been elected to the Senate. It was an exciting time--a lot of new people to meet, rules to learn, and procedures to follow. One of my new assignments was the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, where Senator Sarbanes served as the chairman. By that time, Senator Sarbanes was already an institution. As my colleagues have mentioned, he introduced the first article of impeachment against President Richard Nixon, as a junior Congressman. And as a freshman Senator in 1978, he was a forceful advocate for treaties that gave control, among other things, of the Panama Canal to Panama. So it felt a little surreal to find myself at the table with a brilliant leader like Senator Paul Sarbanes. But he could not have been more gracious and more generous with his time for me as a freshman Member. He was always willing to answer my questions. He was a wonderful mentor.…”