Gilbert Gutknecht: “I have been so blessed to serve in this great body for the last 12 years. I wanted to reflect a little bit about what it…”

“I have been so blessed to serve in this great body for the last 12 years. I wanted to reflect a little bit about what it was like when I first ran for Congress, what it was like during those heady days, some of the highs and lows, some of the accomplishments. The Congress itself is a living, breathing organism, and every 2 years we have an election, and in some respects every 2 years we have an entirely different Congress. A lot of the faces stay the same, but the dynamic is different. There will be different leaders. There will be different issues, and I was so fortunate and I really do mean blessed that, first of all, I had a chance to serve in the Minnesota State Legislature. In that capacity, I served as what we would probably call here the whip. I was the floor leader, and every day it was my job to help organize the debate. I made sure that, and the years that I was in the position we were in the minority, but every year, every day I made sure that the other side was held accountable for what they said and what they did and what they proposed and how they voted.”