Eric Schmitt: “2\1/2\ years ago, I was sworn in as America's 2,000th Senator, a pretty unique honor for a kid that grew up in a…”

“2\1/2\ years ago, I was sworn in as America's 2,000th Senator, a pretty unique honor for a kid that grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Bridgeton, MO. And as someone who appreciates history, the U.S. Senate has always been held out as the greatest deliberate body in the history of the world. It is a very uniquely American institution. As our Founders envisioned what our system of government looked like, they wanted something that was very different than the House and something that you had equal representation as opposed to proportional representation, this system of checks and balances in a bicameral legislature, every State, no matter the size, having two Senators was thought of very differently and has proven over the course of our nearly 250 years to be a very important place to protect individual rights and a whole host of other issues that matter to the American people. There has also been some people whose names are famous. You had Henry Clay, the great compromiser. You had, of course, Webster, Calhoun, and Clay as the great triumvirate. Missouri's first Senator Thomas Hart Benton was known as Old Bullion. And I want to propose a new name, someone who serves currently in the U.S. Senate: the great arsonist, Chuck Schumer. Chuck Schumer has singlehandedly, more than any Senator in the history of our Republic, done more to diminish the importance and significance of this Chamber. And I am going to walk through a few ways in which he has done that.…”