Political Quotes

“I come to the floor today to sadly announce the retirement--or not retirement--my chief of staff's decision to move on to another great opportunity, and I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about Ted Lehman and not only the 5 years he has been my chief of staff but the nearly 20 years he has been working in the Senate. Before I start, though, he attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he got his undergrad, and then he went to Georgetown to get his law degree. He clerked for Thomas Hogan, who was then the chief judge of the DC District Court. He came to the Senate about 20 years ago, in 2002. To give you some perspective, I didn't enter the legislature in North Carolina until 2007, so he has years of experience on me. He has knowledge of the Senate that I will never gain. He started work with Senator Hatch. He worked for a couple of years with Senator Sessions, and then he worked for Senator Grassley on the Judiciary Committee. He was the chief counsel of nominations and senior counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, and that is where I met Ted. I remember vividly, when my chief of staff at the time, Ray Starling, told me that he was going to be moving back to North Carolina, I told him: Great. Now find your replacement. It was later that day that he came to me and said: What about Ted Lehman? I said: I think that is a fantastic idea.…”