Byron Dorgan: “I come to offer a few remarks today about the end of this legislative session. But of course, as is always the case when…”

“I come to offer a few remarks today about the end of this legislative session. But of course, as is always the case when I have an opportunity to sit in this Chamber and listen to my colleague, Senator Byrd, I learn a great deal, and it is always a joy to do so. I am going to be very brief. I have to make a speech to a convention at a hotel near the Capitol in a few minutes, but I did want to say at the end of this session, and especially after the election of this year, something about what I believe is ahead of us. We have just gone through an election. That is the exercise that the late Claude Pepper used to describe as the miracle in the U.S. Constitution. He said every second year our Constitution provides that the American people are able to grab the steering wheel of this country and decide which way to nudge our country, which direction to provide America. So that is what the elections are about. This election is described by some in the press as dispiriting and disquieting to those of us on the Democratic side of the aisle. To me, it is not dispiriting or disquieting. I wish the election had gone differently, but over two cen-”