Cory Booker: “I am really grateful you are in the Chair and grateful to be able to rise right now and speak. I want to say at the top…”

“I am really grateful you are in the Chair and grateful to be able to rise right now and speak. I want to say at the top that I have a tremendous love for this institution, and a lot of that is born from the people that are here-- from the pages I get to know in every class, to the folks that work the door, the clerks, the Parliamentarians. It is a special place, and a lot of people who are known here are not the ones that really keep this place functioning. I come in here days and I have good moods or bad moods but always find myself lifted when I walk onto this floor. It is a sacred civic space. It is extraordinary. And I am always aware of the weight of history when I walk in here. No matter a good day, bad day, whether I am in a rush or not, when I touch the Senate floor, I feel something really magnificent. I don't think that our Founders would have ever imagined a body like this with Black people on both sides of the aisle, with women serving here, with folks from many different backgrounds. We are in many ways doing what the Founders had envisioned, which was this idea of every generation making this a more perfect Union. But there have been times in this journey where our Union was in crisis and was in peril. There were times in this great American journey, over our 250 years, where so many heroes had to emerge, people that I have come to revere, like Joshua Chamberlain from Maine, who played such a pivotal role in the Battle of Gettysburg.…”