Harry Reid: “today Pat Leahy, senior Senator from Vermont, reached a Senate milestone, to say the least. A few minutes ago he cast…”

“today Pat Leahy, senior Senator from Vermont, reached a Senate milestone, to say the least. A few minutes ago he cast his 12,000th vote. He has voted in the Senate 12,000 times. This is quite an accomplishment. He joins a very elite club, led by the distinguished senior Senator from West Virginia, Senator Byrd, who has voted more than 17,000 times; Senator Kennedy, more than 14,000 times; Senator Inouye, more than 14,000 times; Senator Stevens, more than 14,000 times; Senators Biden and Domenici, just over 12,000 times. Pat Leahy came to the Senate in 1974, the youngest Senator in Vermont history and the only Democrat ever elected to the U.S. Senate in the entire history of the State of Vermont--the only one, the first and only. He has been in the Senate 32 years. In each of those votes, Senator Leahy voted to make Vermont a better and stronger place. Senator Leahy has a lot of things in mind when he comes to cast a vote, but No. 1 on the list is Vermont. That is one of the principal reasons Vermont is a great place to live, work, and raise a family. I have worked very closely with Pat Leahy. He is a Senator's Senator. He is able to be as partisan as any Senator we have, but he is also a person who can be as bipartisan as any Senator who has ever served in the Senate. The first example of that is his work with his colleague, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. I like Pat Leahy for lots of reasons.…”