Political Quotes

“first, let me add my words of fond farewell to my friend Lamar Alexander and the touching moment between the leader and the senior Senator from Tennessee, which is moving to all of us. Now, Senator Alexander and I have not always agreed, but what an amazing and capable legislator and true statesman he has been. He has been in the middle of things for much of his 18 years in the Senate. That is because he is not some ideologue who stood alone in his corner. It is because he is someone who has been always willing and insistent on reaching across the aisle, on hearing another Senator's perspective, and on searching for common ground, however narrow it may be. He searches to do the right thing. I remember when we did the immigration bill. There was a lot of pressure on Senator Alexander to vote against it, and I watched him wrestle with it and churn and churn, and I sort of knew in my heart he would do the right thing, in my judgment, and vote for that bill, as he did, at some real political consequence to himself. And that is who he was and is--a man of principle. We often would talk in the Senate gym almost every morning for a prolonged period of time--I don't go to the Senate gym post-COVID--and more often than not, we found each other on opposite sides of the Senate gym. We helped open up the amendment process on childcare legislation. Together, we led the Rules Committee for a number of years, and we come from very different backgrounds.…”