Political Quotes

“Mr. President, some time ago, I was reading a book about the beginnings of the interstate highway system in our country. I came across a paragraph when the highway builders and the Federal Government were going to run the interstate highway through some stable middle-class, working-class neighborhoods of Baltimore. The highway administration was greeted by an organizer who, on behalf of citizens of this neighborhood, said this is not the place to put this highway. She was successful in convincing them that the highway should go elsewhere so it would not be disruptive of so many homes, well- established small businesses, and the cohesive community in that part of Baltimore. The woman who led that effort several decades ago was Barbara Mikulski. She was not yet on the city council. She was a citizen who spoke for her neighbors and has continued to do that as a member of the city council and then as a Member of the House of Representatives and for many years--3\1/2\ decades--of the Senate. We heard Senator Reid and others earlier today talk about Senator Mikulski being the first female Democrat to serve in both the House and Senate--to be elected to the Senate without succeeding a husband or a father and first to chair an Appropriations subcommittee. Most important, she helped to blaze this path. In 1987, there were only two female Senators. One was the daughter of a Presidential nominee a generation earlier, and the other was Barbara Mikulski.…”