Thomas Daschle: “I join the distinguished Republican leader in expressing my heartfelt congratulations to the senior Senator from…”

“I join the distinguished Republican leader in expressing my heartfelt congratulations to the senior Senator from Indiana, our colleague, Dick Lugar. He was sworn in on January 3, 1977. Over the course of these 10,000 votes cast, he has served as the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee and now serves as the chairman, as we all know, of the Foreign Relations Committee. With those 10,000 votes, he has made a major impact on American history. I would be willing to bet that for every vote he has cast, he has made at least one more friend over all of these years. He may be a Republican and I may be a Democrat, but I have never been so appreciative of a relationship as a Senator as I have with Senator Lugar. He has many more than 10,000 friends since he came to the Senate in 1977. So we congratulate him. We tell him of his great service to this country and our appreciation for that service. We hope that there will be many thousands more. I yield the floor.”