On the recordJanuary 21, 2015
similar to the rest of the country, I listened with close attention to the President's State of the Union Address last night. I had a pretty good seat down front. I got to listen to the President very closely. Of course I was interested because this presented a great opportunity for the President, following a very eventful election on November 4, to state his vision for the country and most particularly to talk about his plans for working with the new Congress that was elected in November. It was a big election for a lot of reasons but one was that we got nine new Republican Members of the Senate. I have been in the Senate in the minority and I have been in the Senate in the majority. I can tell you I like it a lot better in the majority. But the fact is that notwithstanding a very good election, from my perspective, on November 4, one that sent a real clear message, I was left to wonder whether the President got that message. While I believe this was a referendum on Washington's dysfunction in dealing with so many of the issues that face hard-working American families, what the President seemed to promise was more dysfunction. But I for one am here to say we are not going to follow the President down this low road. We will try to find areas where we can work with the President. He did mention a few: things such as trade, things such as criminal justice reform. There are a few things the President seemed to indicate were not partisan issues.…
Source
govinfo.gov




