Tribute to Lamar Alexander

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I have learned in my time in the Senate that if you want to get something done across the aisle, you really need the following: You need someone on the other side who is just as committed to working together as you are, and that Member needs to have the trust of Members on your side of the aisle and on his own, and you both need to be willing to set aside egos and listen and get a realistic understanding of whether the person on the other side of the negotiating table can reach an agreement with you that upholds your principles without compromising his own.

Now, what I have laid out might not sound that unusual or rare, but it is actually pretty tough to find these days. I have been very lucky that the Senator whom we honor today on the floor--my colleague and friend, Chairman Lamar Alexander, of Tennessee--is someone who has managed it time and again.

I don't think anyone, least of all Senator Alexander himself, would be surprised to hear me say that we are as likely to disagree as to agree on many matters. I bring my Washington State values to the table, and he brings his Tennessee values, so you can imagine how that has gone from time to time. Yet, despite our different perspectives and our different approaches we take to policymaking, we have also been able to see where our values and the interests of our States and our country converge.

We both understood that the broken No Child Left Behind law needed to be fixed. Lamar listened to me, which I so appreciated, when I told him we should write a bill together rather than to amend the Republican bill that he had begun working on. With our HELP Committee members, we were able to write and pass a new K-12 public education bill that fixed the most broken parts of No Child Left Behind. It included Federal guardrails so we could understand how all of our students perform. It dedicated resources to improving the schools that needed it the most. It also allowed for historic steps forward on early education.

We laid the groundwork together for new investments in lifesaving biomedical innovation and research through the 21st Century Cures Act, including the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot.

We worked together to pass landmark legislation to boost our response to the opioid epidemic, to strengthen our public health preparedness programs, and to permanently fund historically Black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions. We not only passed each of these bills, but we did so time and again with huge majorities from this Senate. Now, even still, Chairman Alexander and I, along with our colleagues in the House, are working to get legislation across the finish line to finally ban surprise medical bills.

What I have just laid out is by no means a full list at all of Senator Alexander's accomplishments as chairman. It doesn't even include quite a few things he is still trying to get done as we speak. Senator Alexander's focus on working together has helped countless families in his home State of Tennessee, in my home State of Washington, and nationwide.

My Democratic colleagues and I thank Chairman Alexander for the tone and manner with which he has led the HELP Committee over the past 6 years--some of them, admittedly, rockier than others but, throughout, guided by his steady leadership and commitment to working together.

For myself, as someone who shares the drive to not only fight for what you believe in but also to look for common ground, I thank my colleague from Tennessee for the many opportunities to dig in and get to work that he has provided, for being willing to hear me and my colleagues out again and again when necessary, and for looking so often for common ground, for another problem we could solve, and for being willing not just to keep talking but to keep listening as well.

Finally, I know none of this would have been possible without the support and strength Senator Alexander has received from Honey, his wife, and I acknowledge and thank her for her contribution as well.

Lamar, you will be thrilled to be back full time in the State you love so much--I know that--but I and members of the HELP Committee want you to know we are going to miss you terribly here in the Senate. Thank you so much for all you have done.

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