Farewell to the Senate

Floor Speech

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Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I want to take just a few minutes to speak about my colleague from Colorado, Senator Cory Gardner--a kid from Yuma, as he described himself a minute ago--and to recognize the work that we have done for our State together in a bipartisan way.

Over the past 6 years, one of the most common and sometimes surprising questions I have gotten from reporters and constituents was: How is your relationship with Senator Gardner? Can you work together with Senator Gardner?

It is really an innocent question, but I have come to think about it as a reflection of the sad state of our politics and the Senate for the moment, in particular. Behind the question is the assumption that because Cory is a Republican and I am a Democrat we, somehow, can't work together for the benefit of our State. That hasn't been the case, far from it.

Sometimes he would say and sometimes I would say that we felt like there were times when we were working together better than States that were represented by two people from the same political party.

In this Congress, Colorado is 1 of just 10 States that isn't represented by Senators from the same party. Think about that--just 1 of 10 States with a split caucus in this body, just 10 out of 50. You would think it would be a lot higher, given how evenly divided we are as a country.

A lot has been written about the divide in our country today, and one of the divides is the rural-urban divide in America, which reporters like to talk about. In our delegation, Cory and I have tried to bridge that and, I have to say, it has helped a lot that Cory was born and raised in Yuma, CO, a town on the Eastern Plains with a population of 3,500 people, roughly. It is the place where Cory grew up, working in his parents' implement dealership--the red tractors, not the green tractors--where community tradition and ties to the land, like a lot of places in our State, run very, very deep; a place where rush hour means getting behind a tractor.

It is a beautiful place, and Cory was kind enough to invite me to Yuma after he was elected. During that visit we made a commitment to work together despite our political differences, which we certainly have, and that is exactly what we have tried to do over the past 6 years. We worked together on legislation to ban Members of Congress from becoming lobbyists. I tell my colleagues today that I think there would be no bill we could pass that would do more to lift the reputation of this body than that one. Over half the people who leave here don't retire but become lobbyists. It was hard to find somebody to cosponsor that legislation. Cory saw the benefit of it, and we have been fighting for it ever since.

We wrote bipartisan legislation to prevent government shutdowns; to make our energy grid more resilient; to secure funding, as Cory mentioned, for the Arkansas Valley Conduit, a critical water project that Washington has been promising Colorado since John F. Kennedy came to Pueblo, when he was President.

We fought to hold the VA accountable to care for our veterans across the Rocky Mountain region. With Cory's leadership, we fought to keep the U.S. Space Command in Colorado. We partnered to fund critical improvements to our infrastructure, from I-25 along the Front Range to the Southwest Chief.

And just last week, Senator Collins, 127 years after Colorado became the first State to grant women the vote by popular referendum and 100 years after ratification of the 19th Amendment, the Senate passed our bill to install America's first outdoor monument honoring the women's suffrage movement here in Washington, DC.

That was typical of the legislation that we carried together, because the idea actually came from Fort Collins, CO. It didn't come from Washington, DC. So many of the best ideas that we worked on together came from Colorado. Cory is a student of Colorado history and the country's history, and he understands the significance of a bill like that.

Over the years we have worked together late into the night to help communities across our State get back on their feet after devastating floods, wildfires, the Gold King Mine spill of 2015, and now the COVID- 19 pandemic, where Cory's leadership was absolutely essential.

I could go on all afternoon.

The point is, even though Cory and I have had plenty of differences over the years, there is a real record of bipartisan accomplishment for our State, and one of the reasons for that is because, whatever our differences on policy, I have never for a moment doubted Cory's commitment to serving the interests of Colorado and his genuine appreciation for what makes us the best State in America.

In a lot of ways, Cory has embodied many of our State's best qualities. We are a young and restless State, and Cory has represented it always with energy and with drive. Agree with him or not, you can't say he hasn't worked hard every single second that he has been here.

You have probably also heard that Colorado has 300 days of sunshine a year. As it turns out, so does Cory Gardner. It is probably why my staff always told me to smile more at our events together. He has been a consistent source of warmth and optimism in a body desperate for both. He has brought a lot more of that to the Chamber than I have, and I have been trying to make up for it now that he won't be here this year.

All of that is to say that I have been extremely grateful for the opportunity to work with Senator Gardner over the past 6 years to do a lot of work together for our State.

On a personal level, I would like to say to his family that I also want to say how much I appreciated the consistent kindness Cory and Jaime have shown to me and my family, even at moments that have been difficult ones for them.

My staff are also deeply grateful for the close collaboration with Cory's team over the years, and I want to thank them for their extraordinary work.

I know there are a lot of folks today who have things to say about my colleague from Colorado. So let me just end with this. Serving in this body, as he said, is an enormous privilege, but as everyone here knows, it does not come without a cost, especially for a parent with young children. I have watched Cory, as his kids have begun to grow up, put his family first at all times and our State a close second behind them. To watch him get on a plane, as I did this week, with his family and the care and attention he paid them is a reminder to me--and has been over the last 10 years--of what is really most important.

I will miss our work together, but I suspect Senator Gardner is not done with his contribution to the country, to the State of Colorado, and to his community, and I look forward to continuing our work together in whatever capacity he ends up choosing to serve.
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