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Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I have never liked calling too much attention to today's date, February 20, but I figured my birthday would be as good a day as any to share with our colleagues a decision I made last year.

During my time in the Senate, I have only really answered to two constituencies: the Republican conference and the people of Kentucky. Over the years, that first group trusted me to coordinate campaigns, to count votes, to steer committees, to take the majority, and, on nine occasions, to lead our conference.

Serving as the Republican leader was a rare and, yes, rather specific childhood dream, and just about a year ago, I thanked my colleagues for their confidence which allowed me to fulfill it.

To the distinguished Members of this body I have had the privilege to lead, I remain deeply, deeply grateful.

Today, however, it is appropriate for me to speak about an even deeper allegiance and an even longer standing gratitude.

Seven times, my fellow Kentuckians have sent me to the Senate. Every day in between, I have been humbled by the trust they have placed in me to do their business right here. Representing our Commonwealth has been the honor of a lifetime. I will not seek this honor an eighth time. My current term in the Senate will be my last.

I have been a student of history my entire life. I can't remember the last time I didn't have a stack of biographies or political memoirs on my nightstand, and I know well how tempting it can be to read history with a sense of determinism: assuming that, somehow, notorious failures were inevitable; that crowning triumphs were predestined; and in either case, that lives and careers followed orderly paths.

This isn't, of course, how things work, and I have never had to look further than my own life to recognize it. I have never lost sight of the fact that without my mother's devoted care, a childhood encounter with polio could have turned out a lot worse; that unless my father hadn't taken a job in the Bluegrass State, my politics might have run a course somewhere else; that if it weren't for an eleventh-hour, outside-the-box idea on the campaign trail, my Senate career would have been over before it began; or that if not for the people of Kentucky time and again agreeing that leadership delivers and electing to send me back here, it would have been someone else from somewhere else taking that seat at the table where I have had a chance to work, strategize, fight, and win.

I grew up reading about the greatness of Henry Clay, but there were times when the prospect of etching my name into his desk in this Chamber felt like more of a long shot than making it to the Major Leagues. I got a front row seat to the greatness of Senator John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky as a summer intern in his office; but in so many moments in my early career, the idea of following in his footsteps felt more distant than the Moon.

So the only appropriate thing to take away today, apart from a healthy dose of pride, is my immense gratitude for the opportunity to take part in the consequential business of the Senate and the Nation: gratitude to the people I represent--Kentucky's families and farmers and miners and servicemembers and small business owners; gratitude to loyal friends, dedicated volunteers, and talented staff, who have helped me serve much better; gratitude to this institution that has repaid my devotion so generously over the years and to so many colleagues who have become great friends; gratitude for my family's support and, in particular, to my ultimate teammate and confidante over the last 32 years. Elaine's leadership and wise counsel, in their own right, have made her the most seasoned Cabinet official in modern history. On top of all that, her devotion to me and to Kentucky is a lot more than I deserve.

When I arrived in this Chamber, I wasn't coming with a Governor's statewide executive experience or a House Member's appreciation for Washington dynamics. I knew my hometown of Louisville, and I had spent the previous few years working hard to learn what mattered to folks all across the rest of the Commonwealth.

And yet, within weeks of swearing the oath, sure enough, I was here on the floor talking with colleagues from other far-flung corners of the country, discussing solutions to a farm income crisis and infrastructure challenges that affected different States in the same ways.

I learned quickly that delivering for Kentucky meant finding the ways the Commonwealth's challenges were actually tied to national debates: seeing to it that major agriculture legislation remembered Kentucky farmers, particularly including when they needed extraordinary assistance, like the tobacco buyout; making sure that nationwide steps on transportation infrastructure included resources for modernizing the Brent Spence Bridge, which supports billions of dollars in economic activity in Kentucky and the surrounding region; and, with the trust of the local community, finishing a task first assigned by President Reagan: the safe destruction of America's legacy chemical weapons at the Blue Grass Army Depot.

So efforts like these have spanned the length of my Senate career, and I have been humbled by each and every opportunity to help Kentucky punch above its weight.

Of course, the Senate has to grapple with foundational questions that reach even more broadly across American life and even further into posterity. We are trusted, on behalf of the American people, to participate in the appointment of the Federal judiciary, to be the final check on the assembly of power in the courts, beyond the reach of representative politics, and to ensure that the men and women who preside over them profess authentic devotion to the rule of law above all else.

When Members of this body ignore, discount, or pervert this fundamental duty, they do so not just at the peril of the Senate but of the whole Nation. The weight of our power to advise and consent has never been lost on me, and I have been honored to perform my role in confirming judges who understand their role.

On this floor, there is no place to hide from the obligations of article I, the Senate's unique relationship with article III, or our role in equipping the powers of article II. Here, every debate over agriculture or infrastructure or education or taxes is downstream of the obligations of national security. Every question of policy here at home is contingent on our duty to provide for the common defense.

One of the first times I spoke at length on this floor as a freshman, I was compelled to join the debate over strengthening the deterrence of America's nuclear triad. Whether to expand the U.S. military's hard- target nuclear capability was an interesting question to pose to someone whose most recent job had been running a county government.

But there, of course, was the Founders' brilliance at work: The hopes and dreams of every American are tied up in our ability to protect and defend the Nation and its interests. Every family traveling abroad and every worker and small business owner whose livelihood depends on foreign trade, they depend in turn on the credibility of America's commitments to friends and the strength of her threats to enemies.

In turn, the safety and success of the men and women who volunteer to serve this great Nation in uniform depend on the work we do here to ensure that enemies think twice--twice--before challenging them and those enemies never face a fair fight. Thanks to Ronald Reagan's determination, the work of strengthening America's hard power was well underway when I arrived in the Senate. But since then, we have allowed that power to atrophy, and, today, a dangerous world threatens to outpace the work of rebuilding it.

So lest any of our colleagues still doubt my intentions for the remainder of my term, I have some unfinished business to attend to.

In our work, most of us in this body develop an appreciation for the Senate itself--its written rules, its collegial norms, its pace of play. Yet so often I have watched colleagues depart, venting their frustration at the confines of the institution or mourning what they perceive to be the decline of its norms.

Regardless--regardless--of the political storms that may wash over this Chamber during the time I have remaining, I assure our colleagues that I will depart with great hope for the endurance--the endurance--of the Senate as an institution.

There are any number of reasons for pessimism, but the strength of the Senate is not one of them. This Chamber is still the haven where the political minority can require debate. It is still the crucible in which jurists are tested for their fidelity to upholding the Constitution and laws as they were written. The Senate is still equipped for work of great consequence. And to the disappointment of my critics, I am still here on the job.

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