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Floor Speech

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Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I want to highlight one of my members, a former member of my staff, Mark Crowley.

For the past 8 years, I have benefited from the service, the hard work, and the loyalty of my legislative director, Mark Crowley. After 12 years of working here on Capitol Hill, Mark is leaving public service, but he has made a positive--a very positive--change during the time that he has spent here working in the U.S. Senate.

Before coming to work for me, he was working for his home State senator, Mark Kirk of Illinois. He was with Senator Kirk from 2013 to 2017. He first joined my office as a legislative assistant covering issues that surrounded the topic of justice, the Department of Justice. He also became my counsel, helping me on issues ranging from technology, taxes, to consumer protection.

Mark's contribution to the Senate has been both wide-ranging and deeply meaningful. One of the examples of this impact of his work was in 2018. The subcommittee in the Commerce Committee that I chaired completed a Senate investigation into the sexual abuse of Olympic athletes. He helped lead a thorough investigation that uncovered systemic failures that allowed abuse to persist way too long.

The joint investigation included four subcommittee hearings, interviews with Olympic athletes and survivors, and the retrieval of more than 70,000 pages of documents.

This work culminated in the development and passage of the Empowering Olympic, Paralympic, and Amateur Athletes Act of 2019. This landmark law made critical improvements to the Olympic movement that strengthened oversight and accountability for the safety of American athletes, and Mark was a critical component of the team that saw this legislation become law.

After serving as an LA and then as counsel, Mark shifted his work to the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, which, as general counsel, he was greatly helpful to me after I became that committee's chair.

In that role, he talked to whistleblowers, provided in-depth oversight of the operations and policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and helped veterans navigate legal challenges within the VA.

Mark has played a key role in passing some of the most consequential veterans legislation in recent memory, including the Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act and the PACT Act.

Through his work on behalf of veterans, Mark has showed the same qualities that defined his work on the Olympic investigation: deep policy expertise, a strong desire to get things done--and done right-- and great care for the people who are involved.

At the beginning of 2023, Mark then took over the policy team, serving as my legislative director back in my personal office. Most recently, Mark helped to guide the ACRE Act and the Financing Our Energy Future Act to passage during the reconciliation process.

Whether we are talking about veterans, technology, the Olympics, complex Senate procedure, Mark could be counted on to effectively advise me and lead our team to the success that we have had.

He has been a mentor and guiding hand to several legislative assistants who have come through my office. My junior staff would tell you that Mark brings a steady hand, a steady presence, and even under pressure, he recognizes the importance of thoughtful decision making before taking action. They would also tell you that Mark is quick to crack a joke and often brings much needed humor to Capitol Hill on stressful days. More importantly, he has a real interest in getting to know the people he works with--not just knowing them, not just knowing what makes them tick, but being a mentor and a friend.

Mark leads in a way that earns respect. He makes sure that everyone on the team knows their role, and they know that it matters. He is the kind of person who listens first, gives clear feedback, and never dismisses an idea out of hand. I have many ideas that I thought would be shot down from the very beginning, and Mark, at least, took time to convince me that I was wrong. Because of that, my staff and I have been more encouraged to take ownership and to work harder.

While Mark has expressed to me and to his colleagues how much he loves working in the Senate as a legislative director, there is another role that he loves even more, and that of being a husband and a dad.

The fact that the Senate never seems to end its business anytime during the normal business hours really has created problems in people's family lives. I am grateful to Mark's wife Colleen for letting me keep Mark at work late into these nights for evening votes and vote- aramas, even when that meant he missed out on helping with bedtime and other tasks related to being a dad.

Mark is the father to Ilsa, James, Hallee, and has a fourth baby on the way. As much as he loves working in the Senate, he loves his family. And with a fourth child on the way, he recognized it is time to really put his family first.

I will miss Mark's presence in my office and in the Senate. I will miss his skills and expertise. They don't come along every day. He has a lot to offer our country. While he wasn't a Kansan--perhaps his only shortcoming--he embodies many of the traits that we value in the Midwest: hard work, a cheerful attitude, and determination to get things done.

My many thanks to Mark. I thank Mark for his years of service to me, to Kansans, and to our country. I am wishing him well as a father and a husband and in his new line of work.

I ask the Senate to acknowledge with me, today in these remarks, the contribution that we all find from those who work side by side with us every day in hopes for a great outcome.

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