Gerald E. Connolly Esophageal Cancer Awareness Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I am so pleased to be with my colleague Senator Warner to talk about Gerry Connolly prior to offering a unanimous consent motion on this bill.

If you met Gerry once, you would remember a very, very fun and colorful guy. He studied for the priesthood to be a Maryknoll priest and then left the priesthood to marry his wife ``Smitty'' who studied to be a nun and then left her order.

His first job after he left the seminary was a staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and then he went onto this wonderful career, as Mark described, on the Fairfax Board of Supervisors before eventually becoming chairman of that board and then coming to Congress.

Gerry personified a pride in Irish Catholicism. As Mark said, his St. Patrick's Day parties were absolutely legendary in Virginia, and he was a tireless advocate for so many.

The point that Mark made about esophageal cancer and its effect and its growing effect in this country is important to underline. This was the condition that claimed Gerry's life, but how powerful not even 2 days before died, he was trying to advance our understanding of this.

Esophageal cancer is the fastest growing cancer among men in the United States. We are not exactly sure why, but we can get more data and do more analysis of this and then provide options for care should this resolution pass.

That is why I am so glad to stand with my friend Senator Warner to honor a great public servant, a great American Gerry Connolly.

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