Farewell to the Senate

Floor Speech

FAREWELL TO THE SENATE -- (Senate - November 20, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I rise today on behalf of many citizens of Washington State who are friends of the Senator from Alaska. On their behalf today, I say thank you for all of the work that you have done for your neighbor to the South.

Obviously, everyone here has listed the many accomplishments of the senior Senator from Alaska in his many decades of service. We are a State that considers Alaska a neighbor. He has been an ally of ours many times over, and throughout his long service in serving his own State, has also helped the citizens I represent. I thank him for that today. I thank him for his years of service on the Appropriations Committee where I watched him as the Chair and ranking member, where though he may be a strong adversary, he also understood that everyone had a right to speak and had a right to offer arguments and respected that. I think that is truly a lesson all of us should remember.

But I want to share a lesson that the Senator from Alaska also taught me that I think is important for this time as well. Several years ago I was privileged to join the Senator from Alaska and the Senator from Hawaii on a delegation trip to China where we met with officials across the country to talk about the important issues facing our country and China.

Senator Inouye was called away, and I was left as the senior Democrat on the trip. We met with leaders from China across the table from us. Senator Stevens led many of these meetings but on several occasions turned to me to ask me to lead those. As we were leaving China, I thanked him for that respect he gave me in front of our delegation and in front of theirs. He said to me he thought it was important that the people of China see that even though we have two different parties here with very strong opinions we respect each other and out of that respect are able to lead this country facing the challenges we have in front of us.

He used that as a lesson to China, but it was a lesson to me as well, that we do have two strong parties, but in the end we serve the people of America, and we do it by respecting each other. So I stand today and join my colleagues in thanking the Senator from Alaska for being the leader he has been here, for the work he has done, and wish him the very best in his future.

I yield the floor.

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