click to enlarge - Screenshot
- Sen. Patrick Leahy
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) bid farewell to his Senate colleagues on Tuesday in an emotional speech in which he looked back with gratitude on his long career and expressed hope for the restoration of eroded congressional traditions of respect and bipartisanship.
The 82-year-old senator, who is retiring after 48 years in office, said representing Vermonters has been the honor of a lifetime.
“I’ve so loved the privilege of being even a small part of this story, America’s story,” Leahy said.
He recalled how as a law school student at Georgetown University, he would sit in the Senate gallery and marvel at the deliberations but never imagined he would one day join in.
Vermont had never sent a Democrat to Washington, D.C., before 1974. But in the wake of the Watergate scandal, voters called for change and tapped Leahy, a 33-year-old Chittenden County prosecutor, to represent them.
Since then, Leahy said, he’s cast more than 17,000 votes and served with more than 400 senators, many of whom became like family to him and his wife, Marcelle.
If he had the chance to go back in time, Leahy said he would tell his younger self, “Don’t lose that sense of awe, kid — treasure it.”
While he’s always tried to remember what a privilege it has been to serve in the Senate, including as chair of the Judiciary, Agriculture and Appropriations committees, Leahy said he lamented the loss of the traditions that made the institution great.
He harkened back to the halcyon days when senators trusted one another, traveled together to understand each other's viewpoints and were able to pass legislation through mutual respect. While they “fought like cats and dogs” during elections, they returned to the chamber to get back to work for their constituents, he said.
“Senators didn’t engage in scorched-earth politics because they knew they’d return the day after the election to a Senate that only worked if you found and stood on common ground,” he said.
The Senate of yore was far from perfect, he acknowledged. When he headed to D.C., none of the 100 senators was a women, and progress on landmark civil rights laws was slow.
But over his career, he worked to “allow the Senate, at its best, to rise to the occasion and serve as the collective conscience of the nation.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Democratic majority leader, praised his friend effusively. “It’s never easy to bid farewell to a retiring colleague, but this one is hard,” Schumer said. Leahy had garnered so much respect over his career that “his name is synonymous with everything good, dignified and admirable in the upper chamber,” Schumer added.
And he noted that Leahy wasn’t just preaching bipartisanship but practicing it, staying up until 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday to complete the Appropriation Committee’s work on the sprawling $1.7 billion omnibus appropriations bill that has been the subject of much wrangling with Republicans in recent weeks.
During his speech, Leahy highlighted some of his proudest achievements. These included a ban on land mines, the creation of the organic food labeling program, the protection of Lake Champlain and the expansion of the Green Mountain National Forest.
He ended his remarks by noting that serving with so many senators over the years has been a joy, but representing Vermonters has been his greatest honor.
“I’m humbled, and always will be, by their support,” he said.