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Floor Speech

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Mr. ROMNEY. Madam President, I have had both the good fortune and the misfortune of working closely with Senator Rob Portman.

I had the misfortune of debating him in 2012. He was kind enough to play the part of President Obama in my debate practice sessions. He was relentless, determined, unforgiving, and anxious to delve into the most minute facts and figures in order to defeat me and to knock any complacency I might have had out of my heart.

He more than made up for my debate whooping by tirelessly and repeatedly accompanying me across Ohio and other States, drumming up support for my campaign, raising money, and jousting with the wing nuts that tried to derail my campaign.

When I came to the Senate, I found that many of those same qualities--his relentlessness, determination, tirelessness, and ability to dig into the details--have made him a singularly successful United States Senator.

I worked alongside him on several bills. On each occasion, they became law because he dug into them, negotiated the most thorny of issues, drove the process to a result, and never, ever gave up.

We formed eight working groups on the bipartisan infrastructure bill because there were too many conflicts, too many subjects, too many obstacles for our entire group of 10 to resolve without dividing it into parts we could deal with one by one.

He then decided that he would be a member of every single one of those subgroups, knowing that he would be needed to actually drive each of us to a conclusion and a result.

You see, there are some people in politics who believe that a fiery speech or a bold appearance on a cable show and a reputation for fighting the opposition, that that is the measure of success. Not so Rob Portman.

He came here to pass bills and actually shape policy that would help the American people and strengthen our country. He came to fight and win, not just to fight. And he has won for America time and time again.

More important to me personally than all his winning is his friendship, his honor, and his character. He is a genuinely good man, and he is blessed to have married an even better woman. I will miss Rob Portman in the Senate. As I think many of my colleagues know, he has been a bit of a stabilizer for me here. I will miss him and Jane in the neighborhood of our lives.

God bless you, Rob Portman.

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