-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, Wisconsin has lost a great man. When I came to the Senate in 2009, I made an effort to sit down with each Member, and, of the 100 Members, the quietest individual, the most soft-spoken, was Herb Kohl. He sat behind his desk. We talked about the family farms, particularly the dairies of Wisconsin. We talked a little bit about basketball--the Oregon Trail Blazers, the Milwaukee Bucks, and, of course, the pride that we had when the Blazers won a championship back in the 1970s. But, really, it was just a comfortable get-to-know-you. Yet I knew the man across the desk from me had been so powerfully successful in business and in politics.

But unlike in virtually any other conversation here in the Senate, he didn't lay claim to a single accomplishment or talk about the great glories of his career. It was just a ``Welcome to the Senate. Here, you can help families out.'' That spirit really fits with what we have heard from Senator Baldwin about his legacy--a man who was humble, who was generous, who was disciplined, who was hard-working; a man who worked not just on agriculture but on housing, but on public education, but on cleaning up the Great Lakes, and on many other things that my colleagues have mentioned.

When he was pondering retiring, he talked about the individual that he hoped would follow in his footsteps, in his spirit here in the Senate--our own Senator Tammy Baldwin. It was almost a family connection--a powerful, heart-to-heart connection. So one of the most important legacies that he has left is continuing his vision of fighting for ordinary families, ordinary people, here in the Senate, with the woman who took his place.

Herb Kohl was modest in style but powerfully effective in practice. We miss him here in the Senate, and we know that the people of Wisconsin benefited enormously from his life and also miss him greatly in his passing.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source