Commending Norm Coleman

Floor Speech

COMMENDING NORM COLEMAN -- (Senate - July 09, 2009)

Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I am here today to speak about Senator Coleman, who was my colleague for my first 2 years in the Senate. As everyone knows, last week the Minnesota Supreme Court issued its ruling on the outcome of last November's Senate election. As I did this week, I congratulate Al Franken for his hard-earned and long-awaited election victory. He has had a good first week in the Senate, and we all welcome him. But I do wish to take this time to talk about Norm Coleman.

First of all, after 6 months without having a second Senator, Senator Coleman made a very difficult decision, and he did it with such grace. He could have appealed that decision. He could have gone to Federal court. It was his right. But he made a decision which he felt was best for the State of Minnesota, and the State.

I wish to talk a little bit about what Norm Coleman meant to me to have him as a colleague in the Senate.

When I first came to the Senate, Norm had been a Senator for many years, and he was very gracious to me. He reached out with his staff. We basically got along from the moment I started to the end of his term as a Senator. We worked very hard at that. When we had disagreements, we talked them out and our staffs would talk them out because we felt the most important thing was that we represent the State of Minnesota.

Each one of us knows Norm in our own way, but I think all of us agree this is someone who cares so much about his family, his wife Laurie, and their two children, Jacob and Sarah. Theirs is a family that has known tremendous tragedy. Two of their children died in early infancy from a rare genetic disease. While Norm doesn't talk about this much, his reverence to life and his devotion to family are very clear.

Second only to his family has been his dedication to public service. It has literally defined his adult life. Maybe it was sheer destiny that he found his way to the Senate. After all, he is a graduate of James Madison High School in Brooklyn, which is also the alma mater of two of our Senate colleagues--Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders.

Norm hit the ground running in politics, and he has not stopped. In college, he was a student activist, and in law school, he served as the president of his class. Immediately after getting his law degree, he joined the Minnesota Attorney General's Office, recruited by my good friend, legendary attorney general Warren Spannaus. Norm was in the Attorney General's Office 17 years, most of that time doing criminal prosecutions, ultimately rising to the position of solicitor general for the State of Minnesota.

In 1993, Norm was elected the mayor of St. Paul at a time when the city, especially its downtown, was suffering economically. During his 8 years as mayor, he worked to turn St. Paul around. Building public-private partnerships, he redeveloped the industrial riverfront into a recreational greenspace. A new Minnesota science museum was built overlooking the Mississippi River. Most famously, he brought hockey back to Minnesota, securing a new National Hockey League franchise that moved into the new arena. Hockey is very important in Minnesota.

In 1998, Norm was narrowly defeated in a three-way race for Minnesota Governor. The winner, of course, was Jesse Ventura--something not many people across the United States expected to happen. I think Norm once said that not everyone can say they lost to a candidate whose previous career highlight was being killed by an alien creature in the movie ``Predator.'' But he took it in stride.

In 2002, Norm was elected to the Senate under tragic circumstances. Just days before the election, my good friends Paul Wellstone and his wife Sheila and their daughter Marcia and members of their staff were killed in a tragic plane crash in northern Minnesota. Norm became the Senator. Like Paul, Norm took his duties very seriously, and I could see that in my 2 years in the Senate. He cared deeply about the work he did in foreign relations, some of which people never really talked about, never made the front page of the newspaper, but it was something he cared deeply about.

Together, we worked on several issues in our State which were of key importance, legislation to benefit our State. The most dramatic example of this spirit of cooperation was our response to the sudden collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge into the Mississippi River on August 1, 2007. Thirteen people were killed and 150 were injured, many with severe and permanent injuries. Literally our cities came to a stop. For our State, out of this unprecedented disaster, this public trauma was something to which they immediately responded.

I still remember when Senator Coleman and I came in the very next morning--we flew in with the Secretary of Transportation, Mary Peters--and there were already billboards up, literally 12 hours later, directing people where to go with the traffic and how to get buses to get to where they had to go. As I said that day, a bridge in America should not just fall down, but when one does fall down, we rebuild it. In the 72 hours immediately following the bridge collapse, Norm and I worked together to secure $250 million in emergency bridge construction funding. Representative Jim Oberstar led the way in the House. Approval of this funding came with remarkable speed and bipartisanship. Capitol Hill veterans tell me it was a rare feat, aided by unity among Minnesota's elected leaders across the aisle, across the political spectrum. I am pleased to report that just 13 months after that collapse, Minnesota drivers were able to drive over a safe new 35W bridge and eight-lane highway. That is just 13 months after the collapse.

While the bridge is the most visible example, Norm and I had many other opportunities to work together on issues that mattered to the people in our State.

There was another Minnesota disaster in August 2007 when severe flooding hit the southeastern corner of our State. We worked on this together, along with Congressman Walz, to ensure a rapid, effective response by Federal agencies to help communities, businesses, and families in need.

We worked together on the Agriculture Committee. We both served on that committee. We succeeded in passing a new farm bill that was very important to our State.

We worked together with a bipartisan group of Senators on energy legislation, to move forward in unity.

We worked together in securing Federal funds for the security costs of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, along with our colleagues in Colorado. I still remember standing before this Chamber saying that I stood tall to obtain the funding to protect the security of the Republican leadership from across this country. We did that together.

We joined to secure educational benefits owed to our National Guard and Reserve troops returning from Active Duty overseas. We are so proud of our National Guard in Minnesota. The Red Bulls have served longer in Iraq than any other National Guard unit in the country. And Norm and I worked together to make sure we expanded the Beyond the Yellow Ribbon Program to help those Guard and Reserve who really have no base to go home to but go home to little towns across our State. We worked on that together.

Our State has a proud tradition of electing both Democrats and Republicans to office. They expect us to work together. From the very beginning, Norm and I knew that was part of our duty to the people of our State, that was part of our obligation, no matter if we disagreed on issues, that we were going to work together.

So today I acknowledge my former colleague, Norm Coleman, for the strength he has shown during this long campaign, for the grace he showed last week when he made that difficult decision, and for the fine work he did for the people of Minnesota.

Madam President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Source