Madam President, I am honored to follow my good friend and colleague from the state of Georgia in recognizing the remarkable contributions of Senator Mikulski, now the longest serving woman in the history of the United States Congress.
Today we’ve been joined by many great Marylanders. We’ve had Governor O’Malley, Senator Cardin and former Senator Sarbanes and Senator Mikulski’s own family — her sisters and brother in-law in the gallery. I’m also pleased that we’ve got two of her favorite constituents, my father and my brother, here today as well. They live in Annapolis and they know what I’ve known since childhood when I lived in the suburbs of Baltimore: that Senator Mikulski is a remarkable, tireless, passionate, and effective senator.
Reference has been made to her start as a community organizer — someone who saved Fells Point from a 16-lane superhighway. Someone who wasn’t afraid to get into the gritty issues of a local community, standing up for folks who didn’t have anyone to fight for them. We’ve also heard about her early years as a social worker, helping folks in need understand the programs available to them and then fighting for the programs that should have been available to them.
It’s no surprise to any of us that the district she first represented in the House of Representatives — the 3rd — is known as a steel district, where lots of men and women worked in the Bethlehem steel plant, and it’s no surprise that she’s earned a reputation here in the Senate as a woman of steel who fights for manufacturers, who fights for federal workers, who fights for Western Maryland, who fights for poultry on the peninsula and the Eastern Shore of Maryland, who fights for her constituents day-in and day-out.
It is indeed just that in this Women’s History Month that we would be recognizing Senator Barbara Mikulski who has stood up for Maryland each and every day.
And though, like me, she comes up a little short every time she stands, she stands incredibly tall in the company of senators throughout American history. She is someone whose passion for people, whose determination to continue in the tradition of her father — that fair-deal grocer — who asks every day that simple question: “how can I help?” And then gets busy answering it.
She is a role model for me, for all of us, for my daughter, for my family, for our community. She’s the only senator who I’ve heard say to me — fiercely, before going on a vote on the floor — “to the barricades.” She’s the only person who could say that and mean it.
She’s been at the barricades of justice. She’s been at the barricades of service. She’s been at the barricades of making a difference, and for that, we are all grateful.
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