for yhtomit ONLY

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YES

Ezra Klein

What Happens When Congress Fails to Do Its Job?

I. In 2008 Barack Obama almost asked Evan Bayh to be his running mate. It was “a coin toss,” recalls David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager. Bayh lost that toss, but the fact that he was a finalist—much as he'd been for John Kerry four years earlier—was proof that he was doing something right in his day job as junior senator from Indiana. His future seemed bright.

Last month he announced his retirement.

There was no scandal. Bayh wasn't plagued by poor fundraising or low poll numbers. Nor is fatigue a likely explanation: at 54, Bayh is fairly young, at least when you're grading on the curve that is the United States Senate.

What drove Bayh from office, rather, was that he'd grown to hate his job. Congress, he wrote in a New York Times op-ed, is “stuck in an endless cycle of recrimination and revenge. The minority seeks to frustrate the majority, and when the majority is displaced it returns the favor. Power is constantly sought through the use of means which render its effective use, once acquired, impossible.”

The situation had grown so grim, Bayh said, that continued service was no longer of obvious use. Americans were left with a bizarre spectacle: a member of the most elite legislative body in the most powerful country in the world was resigning because the dysfunctions of his institution made him feel ineffectual. “I simply believe I can best contribute to society in another way,” Bayh explained, “creating jobs by helping grow a business, helping guide an institution of higher learning, or helping run a worthy charitable endeavor.”

This is what it's come to, then: our senators envy the influence and sway held by university presidents.

II. In the months leading up to the health-care-reform vote, there was much talk that Congress is broken and serious reform is necessary. Some would say the bill's passage is a decisive refutation of that position. They are wrong.

What we have learned instead is that even in those rare moments when bold action should be easy, little can be done. Consider the position of the Democrats over the last year: a popular new president, the largest majority either party has held in the Senate since the post-Watergate wave, a 40-seat majority in the House, and a financial crisis. Congress has managed to pass a lot of legislation, and some of it has been historic. But our financial system is not fixed and our health-care problems are not solved. Indeed, when it comes to the toughest decisions Congress must make, our representatives have passed them off to some other body or some future generation.

The architects of the health-care-reform bill, for instance, couldn't bring themselves to propose the difficult reforms necessary to assure Medicare—and the government's—solvency. So they created an independent panel of experts who will have to propose truly difficult reforms to enable the Medicare system to survive. These recommendations would take the fast track through Congress, protected from not just the filibuster but even from revision. In fact, if Congress didn't vote on them, they'd still become law. “I believe this commission is the largest yielding of sovereignty from the Congress since the creation of the Federal Reserve,” says Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, and he meant it as a compliment.

Cap-and-trade, meanwhile, is floundering in the Senate. In the event that it dies, the Environmental Protection Agency has been preparing to regulate carbon on its own. Some senators would like to block the EPA from doing so, and may yet succeed. But those in Congress who want to avert catastrophic climate change, but who don't believe they can pass legislation to help do so, are counting on the EPA to act in their stead.

The financial meltdown was, in many ways, a model of quick congressional action. TARP had its problems, and the stimulus was too small, but both passed, and quickly. After they'd passed, though, it became clear they weren't sufficient, and that Congress wasn't going to be able to muster further action. So the Federal Reserve, in consultation with congressional leaders, unleashed more than a trillion dollars into the marketplace. It was still the American people's money being invested, but it didn't need 60 votes in the Senate.

Congress was reticent to do more about the financial crisis because of concern over the deficit. But even apparent bipartisan agreement wasn't sufficient to compel action. Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) [led] the Budget Committee, and they called for their committee—and all the other committees—to be bypassed altogether in favor of a deficit commission operating outside the normal

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legislative structure. “Some have argued that House and Senate committees with jurisdiction over health, retirement and revenue issues should individually take up legislation to address the imbalance,” they wrote in a joint op-ed. “But that path will never work. The inability of the regular legislative process to meaningfully act on this couldn't be clearer.” They were right: their proposal was defeated by a filibuster and the president formed a deficit commission by executive order instead.

As for foreign policy and national security, Congress has so abdicated its role over war and diplomacy that Garry Wills, in his new book, Bomb Power, says that we've been left with an “American monarch,” which is only slightly scarier-sounding than the “unitary executive” theory that the Bush administration advocated and implemented.

This is not a picture of a functioning legislature.

Some might throw up their hands and welcome the arrival of outside cavalries, of rule by commissions and central banks and executive agencies. But there is a cost when Congress devolves power to others. The American public knew much more about the stimulus than about the Federal Reserve's “quantitative easing” program because Congress is much more accessible and paid more attention by the media. The EPA can impose blunt regulations on polluters, but it can't put a price on carbon in order to create a real market for cleaner energy. The debt commission's recommendations will still require a congressional vote. When Congress doesn't work, the federal government doesn't work, no matter how hard it tries.

III. So why doesn't Congress work? The simplest answer is that the country has changed, and Congress has not changed alongside it. Congress used to function despite its extraordinary minority protections because the two parties were ideologically diverse. Democrats used to provide a home to the Southern conservatives known as the Dixiecrats. The GOP used to include a bloc of liberals from the Northeast. With the parties internally divided and different blocs arising in shifting coalitions, it wasn't possible for one party to pursue a strategy of perpetual obstruction. But the parties have become ideologically coherent, leaving little room for cooperation and creating new incentives for minority obstruction.

Take the apparent paradox of the filibuster. It is easier than at any other point in our history to break a filibuster. Until 1917, there was no way to shut down debate, and until 1975, it took 67 votes rather than today's 60. And yet, the United States Senate had to break more filibusters in 2009 than in the 1950s and 1960s combined.

“It's not uncommon today to have things filibustered that, once they get past the filibuster, are passed unanimously,” complains Bayh. “So it's clearly for the purpose of preventing action, not because of any underlying, substantive disagreement.” Even Bill Frist, the former Republican Senate majority leader, has been surprised by the Senate's embrace of the tactic. “Compared to 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago,” he said during an appearance on MSNBC, “it's being used way too much.”

The problem has become sufficiently severe that senators, who normally cling to their institutional traditions like Vatican cardinals, are talking about addressing it. “Next Congress,” Harry Reid said to a group of reporters in March, “we are going to take a look at the filibuster. And we're going to make some changes in it.”

But the rise of the filibuster is not just a case of rules-gone-wild: it's evidence of a broader polarization in the United States Congress. As the party heretics lost or switched sides, Republicans and Democrats found themselves more often in agreement with themselves and less often in agreement with each other. According to the political scientists Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal, Democrats and Republicans now vote against each other more regularly than at any time since Reconstruction.

As the Reconstruction watermark suggests, polarized parties are often the result of a polarized country. In this case, it's the opposite. We are no more divided than we were in the 1950s and ’60s, when civil rights and the Vietnam War and the feminist revolution split the country. But where the legislative process once worked to harmonize those differences, today it accentuates them. “When the public sees all Democrats on one side of the issue and all Republicans on the other, it's a cue,” explains Ron Brownstein, author of The Second Civil War. “And so people's opinions harden, which in turn hardens the politicians on both sides. Then you have the increasingly politicized media, and the activist groups launching primaries. It's all a machine where the whole system is working to amplify our differences.”

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said as much . . . in an interview with National Journal. “Whether it became the stimulus, the budget, Guantánamo, health care,” he said, “what I tried to do and what John [Boehner] did very skillfully, as well, was to unify our members in opposition to it. Had we not done that, I don't think the public would have been as appalled as they became.”

Minority obstruction works because voters and the media often blame the majority. If nothing is getting done and the two sides bicker ceaselessly, it seems sensible to blame the people who are running the place.

But the lesson that the minority could prosper if Washington failed was a bad one for the system to learn. The rules of the United States Congress made it possible for the minority to make the majority fail by simply obstructing their agenda. And so they did. Republicans won in 1994, after killing health-care reform. Democrats adopted the tactic a decade later, taking Congress back in 2006 after killing Social Security privatization. This year, Republicans’ strategy was to kill health-care reform again. That's what Sen. Jim DeMint meant when he promised conservative activists that “if we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”

What's important about all those examples is that at no point did the minority party come to the table and propose a serious alternative. Republicans left the

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health-care system to deteriorate, and Bob Dole went so far as to vote against two bills that had his name on them in the mid-’90s. Democrats enforced a simple proposition in the Social Security fight: there would be no Democratic Social Security reform bill. This year Sen. Lamar Alexander gave the introductory remarks for the Republicans at the president's recent health-care summit. Alexander said the Republicans—the party that pushed No Child Left Behind, the Iraq War, the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, and a total restructuring of the tax code—had come to the conclusion that the United States Congress shouldn't attempt “comprehensive” reforms.

The strategy behind all this is to deny the other side an accomplishment, not put the minority's stamp of approval on a bill that would strengthen the majority's campaign for reelection. Obstruction, not input, has become the minority's credo. And that means gridlock, not action, has become Washington's usual signature.

IV. We like to think of American politics in terms of individuals. Candidates promise to bring a businessman's eye to Congress, or to be an independent voice from Massachusetts. They tell us about their families and their life trials. By the end of most campaigns, we could pick the winner's golden retriever out of a lineup if we had to.

This is a terrible error, because it leads us to change individuals when we need to change the system. And here is the system's problem: the minority wins when the majority fails, and the minority has the power to make the majority fail. Since the rules work no matter which party is in the minority, it means no one can ever govern.

We've become so accustomed to the current state of affairs that some think it core to the functioning of our democracy. “I t's called the filibuster,” Senator Gregg lectured Democrats from the floor of the Senate. “That's the way the Senate was structured. . . . The Founding Fathers realized when they structured this[;] they wanted checks and balances.”

In fact, the filibuster was not an invention of the Founding Fathers. It was an accident: in the early 19th century, the Senate cleaned out its rule book and deleted the provision that let them call a vote to move from one issue to another. It took decades until anybody realized the filibuster had been created.

But Gregg is right to emphasize the importance of checks and balances to the system. The problem is that gridlock—which is partly the result of the filibuster—is eroding them. If the minority is always obstructing, then Congress can never govern. And when Congress can't act, the body cedes power to others. That worries longtime observers of the institution. “The Founders would be appalled at the notion of Congress delegating its fundamental lawmaking responsibilities to others,” says Norm Ornstein, a congressional expert at the American Enterprise Institute.

Meanwhile, those who can act gain power at the expense of the Congress. The office of the president has grown in stature and authority. Early presidents delivered the State of the Union as a written letter because giving a big, dramatic speech to Congress would have been seen as overstepping the boundaries of the executive office. Modern presidents use the State of the Union to set the legislative agenda for Congress's next session, a development that would have shocked the Founders.

But it makes sense to us. The president is the main character in the media's retelling of our politics. His approval ratings are more important than the approval ratings of Congress even when we are voting only for congressmen. And it's getting worse: the political scientist Frances Lee has found that on average, each successive Congress spends a larger percentage of its time on the president's agenda than did its predecessor. The result is that there's the president's party in Congress, which mostly tries to help him out, and the opposition party, which tries to hinder him.

Like a parliamentary system, our politics is now defined by tightly knit teams and organized around the leader of the party or government. When Republicans controlled Congress in the early 2000s, they were so subjugated to the White House that Frist was handpicked by President Bush as the Republican Senate leader when Trent Lott, at Bush's urging, resigned over controversial comments he made.

But unlike a parliamentary system, our institutions are built to require minority cooperation. “We are operating in what amounts to a parliamentary system without majority rule,” writes Brownstein in a recent National Journal column. “A formula for futility.”

V. Sen. Michael Bennett, a Democrat from Colorado, is an expert at assessing and repairing failing institutions. He began in the world of corporate debt restructuring and recently ran Denver's public schools. The difficulty with saving troubled organizations, he says, is that the creditors and interests fight over the remains rather than banding together to nurse the body back to health. “Every one of those negotiations was about getting people to see their self-interest in moving the institution forward,” he recalls.

Last year he was appointed to the United States Senate. After a year in the body, what he sees looks uncomfortably familiar: a culture of mistrust in an institution that requires radical transformation. Stakeholders ferociously trying to eke out every last advantage, and in doing so, destroying the very thing they all have a stake in.

Polls back him up: a recent Gallup survey found that only 18 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing. Compare that with the president's approval ratings, which hover around 50 percent—despite the fact that Congress is largely just considering the president's agenda. One of the implications of these numbers: Americans are so disgusted by Congress that they don't trust it to do anything big. But our problems aren't politely waiting around until Congress gets its act together.

So how to change Congress? Well, carefully. Reform may be impossible in the day-to-day context, as the minority cannot unilaterally disarm itself. But the

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day-to-day context isn't the only possible context. “You have to do the John Rawls thing,” says John Sides, a political scientist at George Washington University. “Go behind the veil of ignorance. Figure out the system we'd want without knowing who will be in charge or what they will be doing.”

This work should start with a bipartisan group of legislators charged with reforming the rules that Congress works by, but their recommendations should only go into force in six or eight years, when no one knows who will hold the gavel. That lets everyone think of themselves as a potential majority as well as an embattled minority, and more important, it lets members of Congress focus on the health of the institution rather than their fortunes in the next election. It lets Congress be Congress again, if only in theory.

As for what the rules should say, the technical details should be hashed out by smart people from both parties. But the place to start is by ridding the Senate of the filibuster and its lesser-known friends (holds, unanimous consent to work for longer than two hours at a time, and so on), admitting that they are no longer appropriate given the polarizing realities of our politics.

That may seem like a radical change, but recall that the filibuster is an accident, and there is nothing radical or strange about majority voting: we use it for elections (Scott Brown won with 51 percent of the vote, not 60 percent), Supreme Court decisions, and the House of Representatives. As for a majority using its power unwisely, elections can remedy that. And voters can better judge Washington based on what it has done than on what it has been obstructed from doing.

The irony is that getting rid of the rules meant to ensure bipartisanship may actually discourage partisanship. Obstructionism is a good minority strategy as long as it actually works to stymie the majority's agenda and return you to power. But if it just means you sit out the work of governance while the majority legislates around you, your constituents and interest groups will eventually begin demanding that you include them in the process. And that's as it should be: we hire legislators to legislate. We need a system that encourages them to do so.

EZRA KLEIN is a blogger and columnist for The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Newsweek, and a contributor to MSNBC.

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William Mo Cowan

NO

Cowan Farewell Address

On January 30 of this year, Governor Deval Patrick sent me to this chamber to represent the people of Massachusetts and their interests. Yesterday on June 25 those same people took to the voting booths and called me home. And in doing so, they called Senator-elect Ed Markey to the high honor of serving in this August body.

After serving in the House Senator-elect Ed Markey now has the opportunity to offer his voice, wisdom, accumulated experiences, humor and tireless devotion to justice and equality to the United States Senate. I for one believe that Massachusetts and the country will be better for it. Like the majority of Massachusetts voters who expressed themselves yesterday, I am quite confident that Senator-elect Markey will serve with distinction and act in the best interest of the citizens he's now privileged to represent. And the Senator-elect bested a strong candidate who brought a new voice and, yes, a new visage to the Massachusetts political scene. I applaud Gabriel Gomez on a well-run campaign and most importantly, his willingness to sacrifice so much in an effort to serve the people of the commonwealth. He started this journey as a relative unknown, but I suspect we have not heard the last of Mr. Gomez. I thank him and his family for their sacrifices and their willingness to engage.

Mr. President, when it comes to farewell speeches few will top the words offered by John Kerry on this floor a few months ago. After 28 years of distinguished service to the people of Massachusetts, now Secretary Kerry spent nearly an hour reflecting on his service to this body. By the same measure, Mr. President, as merely an interim Senator serving but a few short months, I probably should have ended my remarks about 45 seconds ago. But before I yield, Mr. President, I will take a few minutes to reflect on my brief time in this body and extend my gratitude to a number of folks.

First, I want to acknowledge and recognize the outstanding staff members in Boston and D.C. who have helped me serve our constituents to the best of my ability. When Governor Patrick named me as interim Senator, a few people—okay, more than a few—openly questioned whether I would be up to the task and whether I was capable of accomplishing anything other than locating the lavatory during my temporary assignment. I knew something those doubters did not know. I knew I was going to do my best for the folks back home because I came to the Senate armed with the knowledge of the issues by dint of my time in the Patrick-Murray administration and I planned to make a few key hires and convince the bulk of the Secretary's staff to stay on and do the job the Governor sent me to do. In other words, I knew what I didn't know but I knew enough to hire the people who knew the considerable rest. Boy, have they proven me a genius. If you work in the Senate but a day—and I suspect the same is true in the House of Representatives—you will learn quickly that staff make this place hum and good staff make all the difference in the world.

I hope my team will forgive me if I do not list them all by name thereby avoiding the state of omission. But instead all of the staff will accept my heartfelt appreciation for their willingness to join my team, show me the ropes, teach a new dog some old tricks, educate me in all the rules that matter, which seem to be written nowhere, and their exhibition of the degrees of professionalism and service to our country that the public too often thinks is missing in our Congress.

To my entire staff, I have been in awe at your greatness and am forever in your debt for your immeasurable contributions to our work in the interest of Massachusetts residents. And I look forward to your many successes yet to come. To two on my team in particular, Val Young, Chief of Staff and Lauren Rich, my scheduler, who have known and worked for me for years, thank you for your continued willingness to partner with and trust in me.

And if I am being honest, Mr. President, about the people who help me look like I belonged here, I will spend a moment or two acknowledging the wonderful women and men who comprise the Senate staff. From the capitol police who protect us every day and somehow knew my name on the first day, to the subway operators who always deliver us on time and unfazed, to the elevator operators who excel in the art of cutting off reporters and annoying questions, to the cloakroom staff who field every cloying call about calling schedules, to the clerks who discreetly tell you what to say and do as presiding officer while the public and gallery silently wonders why everyone addresses you as Mr. or Madam President while sitting in that chair, to the generous food service staff who look the other way while you go back for seconds or thirds, to the others who make this engine oil and hum, to each of you who showed patience, support and grace that I know your love for this institution may trump even the members’ affection for this place and will sustain the institution long after any one or all of us leave this chamber. You are tremendous resources for every new Senator, and I suspect great comfort to even the longest serving among

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us. The public may not know you by name or know the importance of your work, but now I do. And I have been honored to serve with you.

The next folks I recognize are the youngest and most silent among us. Of course I speak of the pages, the young women and men who spent part of a high school year dressing and acting in the formal traditions of this body. I have yet to speak with an uninteresting page or a page uninterested in the Senate and our government. These are dynamic young people who could be doing so many different things with their time, but they give their time and service to the Senate and its members. And they are indispensable to both. I look forward to the day when my young boys will be of age to follow in the footsteps of these outstanding young people.

Last and by no means least I want to thank the many family and friends who supported my family and me during my short tenure. We often say that it takes a village to raise a child, but I can attest that it also takes a village to help an interim Senator meet his duties in Congress and at home. Whether offering me a spare bedroom in Silver Spring or agreeing to last-minute baby sitting duties so my wife and I both could celebrate Black History Month at the White House, our village is vast and generous. And of course, every village needs a queen and the queen of my village is my wife, Stacy. I was able to serve because she was willing to be mom and dad and sacrifice in ways known and unknown while I have been in D.C. Over the past few months I've missed many homework assignments, some birthday dinners, pediatric appointments, school performances and parent-teacher meetings. But our sons never felt that their dad was absent and unaccounted for because their mom, a supermom, more than made up for my absence. Stacy has been my rock and salvation for nearly 20 years now, and I am better every day for it. And let the Senate record show for now and all time my love and dedication to Stacy.

Mr. President, in January of this year I planned to leave Deval Patrick's administration and transition back into private life. I was looking forward to more conventional hours, a reprieve from working under the public scrutiny of the press and spending more time with my wife and our young sons. So, I came to the United States Senate. Go figure. I was surprised but deeply honored when Governor Patrick sent me here to represent the folks back home and I'm eternally grateful for the Governor's faith and trust in my ability to serve. This floor on which I stand today and with which I have become so closely acquainted over the past five months has been occupied by some of the most dynamic and greatest political figures of our nation's history. From my own state of Massachusetts alone, names like Adams, Webster, Sumner, Kennedy, all who have come before me are enough to make anyone feel daunted when assuming a desk on this floor.

I was appointed to fill the seat of John Kerry and work alongside another great Senator, Elizabeth Warren. Thank you for being here, Elizabeth. With my work here, although my time was short, I sought to uphold not only Secretary Kerry's legacy in this body, but the work of all the esteemed Senators who have dedicated their service to the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and I pledge to be the—pledged to be the best partner I could to Senator Warren. I entered the Senate at a vexing time in this body's history. As we all know, congressional approval levels are dismally low. People across the nation and political pundits everywhere believe that partisanship is a bridge too wide—a divide too wide to bridge and a wall too high to overcome. Yet despite the overwhelming public pessimism, I came to Washington with two achievable objectives. To serve the people of Massachusetts to the best of my ability, and to work with any Senator willing to implement smart, sensible and productive policy to advance the ideals of our nation. From the outside, the prospects for bipartisanship may seem slim. Party-line votes are the norm. The threat of the filibuster demands a supermajority of the past leading to the legislation. And the American people have come to believe Congress is more committed to obstruction than compromise.

To the everyday observer, we have reached a standstill where partisanship outweighs progress, and neither side is willing to reach across the aisle for the good of the American people. But what I have encountered in the Senate is not a body defined by vitriol but one more defined by congeniality and common respect. And that began before I even started here, Mr. President. On the day the Governor announced my appointment, I was pleasantly surprised to receive calls on my personal cell phone—I still don't know how they got those numbers—from Senators King, Hagan and Cardin, and I had the pleasure of receiving warm welcomes from majority leader Reid and Republican leader McConnell, among so many others, my first day. One of the first persons to congratulate me after Senator Warren and Secretary Kerry escorted me for my swearing in was my colleague from across the aisle, Senator Tim Scott.

Since then, Senator Rand Paul and I have recounted our days at Duke and our affection for college basketball. On a bipartisan congressional delegation to the Middle East, I traded life stories and perspectives with Senators Klobuchar and Hoeven and discussed the comedic genius of Will Ferrell with Senators Gillibrand and Graham. Senator Portman stopped by my commonwealth coffee last week to wish me well as I leave the Senate and encourage me every day during my time here. Senator Burr, my next-door neighbor in the Russell building, has always been good to remind me that I came from North Carolina before I had the privilege to serve in Massachusetts. Senator McCain invited me to cosponsor my first Senate resolution. And Senator Manchin has shown me more kindness than I can count.

The freshman Senators on both sides welcomed me to their class and offered never-ending encouragement, and indeed one of them, Heidi Heitkamp, has become the North Dakota sister I never knew I had. I wish I had time

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to recount every kindness each of the other 99, including the late Senator Lautenberg, gifted me while here, but I don't, but each has been recorded indelibly in my memory and is returned with gratitude.

In April, I experienced the very best of this body's character in the wake of the Boston marathon bombings when members from every corner of this nation extended their sympathies, their prayers and pledged their assistance and support to the city of Boston and to all those affected by that tragedy. In the aftermath, we all came together as Americans to honor those killed and to support the wounded during their time of recovery. And we saw the same in the wake of the terrible tornadoes that swept through Oklahoma. Upon closer inspection, it is clear that all of us here have common bonds and share similar goals. If only we are willing to seek out those bonds and focus on the goals that are in the best interests of our nation. While we may not agree on every policy, every line item or every vote, we have each embraced the role of republic servants, committed to serving the country we have pledged to support and defend. And as I have discovered in my time here, there is more opportunity for cooperation than the American public might believe.

And this cooperation has led to some noted successes. Thanks to the bipartisan work in the agriculture committee and on the Senate floor, we were able to send the farm bill to the house. Through the joint leadership of the so-called Gang of Eight, we are debating right now a workable approach to comprehensive immigration reform. We have confirmed five cabinet secretaries. And in what will remain the most memorable all-nighter of my Senate career, through a marathon session and more votes in one night than most interim Senators have in a career, the Senate passed the budget, and now we anxiously await the urgent opportunity to conference with the House.

I have seen progress, and I remain a true believer in the democratic process. The core functionality of our government endowed to us by our Founding Fathers so many decades ago. And I remain a true believer in our system of government and the Senate's role in that system. If I have been asked any question more frequently than what are you going to do next, Mo, it has been is our system of government broken? Is Congress broken? And I have answered truthfully each time—no. Our system of government is the greatest ever known, and the best example of democracy in human history. The Genius of our founding fathers is on display every day on capitol hill, in every state capital, in every city or town hall across this nation. And part of the Founders’ genius was the birth of a government designed to function as the people need it to but function only as effectively as the privileged few empowered to work within it want it to work. Or as Secretary Kerry himself said when he said it best a few months ago right on this floor, and I quote—“I do not believe the Senate is broken. There is nothing wrong with the Senate that can't be fixed by what's right with the Senate. The predominant and weighty notion that 100 American citizens, chosen by their neighbors—[or their governor, in my case]—to serve from states as different from Massachusetts to Montana can always choose to put parochial or personal interests aside and find the national interest.” What an awesome responsibility and privilege. And in my scant five months, I have seen the promise of those words realized in more ways and in more interactions than the public, unfortunately, has had occasion to witness. So I believe in that unlimited promise still.

I have also been part of history while I was here. With my appointment and coincident with the appointment of Senator Scott, two African-Americans are serving in this body concurrently for the first time in our nation's history. Senator Scott and I are respectively the seventh and eighth black Senators to serve in this body. While I believe this number to be far too few, I am also hopeful that it is a sign that these United States will soon be represented by a more diverse population that more closely reflects the diverse country that we are and the diversity of opinions that exist across and within our diverse nation. With different perspectives, different backgrounds, different races, religions and creeds, we are better equipped to confront the issues that face our vast and changing nation.

America has been and always will be a nation of immigrants where religious freedom is in our DNA. Where more and more we are chipping away at the barriers preventing us from achieving true marriage equality and where people worldwide still yearn to reach our shores to enjoy our freedoms. And a Congress that is more reflective of this America as this Congress is becoming will be good for America.

Finally, Mr. President, I offer my heartfelt gratitude to the people of Massachusetts. Not one person was given the chance to vote for or against me, but I have gone about my work every day as if they had. I came to this body beholden to Massachusetts, her residents and the country only and leave confident that I have stayed true to that honor. And ladies and gentlemen of the commonwealth, it has been a true honor and privilege to represent you as your junior Senator in the United States Senate. With that, Mr. President, and for what will likely be the final time, I yield the floor.

WILLIAM MO COWAN is an American politician and lawyer who served as the junior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts in 2013. He previously served as legal counsel and Chief of Staff to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. He is now a Fellow at the Institute of Politics in the Harvard Kennedy School.