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[Pages S5392-S5393]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the latest
coronavirus emergency aid package, but before I do, as a matter of
personal privilege, I want to offer some comments in praise of a
colleague.
Just as we gather together, regardless of party, to mourn when a
colleague dies or be together with a colleague who is undergoing a
challenge, I think it is good to gather together and acknowledge when
something positive happens to a colleague, regardless of our political
affiliation.
This is the first opportunity on the Senate floor to offer a word
about Senator Kamala Harris, one of our colleagues, who, in a historic
move, was asked by another former Senate colleague, Vice President Joe
Biden, to join him as his preferred nominee to be Vice President of the
United States.
I have come to know Senator Harris in her 4 years in the Senate, as
many of us have, through her service on especially the Judiciary
Committee and the Intelligence Committee.
Her public service track record is a significant one worthy of
praise, from her work as a district attorney, first a line prosecutor,
and then the elected district attorney in San Francisco, where she
focused on trying to keep her community safe, to serving as
California's attorney general, broadening the portfolio to include
environmental justice and consumer protection, and now her work in the
Senate since 2016.
What I find so compelling about Senator Harris, in addition to her
track record of public service during a very long career, is her
personal story. Raised as the child of two immigrants, a Jamaican
father and an Indian mother, as so many in this country raised as
children of immigrants, she developed a passion to serve and a
patriotic love of country.
She is the first African-American woman nominee ever to be on a
ticket. She is the first person of South Asian descent ever to be on a
ticket. And in the year 2020, when we are commemorating the 100th
anniversary of the amendment that guaranteed women the right to vote, I
can think of no
[[Page S5393]]
greater way to celebrate a centennial than for one of our colleagues
who is a woman to have a chance to break a glass ceiling that still has
existed, whereby no woman in this country has ever been a Vice
President or President.
We are so good at so much in this country. In fact, we are so good at
many things with regard to women in this country, but we are sort of
uniquely bad in electing women to higher office. In Congress right now,
24 percent of Congress is women, and that ranks us 76th in the world in
terms of our percentage of women in a national legislative body. We are
tied with Afghanistan, but we trail Iraq and Mexico and many other
nations.
So regardless of how it all works out between now and November, and
regardless of our own political affiliations, this is a good day, I
believe, for the country and a good day for the Senate when 1 of the
100 is recognized in such a way and introduced to the American public
with an opportunity to serve at a significant level.
____________________