WASHINGTON — After 14 years in the Senate, Sam Brownback had a lot to say to his colleagues as he bid adieu. So the Kansas Republican, retiring to become his state’s governor, stood over the lectern at his antique mahogany desk on the Senate floor and started to talk:
“I love this body . . .
“I like to think about the beauty of the country and the ability to come together because it does happen . . .
“This is a special place and has a special calling.”
But as he looked around this special place, Brownback saw hardly a soul. Somewhere, someone was watching on C-SPAN. But inside the storied Senate chamber, none of his dearest colleagues had come to hear him deliver his farewell address. Only Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., were present, but they were huddled in their own conversation.
All of which made the conclusion of Brownback’s speech last month so appropriate. He said he signed his desk, one of the final rites of passage. “I did it in pencil,” Brownback said. “I figure that all of us will fade with time and that signature will fade with time as well. . . . The place will know us no more.”
With that, Brownback yielded the floor. He gathered his papers, pushed in his chair and walked out alone, waving goodbye to the clerks, his only attentive listeners.
For senators, the farewell address is a chance to alert history to how one’s tenure should be viewed and to thank one’s fellow lawmakers for their collegiality. But the humbling truth is this: Rare is the senator whose colleagues show up to listen, and rarer still are those who are remembered at all.
Remember the recent farewell speeches of Roland Burris, D-Ill., and Ted Kaufman, D-Del.? Didn’t think so.
No time for all the goodbyes
The other day, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, gave an emotional tribute marking the retirement of his “great friend” Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah. After 18 years in office, Bennett lost his party’s nomination for a fourth term this year amid a Tea Party insurgency.
Hatch spoke fondly of Bennett, with his 77-year-old comrade sitting behind him on an empty Senate floor, with a stenographer nearby transcribing the remarks for the record.
“Bob Bennett is a wise counselor,” Hatch said. “He is a truly honest man. He cares not only for the people he represented but everybody in this country and many people throughout the world.”
Bennett rose to say: “My wife has said, by virtue of our retirement from the Senate: It is a little like going to your own funeral. You are hearing all of the eulogies, but you are still alive.”
There were no visible tears. The two Utahns hugged, looked at their watches and shuffled out through different doors. Such a hasty goodbye, but they’re on the clock. And Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., was waiting to make an argument to C-SPAN viewers about renewing the START treaty.
Rarely have so many farewells occurred in such a short span. Sixteen senators and nearly 100 representatives will have had their swan songs before Congress recesses for the holidays. Some are retiring and others were swept from office at the polls, while a handful, such as Burris and Kaufman, have seen their temporary appointments come to an end.
It is a sign of the times that many of these moments are unfolding in empty or nearly empty chambers. Lawmakers generally come to their chambers only when votes are called or when they are giving their own speeches, but they rarely watch colleagues give theirs.
Sometimes they catch snippets on their office televisions, or read the published transcripts, but usually they are preoccupied with committee hearings, office meetings, fundraisers, media interviews and the myriad other commitments that overwhelm the modern congressman’s schedule.
Saying things unsaid
Lawmakers are not required to give a farewell speech, but many do, especially long-serving ones. If ever they had something to say to their colleagues, and to the country, this is the time.
“They don’t take them lightly,” said Donald Ritchie, the Senate historian. “This is an important moment, and they want to come back to sometimes set the record straight and sometimes to say the last thoughts they have about the way they wish things would develop in the future.”
Such was the case with Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who in his valedictory address took on the role of graybeard, passing on his wisdom after 30 years in office.
He warned his younger Democratic colleagues to resist the temptation to change Senate rules to keep the minority party from filibustering.
“In my years here, I have learned that the appreciation of the Senate’s role in our national debate is an acquired taste,” Dodd said.
Dodd alerted the media and colleagues days in advance when he would give his farewell, at 4 p.m. Tuesday. And the senator stepped onto the floor just on time.
Although many of his colleagues trickled in late, they did show up, and rose in hearty applause to offer a rare moment of bipartisan harmony.
