{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=882D19F9-A289-42B6-8E84-B831819FC523", "McConnell Honors Retiring Senator Pat Toomey", "2022-12-15", "2022", "2022-12", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA):\n\n\u201cThe Senate is often labeled the world\u2019s greatest deliberative body. A place where generations of titanic statesmen have asked the deep questions about America.\n\n\u201cQuestions like: How do we balance individual liberty with the common good? What role should we play on the world stage? And: How should tax depreciation affect a small restaurant owner who\u2019s buying a new Fry-o-lator?\n\n\u201cAnyone around the Senate would recognize that last query as the work of our detail-oriented, hometown-focused, economics whiz, the junior Senator from Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey.\n\n\u201cPat\u2019s entire sterling career \u2014 from the private sector, to the House, to nonprofit activism, to the Senate \u2014 has revolved around the reality that economics is central to daily life. What seem like dry financial matters can determine whether whole societies rise or fall, and whether hardworking families struggle or succeed.\n\n\u201cFor two terms in the Senate and almost two decades total in Congress, Pat\u2019s commanding mastery of economic issues have had a massive impact on his state and country.\n\n\u201cOur friend takes particular pride, as he should, in his leading role in delivering the generational tax reform of 2017. Most people involved in that massive effort found it exhausting. I understand Pat considered it energizing. Our resident economist was in his element. And the work he helped lead created one of the best economic moments for working Americans in a generation, before the pandemic.\n\n\u201cTax reform is far from the only fruit of Pat\u2019s labors. From the JOBS Act of 2012, which put financial markets more within reach for everyday investors\u2026To the CARES Act, where Pat helped steer our bedrock financial institutions through pandemic turmoil. We knew we were getting a principled firebrand when our friend joined the Senate, but we\u2019ve also gotten a collegial consensus-builder.\n\n\u201cWhether it was Pat\u2019s work on the 2011 \u2018super-committee\u2019 or his tenure at the top of the Banking Committee, Pat has blended principle, pragmatism, and persuasion. He is always professional and respectful \u2014 to his colleagues, to nominees, everybody. He is unusually skilled at fighting the fight and unusually skilled at getting an outcome.\n\n\u201cPat\u2019s life and career have brought him a long way, but you still see the seeds that were planted by his father \u2014 a Marine vet and utility worker. There wasn\u2019t any legacy fast-track into the Ivy League. Thanks to a good upbringing, it was hard work and sheer brainpower that paved our friend\u2019s path to a prep school merit scholarship, then to Harvard.\n\n\u201cPat cut his professional teeth as a trader in New York and Hong Kong. A free-marketeer right from the start. But right as his Wall Street opportunities were taking off, Pat hit pause on his big-city rise and put his economic instincts to an even higher-stakes test: He headed back to Allentown to set up a family business from scratch.\n\n\u201cThe small restaurant Pat and his brothers started was a proving ground for Pat\u2019s deep convictions in the community-building, life-changing power of free enterprise and entrepreneurship. I understand Pat\u2019s first venture into elected office, a local commission, was mostly just an effort to make sure bureaucrats didn\u2019t meddle with the success of Rookie\u2019s Restaurant and others like it.\n\n\u201cThe rest, of course, is history. Pat Toomey became a formidable congressman; then a pivotal outside player; and finally a masterful and essential Senator.\n\n\u201cPat\u2019s led the charge for his fellow Pennsylvanians on one front after another. In one instance, he responded to tragedy close to home with a solution for the entire country. Heinous buck-passing on child abuse in public schools \u2013 known as \u201cpassing the trash\u201d \u2013 had let an offender who abused a child in Pennsylvania proceed to strike again in West Virginia. With the help of the senior Senator from that state, Pat spearheaded legislation that compels states to crack down on this abhorrent practice.\n\n\u201cAnother time, through sheer willpower, Pat literally became a life-saving legislative guardian angel for a young Pennsylvanian battling cystic fibrosis. Sarah Murnaghan was only 12 years old when outdated and tangled rules around lung transplants put her young life in serious peril. Pat rallied a coalition of members; they relentlessly lobbied the executive branch; a federal judge weighed in; and long story short, that young lady got her transplant and is still with us today.\n\n\u201cPat\u2019s creative problem-solving has known few bounds. The way I hear it, one time, our colleague literally leveraged the America\u2019s Cup sailboat race as a way to get a specialized transport ship re-flagged so that Pennsylvania\u2019s natural gas industry could keep moving useful byproducts to market.\n\n\u201cAnd in the midst of all this, Pat made sure his office\u2019s casework for Pennsylvanians was just as superlative. His team\u2019s incredibly tight turnaround for responding to constituents has earned Pat praise from unlikely corners. I understand that one time, former President Clinton went out of his way to inform our colleague that a friend of his in the Keystone State couldn\u2019t believe how quick and substantive a reply he or she had gotten from Senator Toomey\u2019s office.\n\n\u201cWhile many Capitol Hill offices struggle just to turn around the correspondence that comes in, I have it on good authority that Pat will literally go combing through local newspapers\u2019 Letters to the Editor so that he can proactively initiate contact with Pennsylvanians who haven\u2019t even sought him out.\n\n\u201cEven the most eager morning people on Pat\u2019s staff have learned to expect the lights will already be on when they get to the office. Their boss, already primed with ideas and questions. \u2018I think we could come at this a few different ways.\u2019 Or, \u2018Have you seen how German government bonds are trading today?\u2019 But our colleague\u2019s also known for his thoughtful, almost fatherly leadership style. Pat holds everyone to a high standard, especially himself. But if something goes amiss, there\u2019s no quick temper, no harsh words. Just a facial expression that his team affectionately calls, \u2018that \u2018disappointed dad\u2019 look.\u2019 And no matter what happens, everyone\u2019s invited to the annual pool party at Pat\u2019s house.\n\n\u201cTalk about an interesting Senate creature, Madam President. A man with a brain formed on the trading floor\u2026 and a heart shaped by Lehigh Valley kitchen tables.\n\n\u201cPat\u2019s true loves are family and free enterprise. This combination has made him a formidable Senator. But it also showed us the writing on the wall: The Senate was never going to get to keep our friend forever.\n\n\u201cPat is always very careful to refer to his Senate service as, \u2018the greatest professional honor of my life.\u2019 Note the caveat. Because everybody knows what Pat sees as the greatest honor overall.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve seen our friend fiercely guard every possible moment of family normalcy with Kris and their three kids. We\u2019ve seen hours blocked off on Pat\u2019s calendar on a weeknight under the label \u2018Duncan\u2019s Baseball Practice.\u2019 We\u2019ve heard about evening sprints to the train station in order to make it to a Christmas pageant \u2014 only to see our friend right back here the next morning.\n\n\u201cLike I said, Madam President: Family and free enterprise. The two great loves.\n\n\u201cI heard a classic Pat Toomey story where a young intern in his office was excitedly telling his friends about the prestigious ivory tower path that he was aspiring to. Apparently his boss the Senator chimed in with something to the effect of: \u2018Yeah, that sounds great, but have you ever considered opening up a small business?\u2019\n\n\u201cSo while we\u2019re going to miss Pat around these parts, none of us can claim surprise that family and free enterprise teamed up to steal him back. Since we\u2019re talking about an all-star Senate dad, I\u2019ll put it this way: Pat, your colleagues and I aren\u2019t mad\u2026 we\u2019re just disappointed.\n\n\u201cYou have achieved so much. You\u2019ve done just what you hoped to. Congratulations and thank you.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:41:06Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=882D19F9-A289-42B6-8E84-B831819FC523"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4014339540153742, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}