{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://www.mcconnell.senate.gov//public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ContentRecord_id=10B3D866-1747-4EFC-94E5-80EA47189979", "Majority Leader McConnell Honors Personal Office Chief of Staff Phil Maxson", "2020-12-18", "2020", "2020-12", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON, D.C.  U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor today paying tribute to his departing personal office Chief of Staff, Phil Maxson:\r\nI jump at any opportunity to praise my incredible staff. I'm just sorry that one natural occasion is when great people head toward the exits.\nPhil Maxson of Lexington, Kentucky has mastered one of the toughest jobs on Capitol Hill.\nAs Chief of Staff for my personal office, he oversees the operation that delivers for Kentucky families and Kentucky priorities.\nHere's what that role means in our tight-knit organization. It's like being the player-coach on an old baseball teamwho's also a utility player at the same time. Phil wears about ten hats each day, orchestrating a seamless operation.\r\nHe's mastered policy. Political strategy. Messaging. Constituent services. He's budgeted and managed the office itself. And Phil is also a liaison and colleague to my leadership office here in the Capitol. He's the linkage between the two sides of my operation; the single person most responsible for helping me harmonize home-state priorities with my national duties and keep the Commonwealth at the center of all I do.\nIt's a tall order. It takes the best of the best. Someone who's so capable that every important issue will involve them, but so humble that situations never become about them.\nEnter Phil Maxson. A kind, cheerful, and unbelievably competent servant leader whom I'm convinced nobody on this planet dislikes.\nPhil climbed the Capitol Hill ladder the old-fashioned way.\r\nHe joined my team as an intern a decade ago. Actually, I think Phil may have snuck a late application into a last-minute opening. If I'm right about that, then his good fortune was ours as well.\r\nHe's done every job  legislative correspondent, legislative assistant, legislative director, and then the top spot. As one of his old bosses reminded me recently, every time a gap in the office appeared, Phil was the natural choice.'\r\nIt's not like he elbowed his way up; it's that circumstances and our needs kept pulling him up. He's that good.\nFor the past decade, Phil has walked into every meeting, every markup, every normal day at the office and every grueling far-flung CODEL with total preparation, complete professionalism  and the score of the latest UK game.\nAnother former supervisor of his put it this way: I don't think I ever asked Phil a single question he didn't already know the answer to, or didn't find the answer within about 10 minutes.'\nThat's high praise when your portfolio ranges from U.S.-Burma relations to the BUILD grants that improve our roads and everything in between.\r\n***\r\nIt helps that Phil is a Kentucky Thoroughbred, through and through. This man really is Dyed in the Bluegrass.'\nAs a young man in Lexington, he found part-time work giving tours at Henry Clay's Ashland Estate. He also graduated from Henry Clay High School. You could say the Senate was a natural destination.\r\nHere, he's met UK's Coach Calipari, President Netanyahu, and families from Kentucky's smallest towns. And they all got exactly the same attention, enthusiasm, and warmth from Phil Maxson.\r\nHe clicks with everyone. He's as affable as he is intelligent. In a town full of big egos and sharp elbows, he stands out because he doesn't try to stand out.\nFor the better part of a decade, virtually every significant win we've notched for our Commonwealth has had Phil at its nucleus. But if you dropped by the staff meeting the day after, what you'd hear is Phil explaining why everyone else deserves more credit than he does. Why it really all came down to my leadership...or his peers' efforts...or the hard work of the junior folks beneath him.\r\nYou'd have to go to everyone else to learn that Phil was the human glue that held it all together.\r\n***\r\nIt'd take me all day to list every win Phil's helped quarterback for our home state.\nA state-of-the-art chemical weapons destruction facility in Madison County\nThe transfer of the Rochester Dam to local ownership\nA new wildlife refuge in Henderson County\nEnvironmental cleanup and health benefits for nuclear workers in Paducah\nThe planned construction of a new VA hospital in Louisville\nFreedom to Fish and the raising of Lake Cumberlandand many more.\nBut alas, his dedication to Kentucky is so all-encompassing that he and his wife Sarah Beth have decided they don't want to raise their young family anywhere else.\r\nSo B and Phil on Capitol Hill,' as friends have called them, plus their two boys Barbour and Theodore, are homeward bound.\r\nI made the same decision myself as a young man, trading in the life of a Senate staffer for a move back home. So I can't exactly fault his decision. Phil needs to spend fewer breakfasts and dinners with me, and more with his own burgeoning clan. I get it. But I'm sure sorry to see him go.\r\n***\r\nPhil is the kind of Senate all-star who deserves a full-dress curtain call. He deserves toasts, and a dinner, and a big farewell party. I regret that, in these bizarre pandemic times, a floor speech will have to suffice -- at least for right now.\r\nSo Phil  thank you for your years of dedication to the state we both love. We'll miss your brain and we'll miss your heart. You're leaving behind one heck of a fan club all throughout the United States Senate. We wish you all the best in the chapters ahead.\r\n  February 2020: Phil Maxson with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in his personal office in Washington, D.C.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "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": ["http://www.mcconnell.senate.gov//public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ContentRecord_id=10B3D866-1747-4EFC-94E5-80EA47189979"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7669739425182343, "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"}