Farewell To The Senate
Mr. President, it has been the honor of my lifetime to serve Georgia in the U.S. Senate. There has never been a day that I don't walk through the hallways of the Capitol when I am not awestruck by the magnitude of this job and of this…
Mr. President, it has been the honor of my lifetime to serve Georgia in the U.S. Senate. There has never been a day that I don't walk through the hallways of the Capitol when I am not awestruck by the magnitude of this job and of this place and of my duty.
I want to thank my colleagues, especially those who welcomed me from the start, who worked with me, and who even across the aisle worked with me to get things done for our country in such a consequential year.
I want to thank the people of Georgia who showed me the very best of our great State. My goal as Senator was clear: to work every single day to make Georgians' lives better and to make ours the very best State to work, to live, to worship, and to raise a family.
I never stopped working to meet that goal and was energized and humbled every single day by the opportunity to serve. In between weeks spent in Washington, I crisscrossed our great State nonstop, going from southeast coastal Georgia in Camden County to northwest mountain Georgia in Catoosa County. Time with Georgians are my fondest memories.
One of my earliest visits was in Homerville, GA, population 2,400. I carried the people of Homerville with me every day as I approached my work. Having grown up on our family farm, where the nearest small town had a population of 600, my calling to public service was, in large part, to be a voice--an outsized voice--for those who feel they didn't have a voice in Washington.
Many Georgians inspired me each day to bring results to every corner of
our State. In that spirit, I want to thank Governor Kemp for appointing me and entrusting me with the important work of being a voice for our State and a servant to our citizens.
I was proud to serve alongside my friend and colleague Senator David Perdue.
I want to recognize Senator Johnny Isakson and Senator Saxby Chambliss for their shining example of what it meant to be a Senator, and, most importantly, a public servant. I also want to recognize and thank my incredible husband, Jeff, whose love and support encouraged me every single day. And I want to thank my family for instilling the values of faith, family, and hard work. You all have my deepest love and gratitude.
As importantly, I want to recognize my very talented and hard-working staff, many of whom are with me today. Together, our work here and in Georgia has made a tremendous difference in our State.
Let me tell you about just some of that work, because in one significant year in the Senate, I am so proud of all we have accomplished together. We delivered more than $47 billion in relief to Georgia during the pandemic--to farmers, to family, to small businesses, hospitals, and schools. And, as a freshman Senator, I introduced and passed six pieces of legislation. We secured funding for rural hospitals. We increased telehealth access, and we sped the delivery of PPE to the frontlines.
I championed and we passed legislation that increased funding to help homeless veterans get back on their feet, and I was proud to champion agriculture, our State's leading industry, as well as our military, law enforcement, small businesses, and school choice.
I stood up for innocent life, the Second Amendment, and all of our constitutional rights.
I was able to use my business experience to develop four wide-ranging plans to drive economic security, keep our Nation safe, modernize our healthcare system, and increase opportunities in minority communities.
In 2020 alone, our office helped over 5,200 Georgians with casework, including nearly 1,000 Georgia veterans and Active-Duty service men and women navigate their VA benefits in VA medical centers.
I am incredibly proud of all the work we accomplished together for our State and for our country. There is much more work to do. I had hoped to pass a piece of my legislation to bring back to the United States from China the manufacturing of our critical medical supplies, including prescription drugs, over-the-counter medicine, and medical equipment.
I want to wish my successor well in his work serving Georgia.
Now, most farewell speeches urge colleagues to put country before party or to fix what is broken here in the Senate. My message is slightly different. In all of the events of recent weeks, I want to urge my colleagues to remember why we are here, whom you serve, and to recall the greatness of the American experiment, as well as the fragile nature of our freedoms.
I spent 30 years in the private sector chasing the American dream. I worked on our family's farm. I waitressed. I lived paycheck to paycheck. I moved around the country and worked hard to overcome setbacks and to build a respected career in business. I came to Georgia two decades ago as a job seeker, and I became a job creator, helping to grow a small startup company into a Fortune 500 company.
And, like many Georgians, part of that work is giving back in our communities and supporting others in achieving their dreams. I have done that now in business, in philanthropy, in sports, and now in public service. That is the American dream. It gives everyone, regardless of their background, the freedom to make the most of their life, chase their passions, build their family and their career, and thrive in the greatest country in the world. Protecting that dream for all Americans should be our common cause, regardless of political party.
As I served over the last year, it has become clear that we need more outsiders, more business people, and fewer--with all due respect--fewer politicians.
Americans have high expectations for us. They are looking for leadership. They want results, and, right now, they want their lives back. They are looking for us to restore America and protect their dreams, not to take advantage of a crisis and expand the government.
They certainly don't want their way of life overwhelmed by radical change and costly policies that will push them out of their job, limit their children's educational opportunities, and threaten their right to worship and speak freely.
At the same time, while those on the left feign a desire for unity, they say they cannot tolerate it without accountability. In essence, there can be no unity without conforming to their views. Disagree, and you will be canceled, and not just your social media account but your job, your family, your educational opportunities, and even your God- given rights. Only those who meet the ideological purity test can claim moral superiority and maintain their voice.
Over the last year, I experienced this firsthand many times. Yes, I have been a proud champion of conservative values, but I always put Georgia first ahead of politics. As the pandemic began to unfold, I worked around the clock to deliver relief across Georgia, yet the mainstream media, including my own hometown newspaper, flooded its pages not with serious coverage of my relief efforts but with completely false stories about stock trades fabricated by a leftwing blog.
When this political attack was thoroughly debunked, that fact was largely omitted from subsequent coverage to fit their narrative. The truth is, the mainstream media and Big Tech increasingly care only about advancing their political ideology and protecting only the speech that fits into their specific narrative. The double standards, disdain, and contempt that elites and institutions of influence have for conservatives is increasingly being revealed. For the sake of our discourse, this cannot continue.
As a starting point, we must hold accountable those who limit our free speech and the loss of our civil discourse in this country. The American people are alarmed by the effort to censor conservative voices. We are witnessing a constitutional crisis that threatens to erode the First Amendment and silence people across our country. As a Republican and a conservative American who still believes in the Constitution and the core principles on which our country was founded, I refuse to be intimidated by the cancel culture and its dangerous narratives.
However, not every American feels free to speak up. Their voices are being lost.
This is why this Senate is so important. For 230 years, the U.S. Senate has been the central venue for voicing dissenting views, and it has celebrated the deliberation of issues confronting our Nation.
You must be the voice for those who can't use theirs. Now is the time. The urgency weighs on our country. If we are serious about uniting, it must be out of respect for diversity, not despite it. Diversity of belief is not monolithic.
In 1964, a future President Ronald Reagan spoke to his fellow Americans saying:
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve
for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or
we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand
years of darkness.
These sage words echo today. These words are timeless.
To my colleagues in the Senate, I urge you to address the dire threats to our First Amendment rights in order to restore every American's faith in our democracy and to help restore our trust in each other. It is the only way to ensure that America, the world's shining city on the hill, a republic admired for centuries, can endure for future generations.
I encourage each of you to uphold our uniquely American values and preserve the American dream, and I will continue to champion our party's values from whatever position I occupy. America depends on it. Americans are counting on us to be their voice.
For a shy farm girl who was the first in her family to graduate from college, who could never have imagined that one day I would serve as the U.S. Senator from the great State of Georgia, thank you all. It has been my deepest honor.
May God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.
I yield the floor.
(Applause.)