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Floor Speech

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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, we will be losing several members to retirement at the end of this year, including my friend Roy Blunt.

Roy and I have served together for the majority of my time in the Senate, and I also served with him for several years in the House of Representatives.

We started in the House at the same time, and we became friends right away. Our wives have become friends as well through the years, and it has been a joy over the years to host Roy and Abby in South Dakota, along with their son Charlie, and to visit them in Missouri. On a personal level, I am going to miss Roy a lot, and the Senate as an institution is going to miss Roy as well.

Roy is someone who aspires to be involved in doing the hard things. And throughout his congressional career, he has put himself forward for positions where he can make a difference.

He became chief deputy whip just 2 years after becoming a member of the House, and he was elected majority whip just 4 years later, winning the position earlier in his career than any member in Congress in eight decades.

It has been a similar story in the Senate where Roy was elected vice chairman of the Republican Conference in his first year. In 2019, he became chairman of the Republican policy committee which plays an important role in providing members and staff with the resources they need on the issues. And he has done that while serving as the top Republican on the Senate Rules Committee.

Roy has always been committed to doing the big things, but he is also very solutions-oriented and very clear-eyed and practical about what is achievable in a place where it is hard to get things done.

He has a saying: Never announce publicly what you won't vote for. What he means by that is that you shouldn't back yourself into a position where you can't support a good compromise. While it is not always possible to get everything you want, you shouldn't let that stop you from doing as much good as you can.

Roy has done a lot of good during his time in Congress, and one of his lasting legacies will be the bipartisan achievements in the healthcare space, including his efforts to help create and expand the certified community behavioral health clinics program to improve access to mental health care and championing medical research. The facility housing the NIH's Center for Alzheimer's and Related Dementias is actually named after Roy in honor of his longtime work to support dementia research. And, of course, no mention of Roy's legacy would be complete without mentioning his stalwart advocacy for the people of Missouri.

I am going to miss Roy, and the Senate will miss Roy, but I am grateful to have had the opportunity to serve together, and I am happy he will have more time to spend with Abby and his children and grandchildren.

Roy has made a lasting impact here in the Senate, and I look forward to seeing his next chapter.

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