-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, it was John Quincy Adams who once said:

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.

For the last 14 years, the members of my team have had an outstanding leader in our chief of staff, Michael Zamore, who has constantly and consistently inspired the team and me to dream, to grow, to strive to do better every single day for ourselves and the people we serve.

But after nearly a decade and a half, as the heart and soul of Team Merkley and more than 22 years on Capitol Hill, Mr. Zamore has decided to close this chapter of his life and career and set off to begin writing the next chapter. I know I speak for many when I say how hard it is to imagine our office or the Senate without Mike Zamore.

Mike has been with me from the very beginning. He was one of the small crew working out of the temporary basement office the day I was sworn in. Five new Members of the Senate and a couple of staff members crowded into a single, little, expanded room downstairs, trying to figure out what we were doing, how to get around.

Where are those hearing rooms? How do we get the paper for the printers? How do we get staples for the staplers?

He has been a pivotal part of every success that our team has achieved since, and there have been a lot of legislative highlights in the time that he has led Team Merkley--to name just a few: outlawing predatory mortgages; passing financial reform to shut down the Wall Street proprietary trading casino; winning Senate passage of ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, to end job discrimination against our LGBTQ+ community; drafting and introducing the Equality Act to end LGBTQ discrimination across the board; leading the effort to end the horrific Trump policy of ripping children out of their parents' arms at the border; ending the importation of Chinese products produced with slave labor; and so many more and so many different initiatives to improve healthcare, to establish more decent and affordable housing, to expand quality education, and to increase the number of good-paying jobs for working Americans.

But it isn't just policy that is relevant to the role of a chief of staff. Mike has worked to ensure that our team has the best operation for answering constituents' letters to be found on Capitol Hill, to empower the Oregon half of our operation to build a fabulous constituent services team and an excellent set of field representatives to work with Oregon's counties and cities to address the challenges and opportunities within our State, and to keep our DC team and our Oregon team working closely together as one.

He did this through many trips to the State and by encouraging staff here in DC to travel and be in Oregon as well and by ensuring we connected and coordinated through weekly all-staff meetings and that we connected through biannual retreats: getting everyone together face-to- face with the Oregon team and the DC team, spending time together to know one another, enjoy each other's company, and expand the connections that lead to successful progress forward on issue after issue.

And because we like to be a team that not only works hard but plays hard, Mike always had a little special presentation for those occasions when we were all gathered together, on one occasion dressing up in colonial garb to perform a special Team Merkley rendition of a song from ``Hamilton'' or, on another occasion, doing a sea shanty during our nautical-themed virtual retreat. In doing these presentations, he proved himself to be a far, far braver man than most of the rest of us, but I know that that extra bit of effort has always been beloved by everyone on the team.

His most lasting legacy will be through the talented individuals he has carefully recruited to be members of our team over the last 14-plus years and the way that he inspired them and led them, with heart and humility, imbuing them with the same passion for public service that has guided Mike throughout his entire career.

I believe we have had one of the most energetic, capable, and motivated teams ever assembled on Capitol Hill, and that is because we have had one of the most energetic, capable, and motivated chiefs of staff in Mike Zamore.

As chief, Mike worked hard to champion and reinforce specific values. One of them that has resonated over the years is the idea of continuous self-improvement--the idea that none of us are perfect and never will be and that we should always be striving to be better ourselves as individuals and as a team.

Mike never exempted himself from that same spirit of continual self- improvement. He sought out and welcomed honest feedback from everyone, from the newest intern to the most senior staffer, on how he was doing and how the office was doing and how we could do better.

Jack Welch, the former head of GE, once said:

When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.

Mike has always cared deeply about helping the members of our team grow. That is why he has always loved outside-the-box thinking, like when a staff member suggested that I should hop on a plane and go down to the border to find out for myself what was really happening with the administration's zero-tolerance family separation policy. It is why he enthusiastically embraced and championed our office's mission of inclusivity and was so supportive of the creation of a diversity, equity, and inclusion committee. Our DE&I team members have created learning opportunities, and they share information to educate and inform the rest of the team about a wide range of issues, and they work to inspire honest, open, and sometimes uncomfortable dialogues so that we can all be the best versions of ourselves and so that we can serve all of the people of Oregon with the highest level of respect and responsiveness.

It is why his door was always open for what he called ``Z hours,'' when folks would come in and talk about anything whether it was work related or not.

The office and Team Merkley won't be the same without Mike. It won't be the same without the ringer on his phone quacking like a duck and interrupting meetings. It won't be the same without our office mascot-- Mike's loving husky, Juneau--around to brighten everyone's day.

The writer Walter Lippmannn noted:

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind in others the conviction and will to carry on.

And I can tell you that the values of service, compassion, and humility that Mike has enshrined in the heart of Team Merkley will carry on because the folks whom he has painstakingly brought together have the conviction and will to do so.

Thank you, Mike. Thank you for all you have done for the team, all you have done for the Senate, and all you have done in advocating for policies to make our State, our country, and the world a better place. We wish you and your family the best as you start writing that next chapter of your life.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source