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On Tuesday, Sen. Patrick Leahy ended his remarkable 48-year career as the senator from Vermont.
Leahy was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1974 at the age of 34. He is now 82. He was the first Democrat elected to Congress from Vermont, and until this week, the only Vermont Democratic senator, since Sen. Bernie Sanders is an independent. Leahy was also the last of the Senate’s “Watergate Babies” elected in the wake of former President Richard Nixon’s resignation after the Watergate scandal.
Leahy is the third longest serving U.S. senator in history, after Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WV (51 years), and Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-HI (49 years). He has served with nine presidents and has cast more than 17,000 votes as a senator. As a key member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he participated in some 18 Supreme Court confirmation hearings. His memoir, “The Road Taken,” was published in 2022.
Leahy’s last day as a U.S. senator was historic in another way: It was the first time in a century that the House of Representatives failed to elect a speaker on the first ballot.
Leahy reflected on the political impasse, “This is hurting the United States. It is hurting our sense of democracy. When you have people from the former President (Trump) on say, ‘Well maybe we should just suspend a few of these parts of the Constitution because they’re inconvenient for what we want to do’ — they weren’t made to be convenient. They’re made to hold a country together. And I fear for the country if it continues like this.”
The Vermont Conversation asked Leahy who of the nine presidents he served with were the most consequential. He replied, “It would probably be Trump because of all the things he did that we’re still paying the price for.”
During the Jan. 6 insurrection, Leahy was evacuated to a secure room with other senators while police battled with the mob of Trump supporters who had invaded the Capitol. A Senate colleague suggested that the Senate finish its business in the secure room. The suggestion infuriated Leahy. He declared to his fellow Senators, “I’m the dean of the Senate. I’m the longest serving person here. I’m the president pro tem. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to meet in secret.”
“Let us go back where the American people can see what we’re saying, how we’re voting, what we’re doing. Don’t hide,” he said. He received a standing ovation.
“I leave with pride in what I’ve done,” Leahy said. “I cast more votes than all but one person in history. I’ve actually served with 20% of the senators who have been elected in the history of this country. … I felt that gives me a responsibility to do what I think is right. And that’s what I’ve tried to do.”
“But I gotta tell you,” the Vermont senator said after nearly a half-century of service, “Marcelle and I are just looking forward to coming home now.”