House Journal: Page 1911: Thursday, April 29, 1999

enter the new millenium this group of people in this chamber and across the hallway 

in the other chamber have made Iowa a better place for the future.
So, it is time to go home, and we need to thank some people. To the Republican 
caucus, thank you for the opportunity to serve as majority leader for the past seven 
years. Thank you for the opportunity to serve as the Speaker of this House. I would 
have to admit my first day and a half has been a little rough, but I'm hoping for some 
improvement along the way.
To Representative Schrader, Ron said it all David. You're a good friend, an 
outstanding leader, you're a tough opponent when you need to be, but you're also 
somebody that we can sit down and work out our differences. You do a great job of 
leading your caucus and I want to thank you for that, and I want to tell you that I look 
forward to working with you next year. I think we have accomplished a lot working 
together. When we have our battles, we step away from them when they're done and 
we move on to other things. You have my greatest respect as the leader of your caucus.
To the minority caucus many of you are good friends of mine, I would say the same 
thing. We do battle in this place occasionally, but we walk away as friends. Everybody 
in here has got the best intentions in the world. We just think differently sometimes. 
But we can go out of here, minority party members and majority party members, 
knowing we've done the job we were sent here to do. We've won some, we've lost some. 
And both caucuses and everybody in this place has reason to be proud.
To the leadership team that I get to work with, and I'm very proud to work with 
them - Christopher Rants, Barry Blodgett, Chuck Gipp, Danny Carroll, and now Steve 
Sukup, and Libby Jacobs has been added to the team. I want to thank you for your 
support, the work that you have done with me and collectively to try to move our 
caucus ahead and also to move Iowa ahead. You're an outstanding leadership team, 
and I thank you for all the work that you have done. I probably don't have a full 
appreciation yet for Liz and the people right here in front of me and in back of that 
office but I'm sure I'm going to shortly. They do an outstanding job as Speaker Corbett 
said in running this place. And I thank them for all that they do.
Our caucus staff, on the Republican side as well as the Democratic side I know are 
outstanding people. They do a great job helping us get the answers we need to make 
sure we make informed decisions when we want to, doing everything they can to make 
us look good and to help us do what we need to do. I want to thank them deeply.
To the Pages, hopefully a great opportunity for them, to the doormen, to all the staff 
around here, everybody throughout this building, many, many thanks for helping us 
run this place because it's not an easy place to run.
To my office, my pages, Jessica Boddicker, thank you very much. Unfortunately 
Becky and Susan have not been released from indentured servitude yet. They are going 
to come across the doorway into the Speaker's office and I'm very happy about that. 
They had a tough time trying to keep me where I'm supposed to go. I'm sure it'll be 
tougher next year but you couldn't ask for better people to help me try to run this 
place. Obviously to Dan Fogleman and to Susan Bruckshaw and to Jeff Mitchell in 
Ron's office, they've also made my job so much easier.

© 1999 Cornell College and League of Women Voters of Iowa

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