Retiring Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said in an interview that too many politicians in Washington “don’t care” about the country, only about their “political ambitions.”
In an interview with The Associated Press published Wednesday, Leahy said when he first joined the Senate in 1975, senators found ways to get things done regardless of differing views.
Leahy, 82, the Senate Appropriations Committee chairman, has spent the last 48 years in the Senate and serves as the chamber’s president pro tempore and is third in line to the presidency.
“I think then, most of [the senators] knew there were basic things the Senate should do, basic things the country needed, and we should find a way to come together,” Leahy told the AP.
“Now, there are too many people who think, ‘What can I say that will get me on the evening news or give me a sound bite or get me on this Twitter account,’ or something else. They don’t care about the country. They care about their political ambitions.”
Leahy and Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), the top Republican on the Appropriations panel who is also retiring on Jan. 3, helped broker a deal on the $1.7 trillion spending package Congress is poised to pass this week. The deal was negotiated largely in private, with Leahy telling the AP senators were focused on getting work done.
He told the wire service he’s holding out hope the Senate as he used to know it will return some day, saying “hyperpartisanship” has taken precedence in Congress more recently.
“If we don’t get back to it, this country is going to be severely damaged,” he said. “We’re the wealthiest, most powerful powerful nation on Earth. And we have over 300 million Americans.”
“We have responsibility to the Americans. We have a responsibility to the rest of the world.”
Leahy is set to be replaced by Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who defeated Republican challenger Gerald Malloy in November’s midterm election, as Vermont’s newest senator next month.