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By Brian Friel
I prepared an amendment for the senator that would provide extra funding to school districts serving large numbers of children whose parents were at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The rationale was that these kids were experiencing all of sorts of psychological trauma and falling behind academically due to what was happening to their parents. There were heightened discipline problems, tutoring needs, and so forth. Individual school districts were picking up the associated costs when really the federal government should have been doing so instead.
Anyway, I prepared an amendment at around $25 million. The senator asked why that number. I gave him a justification based on the number of children impacted and a survey of actual costs in several large districts. I told him I cut the resulting amount in half so the amendment wouldn't be seen as too liberal. He let out a hearty belly laugh and said, "You're in the wrong office. Double it."
All of us on his staff worked exceptionally hard for the senator, because we believed in his mission, because he worked harder than any other senator and because he was fearless. We worked hard for him because he cared so deeply about people that he never let the great be the enemy of the good. But we also worked hard for him because we liked him. He made hard work easy.
