When Senator Harkin was retiring,
and I was in the House and running for

the Senate, he called me over and he said,
"Tammy, I'm handing the reins over to you."

(laughing)

♪ (music) ♪

It has just sort of fallen to me to

champion ADA issues, being a wheelchair user.

And then, Senator Harkin was retiring
and I was in the House

and running for the Senate,
he called me over

and he said,
"Tammy, I'm handing the reins over to you."

(laughter) "I'm handing the torch to you.
You need to be the torch bearer

and you need to really represent
the entire disability community

because you, frankly, would't be here
had the disability community

not been there
before you even became disabled."

And he was absolutely right.

I find myself being the go-to person
on a lot of the ADA issues

as they come up in Congress.

♪ (music) ♪

I said, yes, I was honored.

I mean, to be able to be handed
the mantle from

Tome Harkin is quite the honor.

And you know,
I don't know that I can fill his shoes,

but I try everyday to make sure
I do my best to represent the community,

but also to just fight for basic common--

and this is what I did in the Army,
I fought for freedom,

I fought for people's rights.
And this is just a basic human right,