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)
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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.
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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,