The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Tribute to Elvia Montoya (Executive Calendar)” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the in the Senate section section on pages S374-S375 on Feb. 14.
The State Department is responsibly for international relations with a budget of more than $50 billion. Tenure at the State Dept. is increasingly tenuous and it's seen as an extension of the President's will, ambitions and flaws.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Tribute to Elvia Montoya
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to recognize and bid farewell to a valued member of my team, our legislative director, Elvia Montoya.
Five years ago, our office had the fortune of bringing Elvia onboard as a legislative correspondent--or LC--working on issues of education, equal rights, and healthcare. These are incredibly important issues. And she did such an incredible job working on them that it wasn't long at all before she was promoted to handle them as our legislative assistant.
And time and time again, year after year, no matter what new task she took on or what challenge was thrown at her, she succeeded and thrived. Every Oregonian, every American, across this Nation is better off today, thanks to her tireless efforts.
Seventy-two thousand children in our State, for instance, who normally get free or reduced-priced lunches during the school year continue to get healthy and nutritious meals during the summer months. They have Elvia to thank for that because she is the one who included language in the fiscal year 2020 Further Consolidated Appropriations Act to reinstate the program.
Thousands of nurses are on the job today saving lives because we invested in the training and workforce development that are key to the future of this critical profession through the Nursing Workforce Reauthorization Act of 2019. And Elvia wrote that bill and helped get it passed as part of the CARES Act; and thank goodness she did, or the nursing shortage today would be much worse than it is.
And Elvia was always three steps ahead in the lead-up to the COVID-19 pandemic. In January of 2020, over 2 months before life as we knew shut down and people were only vaguely aware of a new virus coming out of China, she saw right away that this had the potential to upend life around the Globe.
By the end of that month, she had persuaded me to lead a letter calling on the World Health Organization to declare a public health emergency of international concern.
By the end of February, our office had a resource page for Oregonians who were starting to hear about this new, dangerous virus and were growing nervous. This was phenomenal timing because Oregon had its first confirmed case on Friday, February 28, 2020. The announcement came well after working hours.
But even late on a Friday evening, she was on the ball, alerting me and other senior staff and starting to prepare for the long battle ahead as she led our team in that battle for the next year-plus.
She kept tabs on the virus, day in and day out, leading briefings for our team and providing daily updates on the spread and impact of the virus. And she led my team's efforts to help enact the COVID relief bills as we took up and passed them here on the Senate floor--from the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act to the Families First Coronavirus Response Act; the CARES Act to the Paycheck Protection Program and Healthcare Enforcement Act.
And she wasn't just invested in policy. She was also invested in the logistical challenges we faced under COVID. One night, when a truck was supposed to be delivering supplies of personal protective equipment--or PPE, as we call it--delivering it from the national stockpile to the main resource warehouse in Oregon, from where it would be distributed to hospitals and clinics and other places the following morning, things went awry. The security guards at the facility hadn't received the right paperwork when the tractor trailer pulled up. So they turned the truck away.
Now, at that time, we were in such short supply of PPE, and our healthcare practitioners were risking their lives because of that shortage. So this was incredibly important that we get these supplies delivered.
Doctors and nurses and other first responders on the frontlines of the pandemic were counting on that delivery of supplies that was now headed in the wrong direction. So Elvia jumped into action. She started calling folks at HHS and other Federal and State agencies. She woke people up. She tracked down cell phone numbers, including the numbers of the guards who were on duty. Eventually, she got that truck turned around and those supplies were delivered.
She was able to do this because she had worked for months and months to build connections and relationships with folks working, at every level, on responding to the pandemic. Thus, when an incident like this occurred, she knew how to make sure the bureaucratic redtape didn't stop people from getting the help and resources they needed.
And so it was when our previous legislative director left to go to the State Department in January of 2021, it was clear that Elvia's tenacity, resourcefulness, humor, warmth, professionalism would make her the perfect choice to ably step up and fill that role.
Almost overnight, she went from focusing exclusively on healthcare and education to overseeing the entire pantheon of our team's legislative activities, with all of the added responsibilities--like staffing vote-aramas--that came along with the role.
As legislative director, she has personally taken point on our efforts to protect American democracy and ensure every American's right to vote. She quickly and deeply immersed herself in the intricacies of the issues of voter suppression, of dark money, and gerrymandering that we sought to address in the For the People Act and its derivative, the Freedom to Vote Act.
On top of that, Elvia got familiar with the history and arcane procedures of this body that are so much in need of reform today, helping to craft workable options to restore the Senate to being a better legislative body that our Founders intended it to be.
And even now, she has continued to take the lead on my ``Mysteries of the Senate'' project, where every week we prepare a memo for the caucus explaining another aspect of the Senate's arcane history and procedures. This is valuable, I hope, because I believe we cannot begin to improve the way we function unless Members understand better the Senate's history and the web of rules and precedents that guide how we operate.
It would be an understatement to say that Elvia has excelled at every task and every issue she has taken on over these last 5 years. It has been a pleasure for me to work with her. It has been a pleasure for the entire team to work with her. And she has contributed greatly to the future of our team nurturing and bringing along new staffers, making sure they not only are up to speed on the issues but fully integrated participants in our collective effort to improve policies to benefit Oregonians and to benefit Americans.
Elvia, all of us on the team--all of us on team Merkley--thank you deeply for your dedication. We wish you all the best in your next chapter as you take your talents back home to Oregon. I think all of us are a bit jealous of that opportunity to be fully back home. And we know that wherever you are, you will never stop fighting to build a better world.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The majority whip.
