Retiring New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall delivered his farewell address Tuesday on the Senate floor, remembering his achievements in office and sharing his hopes for the future of a legislative body he says has been paralyzed by disagreement.
Udall, a Democrat from Santa Fe, paid tribute to friendships he forged over his two terms as senator and expressed hope for future generations. He also urged the Senate to act on health care reform, pandemic relief, environmental protections and more as he decried the legislative body’s failure to compromise and make progress.
“I’m not the first to say this in a farewell address, and I won’t be the last, but the Senate is broken,” he said. “It’s not working for the American people.”
As Udall spoke about the Senate’s lack of progress, he echoed some of the sentiments of retiring Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a longtime friend of Udall’s. The two senators’ speeches chastised the Senate’s rampant partisanship for impeding progress and obscuring the upper chamber’s purpose. They did have some disagreements about how best to break the partisan gridlock: Udall supported eliminating the filibuster, saying it enabled a “tyranny of the minority,” while Alexander defended it in his speech.
Udall pointed to specific issues with broad support that Congress had not acted on, including pandemic relief, climate protection, health care reform and more as signs of the legislative body’s dysfunction. He said that by failing to respond to the will of the people, the Senate was eroding the public’s faith in government; this is why, he said, there needs to be significant reform.
“People are losing faith in the system – rightfully so. We have to do something to fix this,” he said. “If we are to take the bold action necessary to tackle the urgent problems before us, we must reform our democracy. ... We have no choice but to be bold.”
Although he spoke about the problems the Senate faced, Udall maintained a message of hope, referring to himself as a “troubled optimist.”
He attributed the “trouble” to the perils posed by climate change, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and other modern sources of strife.
The optimism, Udall said, comes from the work he sees on the part of young activists pushing for climate action and racial justice, among other causes.
He celebrated legislation protecting public lands, such as the Great American Outdoors Act, and work he did with various Native American tribes in New Mexico and elsewhere as vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.
“The achievements I remember most fondly are ones like these – those we did together,” Udall said. “Indeed, those are the only kinds of achievements that are possible in this body.”
Udall has been a figure in New Mexico politics for many years. He served as attorney general of New Mexico from 1990 until he was elected to represent New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District in 1998; the sprawling district encompasses much of the northern half of the state. He was then elected to the Senate in 2008.
His Senate seat is set to be filled by 3rd District Rep. Ben Ray Luján.
Despite his retirement, Udall has expressed interest in continuing a career in public service. Some have pointed to him as a potential candidate to be nominated for secretary of the Interior under President-elect Joe Biden; Udall’s father, Stewart Udall, served in that position under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
However, for the time being, Tom Udall’s next steps are not mapped out beyond his return to New Mexico.
“So, as I return home to the West, I am clear-eyed about – even troubled by – how far away our destination is,” he said. “But I am optimistic that we will get there. Like we always have before.”
John Purcell is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C.