Editor’s note. These remarks were delivered at a September 18 press conference. To read National Right to Life’s statement of support, go to http://nrlc.cc/18DaYlv. To read the remarks of NRLC President Carol Tobias, go to http://nrlc.cc/19kpKIO
Kentucky Right to Life Political Action Committee (KRLA-PAC) is pleased to announce that it will enthusiastically support Senator Mitch McConnell in his re-election to the U.S. Senate as one of Kentucky’s outstanding legislators. The committee and its members have a deep appreciation for his outstanding leadership and his achievements in public office. Senator McConnell has demonstrated his compassion for the most vulnerable members of our society – in particular, the unborn child – by his impeccable voting record in Congress. He has a 100% voting record on life issues as reported by the Federal Legislative office of the National Right to Life Committee.
We are also proud that Mitch McConnell is the Senate Republican Leader. First elected to that position unanimously by his colleagues in 2006, he is the 15th Senate Republican Leader and only the second Kentuckian to lead his party in the Senate. The first, Alben Barkley, led the Democrats from 1937 to 1949.
Senator McConnell previously served, again by the unanimous vote of his colleagues, as the Republican Leader in the 110th, 111th and 112th Congresses and the Majority Whip in the 108th and 109th Congresses. McConnell also served in leadership as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 1998 and 2000 election cycles.
First elected to the Senate in 1984, McConnell made history that year as the only Republican challenger in the country to defeat a Democrat incumbent and as the first Republican to win a statewide Kentucky race since 1968. McConnell’s victory in 2008 is also one for the record books: On November 4, he won nearly a million votes, the most ever received by a Kentuckian in a statewide race.
Senator McConnell graduated with honors from the University of Louisville College of Arts and Sciences, where he served as student body president. He also is a graduate of the University of Kentucky’s College of Law, where he was elected president of the Student Bar Association.
McConnell worked as an intern on Capitol Hill for Senator John Sherman Cooper before serving as chief legislative assistant to Senator Marlow Cook and as deputy assistant attorney general to President Gerald Ford.
Before his election to the U.S. Senate, he served as judge-executive of Jefferson County, Kentucky, from 1978 until he commenced his Senate term on January 3, 1985.
Senator McConnell has strong support throughout the state. Our president of the Kentucky Right to Life Association, Diana Maldonado, was unable to be here today because of a business conference. Our affiliates throughout Kentucky are very excited about working for Senator McConnell’s re-election. Many of them have had personal and group meetings with him in his office at the Capitol every January 22nd after the March for Life.
In addition, folks from across the state are always pleased to hear his talk at the Kentucky Right to Life Association’s Congressional Breakfast every January 22. Students from around the state gather with adults from areas including: Bardstown, Brandenburg, Elizabethtown, Franklin, Hopkinsville, Lexington, Louisville, Owensboro, and Paducah.