I have worked with other members of Congress on bipartisan legislation to provide resources to states and localities to bring existing early learning… - Ted Kennedy

The Americans with Disabilities Act will end the American apartheid. The act has the potential to become one of the great civil rights laws of our generation. Disabled citizens deserve the opportunity to work for a living, ride a bus, have access to public and commercial buildings, and do all the other things that the rest of us take for granted. Mindless physical barriers and outdated social attitudes have made them second class citizens for too long. This legislation is a bill of rights for the disabled, and America will be a better and fairer nation because of it.

Well, I've been there on the front lines fighting for working families. And I can tell you, we weren't coasting, we were seizing an opportunity when Al Gore and I worked with Republican Senator Orrin Hatch to pass landmark health care coverage for children. And now, two million more children have health coverage. That's called progress -- not partisanship -- and that is Al Gore's way. We weren't drifting, we were moving ahead when Al Gore and I worked with Republican Senator Nancy Kassebaum to see that a family doesn't lose health coverage just because a parent loses a job or changes jobs. And today, we are working with Republicans and Democrats alike to make it even stronger. That's called progress -- not partisanship -- and that is Al Gore's way. We weren't gridlocked, we were raising up our nation when Al Gore and I worked with Republican Senator Jim Jeffords to make sure that people with disabilities can keep their health care when they join the workforce. And today, more and more of the disabled are putting their abilities to work for themselves and for America. That's called progress -- not partisanship -- and that is Al Gore's way.

And of course, all of us in Congress quickly learned to host fundraisers the way Tip O'Neill did it--a thousand dollars if you came, and two thousand dollars if you didn't. Tip was scrupulously neutral in the 1980 Democratic primaries between President Carter and myself. But he told me that every night, before he went to sleep, he was secretly getting down on his knees and praying that we would have another Irish President of the United States. The prayer was a little ambiguous--but Tip's friend Ronald Reagan was very grateful. There was never any secret about the genius of Tip O'Neill. In his years as Speaker of the House, the entire Nation came to know him and love him as we did in Massachusetts. He was a Speaker who was never afraid to speak out for the average man and woman--the worker trying to keep a job, the child going hungry in the night, the family struggling to make ends meet, the senior citizen trying to live in dignity in retirement.