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WASHINGTON – After more than 50 years of public service, Sen. Jay Rockefeller said goodbye Thursday in a televised address.
“The job of public service is very hard work, and it’s an extremely honorable and noble calling,” he said. “Important undertakings can’t be half-hearted. You have to commit your whole self. There is always so much at stake.”
Rockefeller first came to the state in 1964 as a 27-year-old VISTA volunteer in Emmons, W.Va.
“That is where I learned how little I knew about the problems people faced,” he said. “What a humbling experience that was for me.”
That experience, Rockefeller said, cemented within him the desire to pursue public service and a life-long loyalty to the people of West Virginia.
“When I came to West Virginia 50 years ago, I was searching for a clear purpose for my life’s work,” he said. “I wanted the work to be really hard. And what I got was the opportunity to work incredibly hard, along with a real and utterly spiritual sense of mission.”
Rockefeller was elected to the House of Delegates in 1966. He then served as secretary of state, president of West Virginia Wesleyan College, governor and U.S. senator.
The 77-year-old West Virginia Democrat won his Senate seat in 1984. He opted not to run for re-election this year. Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito won the November election to replace him.
Rockefeller said the position carries with it great responsibility and reach, from global policies to helping individuals in need. He urged other legislators to set aside politics, listen to their constituents and learn to compromise with colleagues.
“Good policy is born out of compromise. Compromise is not easy, but it can happen when we listen to each other,” he said.
Rockefeller pointed to several pieces of bipartisan legislation he helped draft over the years as examples of compromise. He singled out the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides health benefits for uninsured children and pregnant women. That program, which provides health care to 8.3 million children and pregnant women nationwide, and 40,000 people in West Virginia, is set to expire in September. Rockefeller urged legislators to renew funding for the program.
“Every door that CHIP opened will be closed unless we can agree to carry CHIP funding past mid-2015,” he said. “That is unconscionable to me.”
At times finding it hard to speak, Rockefeller thanked his colleagues, staff and family, as well as West Virginians for their support during his time in public office.
“I will miss the Senate,” he said. “Some days I don’t want to leave. But it is time.”