Business Before the Senate

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, now, one of the most important duties we take on as Members of this Chamber is the confirmation of the President's Cabinet and other top executive branch issues.

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Not until I finish my remarks, but I thank the gentleman.

A Senate confirmation hearing is probably the world's worst job interview, but there is a good reason for that. The various candidates who come before our committees are asking to take on some of the most important challenges that we face as a country. And so when the President sends us these nominees for consideration, it is our job to vet their resumes, to vet their records. To go through the motions is not enough. We need to meet with them and review their history.

So imagine our shock when the Biden administration began to send us candidates that made it clear the President expects the Senate to act as a rubberstamp for some of the most controversial and unqualified nominees in recent memory.

His choice for Health and Human Services, Secretary Xavier Becerra, had no meaningful experience in healthcare before his very first day serving as the country's chief healthcare officer. He did, however, have quite a long history of weaponizing the full force of government against people whose views differ from his own.

Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden's choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security, boasted a proven record of corruption from his time serving in the Obama administration. An investigation by the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security revealed that Mayorkas abused his position as the Director of USCIS to help politically powerful friends violate immigration laws.

Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta's record as a radical, liberal activist was so diametrically opposed to the beliefs of most Americans that she tried to ``evolve'' her positions on drug crime and defunding the police just to avoid scrutiny during her confirmation hearing. Of course, by ``evolve,'' I mean she outright lied about her position. And there have been many, many, who have stood on this floor and have challenged her nomination.

Another, David Chipman--this is Biden's pick to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He is so anti-Second Amendment, he has endorsed policies that would effectively ban all sporting rifles in the United States. He has no respect for the constitutional right to bear arms, no respect for the nearly 20 million Americans who hold a concealed carry permit, or the 15.5 million Americans who hold hunting licenses. President Biden chose the anti-gun lobby over the American people when he nominated Chipman for this post.

President Biden's parade of genuinely unacceptable nominees continued this week. Today, the majority leader has decided to move forward with the nomination of Donald Remy to be Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs. If that name sounds familiar to you, it is because you have heard about Mr. Remy's work in other controversial context. He served as the NCAA's COO and chief legal officer and was the architect of that organization's restrictive policy against name, image, and likeness compensation.

Between September 2018 and August 2019, the NCAA spent more than $26 million defending an NIL business model that the Supreme Court recently described as ``patently and inexplicably stricter than . . . necessary.'' It was a 9-to-0 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The $26 million, where does the NCAA get that money? From colleges, from universities, from student athletes. That is where the money came from, and it was used to defend this lawsuit.

But let's not focus on this one policy governing the NIL compensation. We need to keep in mind that Mr. Remy was comfortable using his training as a lawyer and his considerable power as a top NCAA official to maintain the culture of exploitation that defines modern college athletics. I am not sure what led President Biden to believe that Mr. Remy could help lead an agency notorious for its own brand of careless exploitation, but whatever the reason, we have a duty to get in his way.

For our veterans, decisions can be life or death. I have objected to his nomination since I came through the committee. And, quite frankly, I think it is a shame that President Biden refused to nominate someone who could demonstrate an ability to earn back the trust so many veterans have lost in the VA system.

Our veterans who have served this Nation honorably deserve better choices. They deserve at least that much from their Commander in Chief.

This nomination is just one more unserious shot in the dark from an administration that is yet to focus its energy on any one of the long list of problems they say they came to Washington to solve.

A quick scan of the morning newsletters on any given day show a complete lack of direction on the part of the White House and the Senate majority. Will we be working on infrastructure in the next few weeks or are we just going to be handling nominations? Are the most radical elements of the American Families Plan on the table or are we going to pivot to election law? Well, we won't have to flip a coin on that last one.

We know that over the next few weeks, we will waste time and energy resurrecting the Democrats' failed election takeover bill. As most everyone has seen, this week, Washington is playing host to a delegation of Texas Democrats' intent on holding election integrity legislation hostage in their very own State. They have come all the way to Capitol Hill to try and convince their Federal counterparts to go nuclear on behalf of a bill that has failed in various forms so many times that the objections write themselves. This political stunt is part of a larger movement within the radical American left to destroy the concept of one person, one vote and replace it with an unconstitutional, centralized election system that invites fraud and encourages donor intimidation. This foolish attack on ballot integrity has seized hold in Texas, Georgia, and other States attempting to protect the vote for all eligible voters.

Ballot integrity is a foundational concept in our Republic. It should be easy to vote. It should be hard to cheat. State and local officials should feel empowered to grow and tailor elections in a way that meets the needs of the community, not the demands of power-seeking politicians.

I think I speak for all of my Republican colleagues when I say that we will not legitimize this hysteria that has gripped the Democratic Party.

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