[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 51 (Friday, April 25, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3701-S3702]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     CONFIRMATION OF ALEXIS HERMAN

  Mr. WELLSTONE. The third point, Mr. President--and I just have four 
to make in a short period of time--I come to the floor today to also 
urge my colleagues to move forward with final confirmation of Alexis 
Herman as Secretary of Labor. Really, I think it is time to let her go 
free.
  Mr. President, you and I are both on the Senate Labor and Human 
Resources Committee. By unanimous vote, we passed her out of the 
committee. She is eminently qualified. We have a lot of work to do. We 
have a controversial TEAM Act that is going to be before us. We have 
the bill which we spent a lot of time on, the comp-time, flextime bill 
that has passed out of committee and that is going to come before us. I 
have been the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Employment and 
Training. I think Senator DeWine is doing an excellent job. We are very 
serious about moving forward with this job training, work force 
development bill, but we do not have a Secretary of Labor.

[[Page S3702]]

  Quite frankly, I do not think that people in the Senate should be 
holding her hostage. They may agree or disagree with a particular 
Executive order by the President. I do not come here to debate that, 
although I agree with the President on what he has done. But the point 
is, it is just absolutely outrageous to hold her hostage, and it is 
time to free her. It is time to let Alexis Herman, who is eminently 
well qualified to be Secretary of Labor, become Secretary of Labor.
  Please remember, this is a Cabinet-level position connected to the 
concerns and circumstances of the vast majority of people in this 
country who are focused on living wage jobs, who are focused on 
employment conditions, and who are focused on being able to make a 
decent living for their children, who are focused on economic security 
for themselves and their families. This is no small position. It is 
time to let her go forward.
  Mr. President, I know that if that does not happen, we will have a 
major confrontation here in the Senate and I wish we would not have to 
have it. I hope we do not get to that point, but really it is time to 
let her free and it is time to no longer hold her hostage.

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