[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 71 (Wednesday, April 26, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2542-S2544]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Remembering Jay Dickey

  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I come to the floor to honor the memory of 
former Congressman Jay Dickey, who passed on April 20. When Jay Dickey 
roamed the Halls of Congress, you knew there might be mischief afoot--
and what merry mischief it was.
  Jay was opinionated, colorful, and zany. Now that he has passed, the 
warm laughter of memories once again echoes in these cold, marble halls 
as we reflect on his life.
  He died last Thursday after a battle with Parkinson's, a battle he 
fought like every other--with determination and gusto. I, for one, will 
miss his counsel and friendship, as will the people of Arkansas whom he 
loved so deeply.
  Jay was an Arkansas original. He was born and bred and in the end 
breathed his last in his hometown of Pine Bluff. He shared a lot in 
common with the mighty pines of South Arkansas. He stood tall and proud 
of his community's heritage. He was a pillar of the community. A lawyer 
and a businessman, he left his mark as an entrepreneur, starting 
franchises throughout the State, as an advocate representing the city 
and later taking on such famous clients as coach Eddie Sutton.
  Unlike the proverbial tree in the forest, now that Jay Dickey has 
fallen, the whole State has taken notice.
  But, of course, a man's accomplishments are only a window into his 
character. You had to know Jay personally to get a sense of all the fun 
there was inside him. It was as if his feet had sunk deep into the soil 
and soaked up all of the Natural State's richness: its humor, its 
earnestness, and its strip-the-bark-off candor.
  I got to know Jay in my first political campaign. We had never met, 
and I was a political newcomer, but Jay spent many hours getting to 
know me and ultimately supported my candidacy, which helped to put me 
on the map.
  Of course, Jay shared a lot of candid advice too. After attending one 
of my early townhalls, Jay and I went to lunch down the road at Cracker 
Barrel. I asked him how I did. Jay replied:

       Ya did good. Ya did good. But you gotta cut it down some. 
     Ya see that baked potato there? That's a fully loaded baked 
     potato--it's got cheese, sour cream, bacon, onions. Your 
     answers are like that fully loaded baked potato! Make em like 
     a plain potato.

  That is just one of the countless stories that added to his legend.
  This was the man who offered a ninth grader a college-level 
internship because he thought the kid had potential; the man who 
answered any phone in his office that rang twice, just to keep his 
staff on their toes; the man whose dog once drove his truck into a 
radio station in Hampton because he left the truck running during an 
interview to keep the dog cool, and somehow that dog put it in gear; 
the man who kept a picture of Jesus on his wall, and who, when meeting 
a new client, would point to the picture and say: ``Have you met my 
friend?''
  Yes, the first great joy of his life was his faith, but the second 
great joy was politics. Jay was the first Republican elected to 
Congress from South Arkansas since Reconstruction. He won in 1992, the 
very same year Arkansas elected our Democratic Governor as President.
  Despite being who the Democrats must have viewed as the most 
Republican incumbent in the country, he held onto that seat for almost 
a decade. Arkansans knew good stock when

[[Page S2543]]

they saw it. He lost only by the narrowest of margins in 2000, with 
President Bill Clinton campaigning for his opponent, then-State Senator 
Mike Ross. True to form for Jay, he and Mike would become friends after 
that race, speaking regularly about issues and their faith.
  Jay's time in office will not be remembered as a historical oddity, 
an anomaly, or a one-off because unconventional though it was, it was 
also a forerunner of things to come. It was an early sign of a coming 
political realignment, as the small towns that dotted rural America--
towns where few people had ever even seen a Republican, never mind 
voted for one--were starting to cast their votes up and down the ballot 
for the Grand Old Party.
  In other words, Jay Dickey was a trailblazer--or perhaps a bulldozer. 
He smashed through history and precedent and grooved a path in rough 
terrain for the rest of us to follow. For that, he has my thanks and 
the thanks of the people of Arkansas, and for his humorous, quirky, 
unparalleled example, he has the thanks of the U.S. Congress, which 
today is a little sadder for his passing but also a little brighter for 
his memory.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, on Monday morning I stood with workers 
and fellow public officials in Bridgeport, CT, to commemorate the 30th 
anniversary of the L'Ambiance Plaza disaster. Thirty years ago last 
Sunday, L'Ambiance Plaza collapsed, 28 families lost loved ones, and 22 
others were seriously injured in the collapse. Their worlds collapsed 
as the lift-slab construction used as the device for building 
L'Ambiance Plaza, in effect, imploded.
  The workers were constructing a 16-story apartment building when that 
disaster happened. The lift-slab construction method used at that site 
subsequently was banned. It was banned because it was unsafe.
  That disaster was preventable, as so many workplace injuries and 
deaths are preventable. That was a tragedy in the modern American 
workplace 30 years ago--L'Ambiance Plaza. It is an urgent and great 
need for this Nation to confront. L'Ambiance Plaza collapsed, 
literally, within seconds, and when it was over, the 28 workers who 
woke up that day and left their homes never came back. Their families, 
who said good-bye, never saw them again alive. They were victims of 
workplace dangers that day, but so many others have followed them 
since.
  Those families are still affected, still grieving. One of them spoke 
at that ceremony on Monday morning, and it provides for many of us the 
memories of that day when literally hundreds of workers from throughout 
Connecticut went to that site, digging, often by hand, through the 
wreckage, trying to find the living survivors. On that day, and every 
day since, I have sought to increase the safety of our workplaces and 
avoid those kinds of tragedies. That is why I am here today, because 
that pledge would be, in my view, inconsistent with voting for the 
nomination of Alexander Acosta to be Secretary of Labor.
  I will state at the outset that I commend Mr. Acosta for his record 
of public service during the Presidency of George W. Bush, serving as a 
National Labor Relations Board member and holding two positions at the 
Department of Justice, as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil 
Rights Division and, later, as U.S. attorney for the Southern District 
of Florida. I want to thank him for his willingness to serve again. I 
say that in all seriousness, as a former U.S. attorney myself.
  I believe that, as Secretary of Labor, he will have important 
responsibilities if he is confirmed in the area of enforcement, and I 
am constrained to oppose his nomination because I believe, No. 1, that 
this administration needs a champion, not simply a bystander, and Mr. 
Acosta has given me no reason at his hearings and in his record to 
assure me that he will overcome what I see as a bias against 
enforcement in this administration.
  Last month President Trump proposed a budget that guts the Department 
of Labor. The budget admittedly is short on specifics and boasts little 
more than one page about the agency that is tasked with ensuring the 
safety of tens of millions of American workers. Let me make clear: It 
would slash resources at the Department of Labor by 21 percent. That is 
$2.5 billion. That means 21 percent fewer inspectors, 21 percent fewer 
investigators, 21 percent less enforcement. That is one-fifth less 
enforcement, when, in fact, five times more enforcement is appropriate. 
The budget, although short on details, singled out programs that helped 
to train workers and employers in ways to ensure avoidance of hazards 
on the job.
  President Trump has proposed the elimination--the zeroing out--of 
that program. At his confirmation hearing last week, Mr. Acosta 
demonstrated neither a willingness nor an interest in challenging the 
budget or the President's priorities, stressing that his soon-to-be 
boss, President Trump, guides the ship. I find that view and 
perspective alarming. There is an old saying that budgets are ``moral 
documents.'' It is a saying frequently repeated, but it has a real 
meaning when it comes to enforcement of worker safety. It has a real 
meaning to real people in their lives or loss of lives. It is a matter 
of life or death. Where you put scarce dollars and resources reveals 
moral values and moral priorities.
  President Trump has put his values on clear display in this budget. 
He believes in building a wall, a needless show project that he 
mentioned repeatedly in his budget, but he has given short shrift or no 
shrift to efforts that protect people who go every day to workplaces 
where they are in serious jeopardy, and where--as in L'Ambiance Plaza--
they can lose their lives. Voting for Mr. Acosta would mean failing to 
keep that pledge that I believe I made to the families of L'Ambiance, 
to the workers who lost their lives there, and to countless other 
workers in danger every day in workplaces that must be made safer--and 
can be--through vigorous enforcement of rules and laws that exist now 
and improvement of those laws.
  One of the greatest challenges facing our Nation today is fairness in 
the workplace, particularly fairness in pay for women, fairness 
concerning pay disparity between men and women, with women making a 
fraction of what men make for the same work. On this critical issue 
also, this nominee is silent. On other issues critical to the modern 
workplace--overtime pay, minimum wage, protecting workers' retirement, 
fighting discrimination, matters that affect women and minorities more 
than others--he has said little or nothing, certainly little to 
indicate that he will be an enforcer of laws that protect minorities 
and women and others who may be the victims of discrimination.
  There is no question that this nominee is far better than the 
President's first proposed person to fill this job, Andy Puzder, who 
rightly and fortunately withdrew, but the standard we should use is not 
whether he is better than his predecessor, who was found wanting even 
before the vote was taken, but rather whether they can be trusted to 
protect workers, to enforce rules vigorously and fairly, and to fight 
for a budget and a set of priorities that are critical to the future of 
American workers. On that score, unfortunately, I answer this question 
with a clear ``no,'' and I will vote against this nominee.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I wish to oppose the nomination of 
Alexander Acosta to be Secretary of Labor.
  I did not come to this decision lightly, but, after closely examining 
Mr. Acosta's record, I cannot in good conscience vote for his 
confirmation to be Labor Secretary on behalf of the American people.
  The most troubling part of Mr. Acosta's record is how he handled a 
2007 sex trafficking case that he oversaw while serving as the U.S. 
attorney for the Southern District of Florida. In that case, which left 
many vulnerable victims devastated when it concluded, Mr. Acosta failed 
to protect underage crime victims who looked to his office to vindicate 
their rights against billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
  The case, led by Mr. Acosta's office and the FBI, involved an 
investigation

[[Page S2544]]

of Mr. Epstein for his sexual abuse and exploitation of more than 30 
underage girls.
  It ended with an agreement, negotiated by Mr. Acosta's office, in 
which Mr. Acosta agreed not to bring Federal charges, including sex 
trafficking charges, against Mr. Epstein in exchange for his guilty 
plea to State charges and registration as a sex offender. Thanks to 
this agreement, Mr. Epstein served a mere 13 months of jail time and 
avoided serious Federal charges that would have exposed him to lengthy 
prison sentences.
  What troubles me about this case is not just the leniency with which 
Mr. Epstein was treated, but how the victims themselves were treated.
  In 2004, I authored the Crime Victims' Rights Act with then-Senator 
Kyl because we both saw that victims and their families were too 
frequently ``ignored, cast aside, and treated as nonparticipants in a 
critical event in their lives.'' I strongly believe victims have a 
right to be heard throughout criminal case proceedings.
  My concern with how Mr. Acosta handled this case stems from his 
office's obligations under the Crime Victims' Rights Act. The victims 
have asserted that Mr. Acosta's office did not provide them with notice 
of the agreement before it was finalized, nor were they provided with 
timely notice of Mr. Epstein's guilty plea and sentencing hearings. 
Worse, throughout the process, the victims were denied the reasonable 
right to confer with the prosecutors; this flies in the face of the 
Crime Victims' Rights Act we authored.
  I am very concerned that Mr. Acosta's office did not treat the 
victims ``with fairness and with respect for the victim's dignity and 
privacy'' as required by law. Rather, according to the victims, Mr. 
Acosta's office ``deliberately kept [them] `in the dark' so that it 
could enter the deal'' without hearing objections. These allegations 
raise serious concerns.
  From his position of immense power and responsibility, Mr. Acosta 
failed, and the consequences were devastating.
  Another deeply troubling aspect of Mr. Acosta's record comes from his 
tenure when he led the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division from 
August 2003 to June 2005. According to the Justice Department's 
inspector general, that office repeatedly used political or ideological 
tests to hire career civil servants in violation of federal law.
  During his confirmation hearing before the HELP Committee, Mr. Acosta 
himself admitted that discriminatory actions were taken under his 
supervision and that they should not have happened.
  At a time when the public's faith in government institutions is 
eroding on a daily basis, Mr. Acosta's handling of these high-profile 
incidents lead me to question his ability to carry out the duties of 
Labor Secretary with fairness and impartiality.
  This doubt is further compounded by statements that Mr. Acosta made 
during his hearing regarding whether he will exercise independence in 
upholding and enforcing certain rules and regulations, such as the 
fiduciary rule and overtime rule to protect workers.
  In response to such questions, Mr. Acosta avoided making a commitment 
to uphold these rules as Secretary of Labor, and I am greatly concerned 
that he may not look out for the best interests of workers.
  All of the issues I have outlined here simply do not allow me, in 
good faith, to vote in favor of Mr. Acosta's nomination.
  Thank you.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 
to complete my remarks prior to the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I am honored to speak here today in support 
of Alex Acosta, and I wholeheartedly encourage my colleagues to support 
his nomination to be our next Secretary of Labor. I know this nominee 
well. As a fellow Floridian and as a native of Miami, I have been 
familiar with his work for many years. As I said when the President 
nominated him, I think he is an outstanding choice to lead the 
Department of Labor.
  Alex has an impressive academic record. He has two degrees from 
Harvard--the first from Harvard College and then from Harvard Law 
School.
  He also has a sterling record of public service in the State of 
Florida and in the United States of America. He was a member of the 
National Labor Relations Board. He was appointed by President George W. 
Bush and served from 2002 to 2003. From there, he was selected by 
President Bush to serve as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil 
Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he also served 
as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in that office. He also 
served our Nation as the U.S. Attorney in one of the most challenging 
districts in our country--Florida's Southern District.
  Most recently, Alex has served the State of Florida as the dean of 
Florida International University College of Law, where he has been 
instrumental in raising the still young school's profile and in its 
graduating young men and women who are now well prepared to excel in 
their legal careers.
  With every challenge he has confronted throughout his distinguished 
career, he has demonstrated his ability to effectively tackle with ease 
the problems at hand. He is a brilliant legal mind, someone with a deep 
knowledge of labor issues, and he is a proven leader and a proven 
manager. It is for these reasons and many more that I am confident that 
Alex Acosta will serve this Nation admirably.
  He was--listen to this--previously confirmed unanimously by the 
Senate for three different positions in the U.S. Government. This man 
is not even 50 years old, and he has already been confirmed unanimously 
by the Senate for three separate positions. I believe that in a few 
moments, he will be one step closer to being confirmed to his fourth. 
He is well qualified for this role, and I look forward to working with 
him to ensure that Americans are equipped with the skills they need to 
be successful in the 21st-century economy.
  I yield the floor.