[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 181 (Wednesday, November 13, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6575-S6576]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    NOMINATION OF STEVEN J. MENASHI

  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, judges make decisions around the country. 
They are making them right now on workers' rights, voters' rights, 
women's rights, civil rights, LGBTQ rights--decisions that would limit 
those rights for a generation.
  We used to be able to rely on judges to expand human rights and civil 
rights and all rights of humankind. Today, we cringe so often because 
of judges who get selected by this President who put their thumbs on 
the scale to support corporations over workers and health insurance 
companies over patients and Wall Street over consumers.
  These same judges make decisions on healthcare and sentencing and 
corporate power. That is why we can't afford to have Steven Menashi on 
the Federal bench. On all of these issues, his record makes it clear 
that he is not on the side of the people we were sent here to serve.
  There is a simple rule for understanding where Steve Menashi stands 
on any issue: If a policy helps ordinary, hard-working Americans, 
Menashi opposes it. He argued that gun safety regulation is ``pointless 
and self-defeating.'' We are talking about commonsense background 
checks that 85 percent of the American public supports, all blocked by 
the gun manufacturers. Tell that to the people of Dayton whose lives 
were torn apart and ended in some cases by gun violence. Tell them 
background checks are pointless.
  Menashi also advised Stephen Miller on immigration policy--the man 
who stands in the way of comprehensive immigration reform and helped 
orchestrate the separation--the ripping of children from their parents' 
arms. Menashi refused to answer any questions about whether he worked 
on the Trump family separation policy with Stephen Miller.
  He has been a senior adviser to Betsy DeVos at the Department of 
Education, where we have seen one disastrous decision after another. 
The headline in the New York Times says it all: ``Appeals Court Nominee 
Shaped DeVos's Illegal Loan Forgiveness Effort.'' Menashi devised the 
scheme to illegally use people's Social Security data to deny them debt 
relief after they were scammed by for-profit colleges. It seems that 
the Department of Education with Menashi there always sided with the 
for-profit schools against Denison or Ohio State or the University of 
Toledo or Lourdes or Case Western or any of the traditional, excellent 
schools of higher education in this country.
  We have seen how shady schools like Corinthian used deceptive and 
even illegal tactics to trick Ohioans into taking out huge loans, only 
to then close up shop and leave them with meaningless degrees or 
credits--often falling short even of that but always with mountains of 
debt. We need to hold these for-profit schools accountable, but, of 
course, we learned not to hold our breath when it comes to the Trump 
administration holding any of the elite in this country accountable.
  Instead of figuring out how to provide relief for students, DeVos and

[[Page S6576]]

Menashi went to work figuring out how to let the schools that scammed 
them off the hook. Be clear--it was not Menashi just doing his job 
advocating for someone else's bad policy; he wrote the memo. It is 
clear that he actually supported and supports Betsy DeVos's radical 
agenda.
  Now they want to put him on the Federal bench so he can put his thumb 
on the scales of justice for shady for-profit schools over students and 
corporations over workers and, as I said, for Wall Street and insurance 
companies over patients. We have seen that from judge after judge after 
judge with President Trump, but even by those Trump standards, Menashi 
is particularly bad.
  It always comes down to whose side you are on. Are you a judge who 
will stand on the side of workers or stand on the side of corporations? 
Will you stand on the side of students--struggling students, moderate-
income and sometimes low-income students trying to build better lives 
for themselves--or on the side of failed sham schools? His record is 
clear.
  The stakes for Ohio are too high to give Steve Menashi a lifetime 
appointment on the Federal bench.

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