[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 51 (Thursday, March 18, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1641-S1642]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     CONFIRMATION OF XAVIER BECERRA

 Ms. HIRONO. Madam President, I rise today in support of the 
nomination of my friend and former colleague Xavier Becerra to lead the 
Department of Health and Human Services.
  Xavier and I served together in the House of Representatives from 
January 2007 to January 2013. While we sat on different House 
committees, we were both very involved in one of Congress's most 
significant achievements during that time--passage of the Affordable 
Care Act, ACA. The ACA promised to greatly shrink the number of 
uninsured Americans and rein in health care costs that were increasing 
rapidly. It also led to false, harsh, partisan accusations by 
Republicans that the law was going to ration health care and death 
panels were inevitable.
  Despite years of sabotage and dozens of attempts to repeal it, the 
Affordable Care Act has lived up to its promise: more than 20 million 
Americans gained

[[Page S1642]]

health insurance thanks to the ACA, and the ACA reduced health care 
spending a total of $2.3 trillion between 2010 and 2017.
  As a senior member of the Health Subcommittee of the House Ways and 
Means Committee, Xavier Becerra played a significant role to help write 
and pass the ACA and defended the law from near continuous Republican 
assault as California's attorney general. Most recently, he has been 
leading litigation at the Supreme Court to reinstate the ACA after an 
ideologically-driven district court judge struck down the law in its 
entirety.
  These efforts demonstrate the leadership, experience, and health 
policy expertise Xavier will bring to the Department of Health and 
Human Services.
  Despite these bona fides, Republican Senators are actively smearing 
Xavier's reputation and misrepresenting his qualifications to prevent 
him from becoming the first Latino to serve as HHS Secretary.
  First, they claim Xavier isn't qualified because he isn't a doctor. 
Republicans clearly didn't believe this was a deal breaker when all but 
one of them voted to confirm Alex Azar--a former executive at Eli 
Lilly--as Donald Trump's HHS Secretary. I think most Americans would 
rather have an HHS Secretary like Xavier Becerra, who successfully sued 
hospitals to lower healthcare costs, than a person in charge of running 
a pharmaceutical company. Republicans have also claimed that Xavier 
lacks ``extensive health care experience.'' This is particularly rich 
coming from the same people who voted to confirm Betsy De-Vos to become 
Education Secretary. She not only had never worked in a public school, 
she had never even attended one. These same Republicans voted to 
confirm Rick Perry to become Energy Secretary, when he didn't even know 
the Department of Energy was responsible for the Nation's nuclear 
arsenal.
  Throughout his 12 terms in the House of Representatives, Xavier 
Becerra was a leader on health policy issues. He helped write the most 
sweeping change to our healthcare system in more than a generation, and 
now, as the California attorney general, he is defending that law in 
court. He has the experience needed to lead the Department of Health 
and Human Services.
  Republicans are also attacking Xavier's nomination on the grounds 
that he is somehow ``extreme'' and ``a radical'' because he supports a 
woman's right to have an abortion. The Supreme Court first recognized a 
woman's constitutional right to an abortion in 1973. That is nearly 50 
years ago. Supporting this fundamental right is anything but radical, 
it is a position shared by almost 70 percent of the American people. 
But that hasn't stopped attacks on a woman's right to seek and have 
one.
  What is ``extreme'' and ``radical'' are Republican efforts to 
undermine this right--if not completely eliminate it. Just last week, 
the Republican Governor of Arkansas signed a law that bans all 
abortions unless they are necessary to save the life of the mother. 
This law is directly contrary to the Supreme Court's command that 
States cannot prohibit abortion prior to viability. It does not even 
include an exception for pregnancies that are the result of rape or 
incest.
  The junior senator from Arkansas has called Xavier Becerra 
``extreme'' and ``a radical'' for defending a woman's constitutional 
right to an abortion, while his State wants to force women who have 
been raped to carry their pregnancies to term. What planet are we 
living on?
  On Thursday night, Xavier Becerra will be confirmed to become the 
next Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. In any 
normal world, the vote would be bipartisan and it would be 
overwhelming. I strongly support his nomination and call on my 
colleagues to do so as well.
  (At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered 
to be printed in the Record.)

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