[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 187 (Monday, October 25, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7323-S7324]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              NOMINATIONS

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, the Senate begins this week with votes 
to confirm two more highly qualified Biden nominees--one to serve in 
his administration and another to serve on the Federal bench.
  First, we will vote to confirm Mr. Douglas Parker to serve as an 
Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA. A veteran of the Labor 
Department from the Obama administration, Mr. Parker will be the first 
Senate-confirmed OSHA head since the Obama Presidency.
  He has a proven track record of protecting everyday Americans in the 
workplace--more important now than ever before--and I look forward to 
his confirmation later today.
  The fact that the previous administration left OSHA empty for 4 years 
shows how little they cared about worker safety and protecting our 
workers, as many of them often do difficult jobs.
  Second, the Senate will also proceed to the confirmation of a truly 
outstanding judicial nominee, Myrna Perez, to serve as circuit judge 
for the Second Circuit, which includes my home State of New York. It is 
a good day for the Second Circuit and for the entire Federal judiciary.
  If confirmed, Myrna Perez would be a remarkable, remarkable addition 
to the bench. She would be the only Hispanic jurist to sit on the 
Second Circuit and the first since Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
  And just as I was proud to support Justice Sotomayor's nomination--I 
even suggested her name for the Supreme Court to President Obama, a 
fact I am proud of--I am also, today, proud to champion Myrna's 
elevation to the bench.
  Myrna's life was the embodiment of the American dream. The daughter 
of Mexican immigrants, she grew up in San Antonio, TX, where her father 
was an Army veteran who worked as a consultant with Bexar County, while 
her mother worked in the post office.
  As Myrna herself will tell you, growing up in a family of immigrants 
often meant breaking through linguistic, cultural, and racial barriers. 
And of all places, perhaps nowhere else did these barriers leave an 
important imprint on Myrna than when her aunt took her to the polls on 
election day. It was there where Myrna realized how an election system 
built from Byzantine rules shut out countless citizens from the 
political process. This experience instilled in Myrna a thirst for 
making our democracy work for all, and that has become her life's work.
  After graduating from Yale, Harvard, and Columbia, Myrna eventually 
joined the Brennan Center for Justice, becoming the director of its 
Voting Rights and Elections Program. Over the course of her career, 
Myrna has become one of the Nation's top voting rights and elections 
lawyers, playing a key role in making sure Americans could vote safely 
in the 2020 election. She also has fought unlawful purges of voting 
rolls, spoken out against long wait times at polling locations in 
diverse neighborhoods, and has played major roles preparing six amicus 
briefs before the Supreme Court, including one for the Shelby case in 
2013.
  But Myrna's qualifications are not limited to her experience as a 
voting rights litigator. She is also a brilliant attorney with 
experience in fair housing law, disability rights, and employment 
discrimination. In the words of one former colleague, her skills as a 
lawyer are simply ``off the charts.''

[[Page S7324]]

  The cupboards of the Federal judiciary have long been filled with 
attorneys who have taken the traditional route on their way to the 
bench--a big law firm, corporate experience, prosecutorial experience. 
Many of those jurists have done commendably on the bench, and I have 
been proud to support many of them over the years. But Myrna Perez 
represents something different, something wonderfully different: a 
sorely needed boost in both the personal and professional diversity of 
the Federal bench.
  Especially now, we need more election lawyers in black robes. We need 
more Federal defenders in black robes. We need more immigrants and 
civil rights lawyers and diverse candidates assuming positions on the 
bench. We need, in other words, for our courts to reflect the rich 
mosaic that is the American people. With Myrna Perez's nomination, I am 
glad we are taking a step closer to that goal, and I hope she is 
confirmed later today.

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