[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 6 (Monday, January 10, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S110-S112]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Biden Administration
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, in recent years, our Democratic
colleagues have taken their Washington-knows-best approach to governing
to new and, frankly, frightening levels.
Our colleagues have tried to give the IRS unprecedented authority and
manpower to snoop into the finances of virtually every American, not
just what you make but how you spend your money.
They have attempted to control what type of childcare families can
access, saying that if it is faith-based, that it is not going to
qualify for the extravagant subsidies they have proposed, and are
driving up the costs for average, hard-working Texas families.
When it comes to our Democratic colleagues and their Washington-
knows-best attitude, they have tried to force every person in this
country into a one-size-fits-all healthcare system that, yes,
government controls. They have argued that the President of the United
States has the power to force all Americans, including those in the
private sector, to get a vaccine regardless of whether they have
naturally occurring antibodies as a result of having gotten COVID-19.
Now, they are mounting a Federal takeover of America's State-run
elections. That is what we will be talking about a lot this week.
As I said, this is consistent with this attitude that Washington
knows best, not parents, not teachers, not business owners, not the
workers, not even Governors, mayors, sheriffs, city councils, or local
election officials. No. Washington knows best, is their attitude.
To state the obvious, that is not how the United States of America
was designed under our Constitution. During the time of the founding,
there was a lot of discussion of whether to have a national government
or whether to have a Federal Government with the States as sovereign
entities, subject only to national laws when the Federal Government
preempted them with things like the Voting Rights Act, section 5. In
fact, our very form of government was designed with checks and balances
and dispersed authority primarily to protect the individual freedom of
``we the people.''
Our Founders had the wisdom to devise a system of government
comprised of three separate branches--coequal--to ensure that no single
person or single institution became too powerful because, again, they
viewed it as, the more powerful that single entity or single
institution became, the less accountable they would be to the people
and the less freedom we would have to conduct our own lives as we see
fit.
But, as we know, it is not just distributed laterally among the
various branches; it is distributed vertically as well. The
Constitution makes clear that the States retain all authority not
delegated to the Federal Government. That is the Tenth Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution.
Of course, the power given to the States is sometimes set forth
explicitly. For example, the Constitution gives the States the
authority to set the time, place, and manner of elections. That is in
the Constitution itself. Others are reserved under the Tenth Amendment.
Now, make no mistake, the Federal Government has very, very important
responsibilities. When it comes to our national defense, when it comes
to regulating interstate commerce, international diplomacy, setting
taxes,
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managing our national debt and deficits, the Federal Government should
and must take the lead. But this is simply not a monarchy. It is not an
authoritarian form of government that we see in other parts of the
world. Our government is not top-down; it is bottom-up when it comes to
the distribution of powers. The Federal Government was not designed to
authorize anyone, including the President of the United States, the
authority to hand down sweeping mandates for the people of this
country.
Thomas Jefferson famously said, ``The government closest to the
people serves the people best,'' and that is how he described the
benefits of this bottom-up form of government rather than top-down,
Washington-knows-best form of government that our Democratic colleagues
seem to embrace almost across the board. For everything from healthcare
to elections, our colleagues across the aisle have attempted to make
prescriptive decisions against every State, city, and community across
the country. By ``prescriptive decisions,'' I mean to tie the hands or
to say ``jump'' and expect the States and local governments to ask
``how high?''
But we are already beginning to see cracks in this strategy. When it
has become clear that Washington doesn't really know best, the
Democrats have another idea: Blame somebody else. Just look at the
Federal Government's response to the pandemic of COVID-19. President
Biden ran on a promise of a strong pandemic response by the Federal
Government. He promised to make free testing widely available. He
pledged to stop the misinformation that has led to widespread confusion
about the virus, and he has vowed that public health decisions would be
made by public health professionals and would not be based on political
considerations.
Looking back, it is clear the American people were sold snake oil. As
folks across the country can attest, free testing may exist, but you
can't find an appointment to get one of those tests. Rapid tests are in
short supply, and even then, the cost is too high for many families.
The information coming from the Centers for Disease Control is
providing the American people with more questions than answers. In the
words of one New York Times columnist, ``The highest-ranking public
health officials are making statements that seem more aimed at covering
up or making excuses for ongoing failures rather than leveling with the
public.''
The administration has sided with political allies instead of the
science. Last February, the CDC released a report that said schools are
not breeding grounds for COVID-19, and as long as precautions are
taken, schools can reopen safely. That was last February. But the
science was at odds with the demands of teachers unions, so the
administration refused to encourage State and local leaders to reopen
their schools.
So how is the President reacting in light of these broken promises
and a failed pandemic response?
In a debate in October 2020, then-Candidate Biden talked about the
previous administration's pandemic response and the fact that more than
220,000 Americans had died. That was in October of 2020. He said anyone
who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain President of
the United States.
Well, today, we have lost more than 830,000 of our fellow Americans
to this virus. That is nearly three times as many deaths as there were
under the previous President's watch, but President Biden isn't
stepping down. In fact, now he claims the Federal Government isn't even
responsible. Just a couple of weeks ago, President Biden pushed
responsibility on to the States, saying there is no Federal solution;
this gets solved at the State level. This is enough to give you
whiplash--the radically changing, diametrically opposed positions of
this administration and the President of the United States.
As it turns out, our colleagues only want Big Government when Big
Government is consistent with their political objectives. If the
promise of a strong Federal response to a deadly pandemic can help them
win an election, well, they are all for it, but when they fail to plan
and execute a strong response, they are quick to pass the
responsibility and the blame on to someone else.
Well, our Federal form of government isn't a system that can be gamed
to benefit politicians when it is convenient and skirt responsibility
when things go awry, but, unfortunately, that looks like where we are
today, and the Democrats clearly view the calculus as leaning in their
favor when it comes to their election takeover bills that we will be
voting on this week.
Our colleagues have made repeated attempts to overhaul our Nation's
elections and give the Federal Government unprecedented power to manage
America's elections.
There was a Pew poll taken on November 20, 2020, asking people
whether they found, in the election, it was easy or hard to vote, and
94 percent of the respondents said they found it either extremely easy
or easy to vote--94 percent in the last election of November 2020.
In Texas, we had 11.3 million people vote--66 percent of registered
voters--which was a consistent percentage across the country. There
were historic turnouts in the election. Yet our Democratic colleagues
want to fix a system that is not broken because it allows everyone, of
every political stripe, of every race, of every ethnicity, and of every
background, an equal opportunity to cast a ballot.
In Texas, you can vote for up to 2 weeks before election day itself,
in person--2 weeks. The Justice Department has sued Texas, saying that
it somehow discriminates against people getting access to the ballot.
That is a lawsuit that the Justice Department will lose because the
facts simply do not demonstrate it.
Again, 94 percent of the people in this Pew poll of November 20,
2020, after the last election, said they found it either extremely easy
or easy to cast their ballot. So our Democratic colleagues are simply
flying into a headwind when it comes to their argument that, somehow,
it is not easy to cast your ballot.
But there are some places where it is easier to vote than in others.
For example, it is easier to vote in Georgia and in Texas under current
law than it has been in the President's State of Delaware, which, until
this year, did not allow any early voting in person. You don't hear the
majority leader and you don't hear Democratic colleagues talking about
States like Delaware, which offered, until this year, zero opportunity
for early voting in person; whereas Texas and Georgia, even after the
election reforms they passed, still offer 2 weeks of early in-person
voting.
So our Democratic colleagues' explanation has changed over time. They
argue that Washington knows best and that all of the State-run
elections should be subsumed into a Federal system of elections. At one
point, they said it was a matter of election security. Then they said:
Well, no; it is really about voter confidence. Then they said, which
is, I think, their current position, that only a national system can
remove obstacles that prevent people from voting.
Well, when I said this was a solution in search of a problem, I was
referring to that November 20, 2020, poll wherein 94 percent of the
respondents said they found it easy to vote or very easy to vote.
Clearly, again, our Democratic colleagues are looking for a problem or
have offered a solution in search of a problem.
Among the proposals they have made, this is not about just making it
easier to vote and harder to cheat; they are saying that this is
somehow in response to the horrific attacks that occurred on the
Capitol on January 6 of last year. They just keep throwing the
spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks. For example, among the many
proposed changes that they have offered, they say they want to turn the
bipartisan Federal Election Commission into a Democratic-controlled,
partisan commission, and then they want to seize the authority given
under the Constitution for the States to draw their own congressional
lines, instead handing all power to an unelected and unaccountable
redistricting commission.
They have also tried to mandate ballot harvesting on the States--a
practice that allows paid campaign staff and political operatives to
collect mail-in ballots, to perhaps go by the local nursing home and
collect ballots from folks in the nursing home and to
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turn them in. This has been shown to be a recipe for mischief and
election fraud. Yet they want to institutionalize it, and they want to
say that the States cannot prohibit it.
These proposals would do more to protect our Democratic colleagues'
jobs than to safeguard American voting rights.
What really concerns me and, I imagine, the American people as they
learn more and more about what is in these bills is how much damage the
Democratic Party is willing to do in order to secure a partisan
victory. Not only are our colleagues trying to seize the authority
given under the Constitution to the States to manage their own
elections, they are willing to take a wrecking ball to the U.S. Senate
itself and particularly the Senate rules. Somehow, protecting the
foundation of our democracy has turned into ignoring the Constitution
and blowing up this institution.
I need to clarify that not all 50 Senate Democrats are on board with
this plan. Thank goodness, two of our colleagues have been clear in
their outright opposition to eliminating or weakening the filibuster--
the requirement that legislation, before it passes, must have
bipartisan support rather than purely partisan bills like our
Democratic colleagues want to pass without any support on the
Republican side.
While there are two of our Senate colleagues from West Virginia and
Arizona who have been public about their opposition to blowing up the
Senate and to breaking Senate rules in order to accomplish a partisan
objective, I imagine there are others unnamed who share the same
concerns privately.
I hope our friends on the other side of the aisle will remain
steadfast in their commitment to our Constitution and the norms and
rules of this institution. If our colleagues are willing to go this far
in the pursuit of raw political power, I would hate to think about how
they would use it if they were to succeed.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.