[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.