[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 78 (Tuesday, May 10, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Page S2387]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              NOMINATIONS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now on a different matter, this week, 
our colleagues want a second run on some controversial nominees who 
stalled out last month.
  Today, Senate Democrats will try again to confirm Professor Lisa Cook 
to the Federal Reserve Board. Professor Cook has no proven expertise in 
monetary economics at all, much less fighting inflation. One of her 
main supposed qualifications for this position is that she sits on the 
regional Fed Board in Chicago. The problem is, she was literally 
appointed to that position a few days before she was nominated for this 
one.

  Professor Cook is a proven partisan who has promoted leftwing 
conspiracy theories and called for a fellow academic to be fired 
because that person did not support defunding the police. The American 
people deserve an independent, nonpartisan inflation fighter for this 
important post.
  Likewise, the Federal Trade Commission is an important Agency that 
gets wide latitude to oversee our private sector. The American people 
need its Commissioners to be levelheaded experts who will put aside 
ideological ax-grinding.
  The two current Commissioners who were appointed by a Republican 
President were so qualified and uncontroversial, the Senate approved 
each of them on a voice vote. But to serve as their newest colleague, 
President Biden has picked a radical partisan named Alvaro Bedoya.
  Mr. Bedoya is such a poor fit that the first time Leader Schumer 
tried to shut down debate on his nomination, he lacked the votes and 
had to call it off. But Democrats want this hardcore partisan confirmed 
very badly, so here we are once again.
  Mr. Bedoya has publicly attacked police and law enforcement and 
demanded that our country not enforce--not enforce--our immigration 
laws. He has called for States to essentially nullify Federal 
immigration law, saying:

       Maryland police have no business working with ICE [and] I 
     think it's high time that state legislators understand that 
     they can do something about this.

  He has volunteered statements that align with ``defund the police,'' 
demanding that none of the Democrats' trillions in stimulus waste 
should go to provide for law enforcement.
  Mr. Bedoya's social media feeds have read like the rantings of a far-
left activist with no aspiration to ever receive Senate confirmation.
  He has embraced socialized medicine, critical race theory, and 
cracking down on citizens' Second Amendment rights. He has launched 
political attacks on current Senators and called the National 
Republican Party Convention a--listen to this--``White supremacist 
rally''--a ``White supremacist rally,'' the Republican National 
Convention.
  The rabid partisanship is not just an extracurricular activity. We 
know Mr. Bedoya would apply it specifically to the work of the FTC. He 
is already on the record calling for the elimination of longstanding 
bipartisan FTC policy statements. He supports excluding minority party 
Commissioners from investigations.
  This nominee would not be fit to neutrally oversee major economic 
decisions, no matter what the makeup of the Senate was. But he is an 
essentially foolish choice--foolish--when the American people handed 
this administration a 50-50 Senate.
  I would urge my colleagues on both sides to stop this awful 
nomination so the President can reconsider and send us somebody 
suitable.

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