[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6890-6892]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

  Mr. RUBIO. Thank you. Madam President, I wanted to come to the floor 
to address the news of the last 4 days which I think has shocked the 
American people in the wake of a series of revelations made across news 
agencies about the role our Federal Government has played and the way 
it has used its power to intimidate those who they believe are not 
doing what they want them to do.
  For example, we learned last week from testimony in the House of 
Representatives that there were employees of the State Department who 
disagreed with the direction and the way the government was handling 
the Benghazi situation and the word that was being put out by the State 
Department. They disagreed with it. They didn't like it. They testified 
last week they were made to feel threatened, and the message was sent 
to them very clearly from the highest levels of the State Department 
that they should not be talking or saying the things they were saying. 
That concerned a lot of people.
  Unfortunately, on Friday of last week, in what I think was an attempt 
to bury a story--and there was no way they were going to bury this 
one--they put it out on Friday, which is notoriously known as the 
slowest news day of the week because it goes into the weekend and 
people forget it and move on, but this one was not easy to forget. On 
Friday, we learned the Internal Revenue Service had specifically 
targeted organizations in this country because of their political 
leanings and affiliation.
  I understand this is not something new. People have been complaining 
about this for a couple of years; anecdotally, from organizations 
across the country, people coming to us and saying: We got this weird 
request from the IRS asking us for all sorts of things. We started to 
hear that everywhere. We still, I think to some level, have confidence 
and hope, have the best hopes of the Federal Government and the people 
who work within it. As we started to hear that more and more, people 
became concerned.
  So Members of this body wrote letters inquiring of the IRS: Is this 
going on? Are groups being targeted because they are a tea party member 
or because they are a 9/12 group? Of course, the answer they gave was: 
No, that is just not true; that is absolutely false.
  We know it wasn't false.
  Then the IRS said: But it was just this group of employees in 
Cincinnati. As it turns out, that is not true either. It was 
widespread. It was an effort throughout the IRS to specifically target 
groups because they were called tea party or liberty groups or groups 
organized to defend the scope of government, groups that are critical 
of decisions being made by the government. This is chilling. This was 
discovered last Friday and it has only gotten worse. Every day that 
goes on we get more and more information in that regard.
  Then the revelation on Monday that the Justice Department of the 
United States--think about that, the chief law enforcement agency of 
the country--had issued this blanket search of the phone records of I 
think the Nation's largest reporting group, the Associated Press. I 
understand if they were going after a leak that endangered America and 
security; that is one thing. We can have a debate about that. But they 
went much further than that. It was a blanket request of all of these 
phone calls, including the switchboard. Pretty outrageous.
  So in the span of 4 days, there were three major revelations about 
the use of government power to intimidate those who are doing things 
the government doesn't like.
  These are the tactics of the Third World. These are the tactics of 
places that don't have the freedoms and the independence we have in 
this country, and it is shocking to Americans that this would come to 
light in the way it has.
  I submit to my colleagues, however, that none of this is new; that 
what we see emerging is a pattern: a culture of intimidation, of 
hardball politics that we saw both on the campaign trail and now 
through the apparatus of government. I don't have enough time in 10 or 
15 minutes in morning business to cite them all, but I will cite a few 
that have already been discussed.
  Let me tell my colleagues about the case of a gentleman named Frank 
VanderSloot. He was a couple of things. Mr. VanderSloot was the 
national cochair of Mitt Romney's Presidential campaign. He was also a 
major donor to a super-PAC that was supportive of Governor Romney's 
campaign.
  In April of 2012, President Obama's reelection campaign posted on the 
Web a list of eight ``wealthy individuals'' with less than reputable 
records who were contributing to Mitt Romney. It was a series called 
``Behind the curtain: A brief history of Romney donors.'' It described 
Mr. VanderSloot as litigious, combative, and a bitter foe for the gay 
rights movement. Curiously enough, within a few weeks, Mr. VanderSloot 
was the subject of not just one but two IRS audits, one for his 
personal life and one for his business. Coincidence? Maybe we should 
find out through an investigation.
  Then we get word of something else. This is even more--well, 
equally--outrageous. That is the case of this organization called 
ProPublica, which was mentioned a moment ago in relation to another 
discussion. I wish to get the facts exactly right about this. 
Basically, as it turns out, the IRS--someone in the IRS--released nine 
pending confidential applications of conservative groups to the so-
called investigative reporting agency, this so-called not-for-profit, 
impartial--we can have that debate later, but I don't want to be guilty 
of doing to the donors of that group what the Obama campaign did to the 
donors of Mr. Romney. So let me just say in response, they sent out 
information that was confidential, that was not public, illegally. They 
leaked from the IRS information on nine of these groups that was then 
reported on by this organization, which admitted that it came from the 
IRS. Coincidence?
  It doesn't end there, by the way. This is not just limited to the 
IRS. This is a

[[Page 6891]]

culture of intimidation, a willingness to play hardball politics 
against political opponents.
  Let's not forget about the case of Boeing in South Carolina. Boeing 
decided to relocate, as any business has a right to do. In the United 
States of America, a business should have the right to locate its 
operations in any State it wants. When Boeing decided to relocate from 
Washington State to South Carolina, the NLRB came after them in a 
complaint which they claim was on the merits, but it was very 
straightforward. They were going after them because the union in 
Washington State was upset about the move. In fact, the case was 
dropped, partially because of political pressure but, interestingly 
enough, the effort was only abandoned after they negotiated a contract 
deal with the union.
  I can be up here all day, and I intend to keep coming back to the 
floor and citing examples. But the point is, we have going on now a 
culture of hard-ball politics and intimidation, which is unacceptable 
and should be chilling to every Member of this body, Republican and 
Democrat.
  This is unacceptable behavior. But this is what we get when an 
administration is all about politics. This administration is a 365-day-
a-year, year-round political campaign. Every issue is a political 
campaign. Leading up to the election, and even now, every issue is a 
wedge. Few times in the history of this country has anyone used this 
office to drive more wedges among the American people than this 
President and this administration. So, yes, this is the culture that 
has been created: They are bad and we are good. Our enemies are bad 
people. The people who disagree with us on policy are bad people. If 
you don't support us on gun, you don't care about children and 
families. If you don't support some measure against religious liberty, 
you are waging a war on women. On issue after issue--a deliberate 
attempt to divide the American people against each other for the 
purposes of winning an election.
  That is the culture that has been created, and that culture leads to 
this kind of behavior. Whether it was directed or not, we do not know 
that. I am not saying someone picked up the phone in the White House 
and said: Do these audits. Leak this information. I am saying when you 
create a culture where what is rewarded is political advantage, when 
you create a culture in your administration where everything is 
politics 24 hours, 7 days a week, when you create a culture where every 
issue that comes before the Congress is used to divide people against 
each other to see who can get the 51 percent of the next election, when 
you create a culture like that, it leads to this kind of behavior 
throughout your administration.
  In the days to come, we will hear more about this. We have a nominee 
right now to the Labor Department, who has an admirable personal story 
which I admire and applaud, but who has a history of using the 
government and his position in government to intimidate people to do 
what he wants them to do. I would submit to you that Mr. Perez's 
nomination is bad for the country in any time, but in this 
administration, in this political culture, after what we have learned 
in the last few days, even more so. I hate to single him out, but that 
is one of the pending nominations that is before us. The point is, my 
friends, this is what we are dealing with and a cautionary tale about 
expanding the scope and power of government. Because this same IRS that 
was willing to do this--this same IRS that was willing to target groups 
because of their political leanings, this same IRS that audited Mr. 
VanderSloot after he happened to appear on the Obama enemy list--this 
same IRS will now have unfettered power to come after every American 
and ensure that either you are buying insurance or you are paying them 
a tax--every American business.
  The front lines of enforcing ObamaCare fall to the IRS. That is what 
happens when you expand the scope and power of government. It is always 
sold as a noble concept. It is always offered as we are going to give 
government more power so they can do good things for us. But the 
history of mankind proves that every time government gets too much 
power, it almost always ends up using it in destructive ways against 
the personal liberties of individuals.
  That is why the Framers of our Constitution were so wise to impose 
real constitutional limits on the power of our government, because they 
knew from history that this was the case. That is why our Constitution 
says that unless government at the Federal level is specifically given 
a power, it does not have it. That is why it says that. That is why you 
see people stand up here on the floor and fight to protect the 
Constitution. That is why these groups were formed around the country--
everyday Americans from all walks of life; people, some of whom had 
never been involved in politics before, who joined the tea party 
movement or a 9/12 movement--because they feared the direction our 
country was going, and so they stood up and said: This is wrong.
  This is why this adherence to the Constitution. Because the 
Constitution was based on the simple truth that if government has too 
much power, it almost always ends up destructive.
  Our Framers knew better than to rely on ``good people'' being in 
government to take care of us. They understood that government's power, 
in order for us to have freedom and prosperity, necessarily had to be 
limited--not because we are antigovernment. Of course we need a 
government. Who provides for our national defense? Who is supposed to 
secure our borders? We are having this immigration debate. These are 
important things our government needs to do. But if you give it too 
much power, it leads to these abuses.
  This is why the Constitution was so wise to limit the power of the 
Federal Government to its enumerated powers and leave to the government 
closest to the people most of the powers.
  I think we should re-examine all these decisions that have been made 
that have expanded the scope and power of our government.
  I do not know how many people are aware of this, but early next year 
every single one of you is going to have to buy insurance, health 
insurance that the government says is good enough--maybe not the 
insurance you are getting today that you are happy with--and if you do 
not buy that insurance, you are going to owe the IRS some money. That 
is a tax to me. The same IRS that has shown a propensity to target 
people based on their political leanings--this is who we have empowered 
through ObamaCare.
  This is what is going on here. It is not just one scandal at the IRS. 
It is about a culture of hardball politics. I think in the days to come 
we are going to learn a lot more about it, and we are not going to like 
what we learn.
  For example, you think about some of our most precious freedoms--the 
First Amendment right to free speech. Think about if you are a reporter 
at the Associated Press. Think about if you are a source--unrelated to 
national security--to the Associated Press. Think about if you are a 
whistleblower, someone who is blowing the whistle on government 
activity because you work in the government and you think what the 
government is doing is wrong. Think about that for a second.
  Now, all of a sudden, what are you afraid of? I am not calling that 
reporter back because their phone might be tapped, my number might show 
up on their records, because the Justice Department has just shown they 
are willing to do that. Think about the chilling effect that sends up 
and down the government.
  If there is wrongdoing somewhere in the government right now, people 
are probably afraid to blow the whistle because they are afraid they 
are being surveilled by the Justice Department or that the person they 
are talking to is being surveilled. That is how outrageous this is.
  Think about people who are thinking about getting involved in the 
political process, contributing to a group or speaking out, donating to 
a campaign or a candidate, as they are allowed to do under the 
Constitution. They do not want to be the next VanderSloot. They

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do not want to be the next guy being targeted. They do not want to be 
the next person being smeared on a Web site.
  This is unacceptable. This is outrage. And every single Member of 
this body should be outraged by this behavior. This culture of 
intimidation, these hardball politics tactics we cannot stand for. I 
hope we will be united in condemning this and ensuring we get to the 
bottom of this with significant investigations and hearings from the 
committees in the Senate that have jurisdiction on the matter.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Heinrich). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. BOXER. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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