Nomination of Xavier Becerra

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, it appears that President Biden arrived at the White House prepared and willing to grant himself and his administration a mandate that American voters didn't agree to give him.

His party lost ground in the House, split the Senate, and maintained their trailing minority of governorships, but they seem to ignore that. In his first 50 days, he signed 34 Executive orders--more than anyone in history. He dismantled existing immigration controls, threatened protections for small businesses against the radical climate agenda, and destroyed thousands of jobs and the potential for greater energy security promised by the Keystone XL Pipeline project.

Meanwhile, my Democratic colleagues got busy laying the groundwork to transform not only the Senate into a majoritarian institution but also to radically transform the country. They used budget reconciliation to ram through a $1.9 trillion bailout bill without a single Republican vote--the largest spending bill in our Nation's history--and now they are reversing their own positions on the filibuster to avoid debate on radical immigration reform, the Equality Act, and an already infamous bill that would federalize elections. They just don't want to talk about these things--just do it.

The more people learn about what the Biden White House is up to the more questions they have for those of us who represent them.

Some of my Democratic friends in Tennessee say to me: I may have voted for Joe Biden, but I did not vote for this.

They do not want to radically change the country. They do not want to be tied to legislation that has a nice-sounding name but that does the exact opposite of what the Biden administration would have you believe that it would accomplish.

They have noticed that the President's Cabinet picks have come to their confirmation hearings ready and willing to move the goalposts away from the Constitution and the rule of law in order to accommodate their radical agenda.

Last week, this body voted to discharge from committee Xavier Becerra's nomination to the Health and Human Services Secretary position. I voted no, and I will vote no on his confirmation as well, not only because he is unqualified and has no experience in healthcare--Middle Tennessee has more than 100,000 individuals who are employed in the healthcare industry, and all, all are more qualified in healthcare than Xavier Becerra--and not only because his radical views shock just about everyone who speaks to me about him. Oh, yes, it was a topic of conversation at church on Sunday but also because, time and again, he has abused his power and weaponized the full force of the government against people whose deeply held, personal, political, and religious views don't align with his own: submit, conform, or else.

It is in the nature of our job as legislators to recognize that, yes, elections do have consequences and that, yes, the President has a right to assemble his own Cabinet, but we cannot be expected to green-light a nominee who has so little patience for diversity--diversity of thought, diversity of opinions--that his first and only instinct is to destroy the diversity: Barrel in. Burn it to the ground. Build it back in their own image. That is not what the American people want President Biden and his administration to do, but that is what they are getting with this nominee.

I strongly oppose Xavier Becerra's nomination, as I have from the start, and I would urge my colleagues to consider what you will be approving if you vote in favor of this confirmation: radically anti- life, radically anti-religion, radically anti-border security, radically anti-free speech, radically unqualified to lead.

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